Colorful (2010) - Reviews

Due to the lack of synopsis on this particular anime, I will include a short synopsis for the viewers out there that are interested.

Synopsis:

A soul has been granted the opportunity to return to the world of the living and finds himself inhabiting the body of the middle school student Makoto Kobayashi who has commited suicide. In order to continue in the cycle of reincarnation, he must learn why Makoto has commited suicide and find out what his greatest sin was in his past life.

Story - 9/10

In this slice-of-life drama, we follow the soul as he tries to live Makoto's life from a day-to-day perspective. As he deals with issues with family, school, and relationships, Makoto's old life slowly unfolds revealing the true colors of the people around him and the reasons for his suicide.

Animation - 10/10

The characters are portrayed realistically (for an anime) in contrast to the incredibly detailed background and scenery. These elements work very well together in this movie providing strong visuals with a realistic feel.

The animation revolves around the carfully planned use of strong colors. As the title suggests, this movie is indeed colorful (to say the least). During the darker moments in the movie, we see heavy amounts of dark colors with some neutral colors to give us a more depressing feel while in the lighter and happier scenes we get a plethora of bright and vibrant colors.

Sound - 9/10

The character voices are done pretty well, though I had trouble separating Makoto's inner voice from his outter voice at times.

Though there isn't a heavy emphasis on music in this movie compared to other animated movies, however, they are present at key parts during the movie providing a more energetic feeling or a more depressing feeling depending on the setting and atmosphere.

Characters - 8/10

There wasn't particulary any character that I loved or hated. The character development was a bit lacking for my tastes, but at least there was some character development for all the characters involved.

Each character is portrayed realistically (as I said before), so don't be surprised if a certain character reminds you of someone you may know.

Overall - 9/10

Overall, I give Colorful a 9 out of 10. Colorful provides a strong visual experience and delivers a powerful and emotional story with a great heart-warming message.

Alot of neat ideas strung together compentently. I felt this story lacked a spark of energy that the concept needs to thrive, and what we are left with is a nice looking piece of animation, and solid story that lacks character and definition. You certainly won't hate watching the movie, it's enjoyable enough and offers alot to think about that the movie lacks the depth in exploring, leaving you to do most of the work. 

It ends rather uninspiringly, complete but weak, which is a real shame, everything is done right, from when the music rises, to the way the characters look, its all done good, but don't expect to get anything new from this if you've watched other similar shows and movies dealing with depression, suicide, bullying, and the middle school experience. nothing is done tastlessly or offensivly, so it's an easy watch, as it also doesn't push the characters to make hard choices and face his conciquences. 

"People don't just have one shade, we have all sorts of different colors" -Kobayashi

This review includes spoiler(s):

It was a modern touch of reality, rather the story consist of a realistic perception, the brother who was said to  be self- centered, who at first glance only enjoys teasing his younger sibling who apparently  cares for his sibling the most, a high school kid who would do anything just to satisfy her cravings, either materials or something else, a classmate who secretly admires your bravery, and a friend who sees everyone equally. A mother who made a mistake and tried to atone for it. A father who seems oblivious yet knows everything. A kid who's fed up with his life and tried making a run for it, desperately trying to hide and chasing oblivion, a suicidal kid, isn't that a modern touch of reality? 

It somehow lightened my spirit, the message was received, it was simply annoying, tear- jerking, joyous and tons of lessons in life, you need to forgive in order to live a happy life isn't it? 🌺

So this actually confused me as I had watched an anime of this name before and was rather off put by it. For those that didn’t read my review of Colorful (The anime), let me give you a word that described it… Perverted. The whole anime was about guys trying to see women’s bodies and just being complete creeps about it. The artwork was not that great and just made the characters look even creepier with the jagged lines and sort of spots of color. As with that, I thought that the movie was going to be the exact same way. Boy was I wrong; in fact this show was absolutely nothing like that anime and is only connected to it by name alone.

Let me set the stage just as the movie started us out with. We start out in the first person perspective of a person walking though a rather hazy looking transit room. It’s gloomy and almost has this strange grunge about the people and walls but there really isn’t anything that stands out. There is nothing to show where we are, who we are, or even why we are in a place like that. There is a strange gray boy standing in front of us and he tells us that we had won a chance to atone for our past discretions. It turns out we are in the land of the dead and if we do not atone for the things we did in our past, we will not be able to be reborn again into the land of the living. We are then forced by this little boy to possess a young boy named Makoto Kobayashi, a young boy who had committed suicide by overdosing on some pills. And here is where we are given a chance to fix things. Once our main character takes over Makoto’s life, we are finally given a third person perspective on all the things he does.

Now, given the way this story started out, you would think they would head more into the supernatural mystery side of the genre, wouldn’t you? Well, strangely enough, you would be wrong in that aspect. What we get is more of a modern day slice of life of a middle school boy who is just trying to get by. The only supernatural thing around him would be the strange ‘angel’ or the gray little boy who goes by the name of Purapura. Purapura tended to be more of an informational character to help us learn more about Makoto’s back story and sometimes ended up being sort of a conscience for the Makoto we follow. The most interesting part about all this is that our main character that was given no name before he was put into Makoto’s body actually seems like he is right at home after a while.

