Director: Naoko Yamada
Writer: Reiko Yoshida
Stars: Akari Takaishi, Sayu Suzukawa, Taisei Kido
Synopsis: A girl who can see colors in people’s hearts joins a band with two other people
After the sensational A Silent Voice and Liz and the Blue Bird, director Naoko Yamada continues her streak of magical realistic stories with The Colors Within. The Science Saru anime film primarily acts as a coming-of-age tale for our protagonist, Totsuko Higurashi (Sayu Suzukawa), who can see people’s internal colors, more aptly described as “auras.” These wondrously designed sequences look sensational on an IMAX screen and envelop the audience in its stark visual poetry that never strays far away from a lived-in facet of the “real world” with a slightly dream-like quality to its animation. For a while, Yamada’s approach works in favor of the story, which grabs us from the minute we perceive Totsuko’s internal perspective as a guiding force to her journey.
This point-of-view experiences profound shock when she sees the color of a particular classmate, Kimi Sakunaga (voiced by Akari Takaishi of Baby Assassins), who, one day, inexplicably drops out of school. Tracking her down, Totsuko meets Kimi, and the two start discussing their love of music with collector Rui Kagehira (Taisei Kido). It doesn’t take long for them to form a band with the three after Totsuko lies about being an ace piano/synthesizer player, only so she can hang out with Kimi, whose aura deeply fascinates her. The two, however, accept Totsuko’s proposition, with Kimi on the guitar and Rui on the theremin (a niche instrument giving the band its distinctive sound).
It’s also at this point where Yamada’s approach begins to meander in a series of repetitive platitudes, from surface-level conversations to a style no longer in service of the story once it’s set in motion. The sense of intimacy that guided both A Silent Voice and Liz and the Blue Bird is still present in some scenes, but not in the way Yamada depicted it through her previous animated efforts. For most of The Colors Within’s 100-minute runtime, we always feel at arm’s length fromthe protagonists and never fully click with their respective journeys of self-discovery, either through music or in the conversations they have individually or together.
It gets even stranger when Yamada constantly attempts to bring the audience closer to the interpersonal relationships occurring within the movie, but never sits with the characters long enough for us to be open to either Totsuko’s discoveries or Kimi realizing her truest potential. On the other hand, Rui is a complete shell of a character who only exists in the background as the theremin guy. This disconnection occurs partly due to Yamada’s insistence on presenting the narrative as fragmented vignettes that are long enough for us to grasp who these people are at a superficial level but never beyond it. The result is a discombobulated effort that sadly leaves us feeling empty rather than fulfilled.
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Of course, it doesn’t help that Yamada’s sense of pacing in her previous films is absent here. What was once meticulous and deliberate (particularly in A Silent Voice), now feels lethargic and uneventful, most notably due to our profound disconnection from what occurs on screen. It’s hard to feel invested in the whole picture when we’re never allowed to feel anything regarding the characters, and the story structure prevents us from forming an active connection with them from beginning to end.
As with most anime titles, perceiving the story in “three acts” will set you up for failure. The four-part Kishōtenketsu narrative structure is fully displayed in The Colors Within: a story without any primary conflict (or a well-defined beginning, middle, and end) and instead focuses on the characters who populate the colorful world Yamada showcases on screen. Yet, even when understanding how Japanese cinema structures its movies differently from the (dated) Western model of “three acts,’ it remains difficult to be attached to anyone in the film because Yamada never gives us a compelling reason to beyond the opening scene that introduces the “colors within” framing device that sadly gets lost in the flux of its fragmented approach.
The bulk of the story is told through its eye-popping visuals, which is undoubtedly the movie’s real star (despite rock-solid work from its leads). In cinema, images are far more critical than dialogue: they inform us more than any line of dialogue ever would feed how we examine the characters, complement the score, and, if we’re lucky, give a sense of musicality to how the film is shaped in the editing room. But if everything around the images doesn’t work, feeling rewarded while watching the movie remains difficult.
When The Colors Within ultimately ends with a concert performance, Yamada finally switches gears and gives us a sequence to remember. But it arrives far too late in a movie that, despite its visual prowess, never allows us to connect with what should be a deeply personal and moving story. There are fleeting glimpses of emotion, but the overall result still rings dull and hollow when the credits roll to an admittedly decent song.