The amazing thing about this show is that it seems to dive into the psychology of a young boy having to go through a lot of tough times. We are given information from Purapura about the problems that Makoto had to go through. Things I would be very surprised a child could deal with on their own. He was bulled, had his crush seen going into a shady hotel with an older man, saw his mother having an affair, had a father who rarely was at home, an older brother who barely spoke to him, and just overall was alone with no friends. Looking at the psychological aspect of his life, it was no wonder he chose a way out. And in this, I guess it might be time to bring out a rather sad story of my own.

You see, I was a lot like this main character growing up. I had problems keeping friends, fought with my mother many times, had a younger brother who seemed to always belittle me as I am very bad when it comes to computers, and my father was always busy with work so I sometimes would rarely see him. I wasn’t exceptionally good at school although I wasn’t the worst one in the class and was always so sensitive about stuff that probably shouldn’t have bothered me. I started to cut myself to feel something different then the pain I felt inside, and even almost killed myself as well. I just felt alone for so long and couldn’t understand why. About a year ago, I was diagnosed with BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder, which helped to explain some of the reasons why I felt so out of touch with the world, but this was when I was 25 years old. For those 25 years before, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I think that because of my experience, I feel a bit more connected to the main character, or at least Makoto himself. In fact, there is a line in this show that might be considered a little bit of a spoiler, but its one that jumped out at me that became very dear to my heart. Our main character says this, ‘…People are not just monochromatic; they all have so many colors to them. It’s fine to have many beautiful colors… for a long time, I didn’t know my true colors and was at a loss.’ For someone with BPD, this stands out a lot as my different personalities feel like those different colors and it was hard for me to believe that it was normal to have them.

The artwork is really simple and mostly on the subtle side. We don’t get splashes of bright colors or the normal anime tropes of huge eyes, girls in small skirts, and even strange colored hair. In that way, I consider it more real life then most anime even if the design of the characters is bland. None of the characters really stand out though and sometimes get lost within the background including our main character. This would probably be a bad thing if the story didn’t seem to make more sense as to why he was lost within the world he seemed to be in himself. Even with this, there is a fine line between the world of the dead and the living as the world of the dead looked even more run down and depressing then the world of the living. The world of the dead looked hazy, with sort of this murky brown while the world of the living did have some sharper looking lines and was a bit cleaner to see.

The dubbed voices are… alright I guess. Again, they don’t stand out just as the characters don’t really stand out that much. I think that the lip sink is fairly good at some parts of the show while in other parts they seemed to lose it. I blame the fact that when the character is overly distort, their mouth tends to move much more freely and seem to express their words fuller. The words they are saying in the movie are actually from the Japanese sound track I believe so it can tend to lose it when it was transferred over to the dub. Still, with all those problems, the dubbed voice actors did a really good job putting Emotion into their characters. I was extremely surprised when I found out that Greg Ayres did the voice of Makoto because he was able to get the right soft of tone for a boy who had not hit puberty yet was not annoying when he got so emotional.

So this show might be a bit boring for those who love fast passed stuff or those that are really into the supernatural aspect, but I still think this is a show that many people should watch at least once. The show has a really beautiful story to it and a very deep meaning that really needs to be explored. In this way, you might actually be able to see why everyone is so colorful and except who you are.

First some items I need to adress. I'm Dutch to expect some spelling errors, if they are to annoying just message me and I'll fix it.

My opinion may vary from others and this is fine. People are different so there is a good chance that I will not like what you love. Deal with it. I'm not telling you that you should hate it too, I'm telling you why I didn't like it.

I'll try to keep swearing to a minimum but fail utterly on occasion. In general it is the more the anime pisses me off the more I swear so watch out for the low scored ones.

Art: Art is fine. As usual the budget is higher for movies compared to series and it shows.

Sound: No real complaints actually, it's pretty ok. Voice actors are good and I don't remember any music either. This is how I generally prefer my anime.

Characters: The main character is Makoto. Little known about him except that he died and got a second chance at life.

Purapura looks like a young boy but is anything but. He is a spirit tasket with guiding Makoto.

Story. The story starts with a spirit on his way to the next life when he is stopped by a young boy named Purapura. He is told that he won a second chance at life and will be send back. Initially refusing he is told that refusing is not an option and that he will go back. He wakes up in the body of Makoto, a young boy who committed suicide by overdose. While his family is overjoyed he simply tries to live his life. Unfortunately there is a catch to his coming back to life. He must find what crime he committed in his previous life or risk his soul for eternity.

Rant. I kind of liked this. It takes his time setting up the characters and, like Makoto, you learn about the boy whose body he is in and his family. Some of his classmates also play a big role so they also get some development. I loved it as it happens far to less these days.

It does make it a bit slow though. Especially a bit quite a ways in where he spends time with a classmate who walks the route of a decommissioned train line. While great character development and historic development it is boring as all Hell. It is also neccessary as it is crucial character development between the 2 characters.

If you like slow paced, character driven anime then this is for you.