Colorful (2010) - Reviews

"Colorful (2010)" - A Thought-Provoking Journey of Redemption

Story (8/10): "Colorful (2010)" takes viewers on an emotionally charged journey of redemption and self-discovery. The story follows a disembodied soul who is given a second chance at life in the body of a 14-year-old boy who has just committed suicide. As the protagonist attempts to unravel the reasons behind the boy's tragic decision, the narrative delves into themes of guilt, remorse, and the search for meaning in life. The storytelling is poignant and thought-provoking, exploring heavy subject matter with sensitivity.

Animation (7/10): The animation in "Colorful" is characterized by a unique visual style that combines realistic backgrounds with somewhat caricatured character designs. While this juxtaposition might initially seem jarring, it effectively conveys the contrast between the mundane world and the protagonist's surreal, soul-searching experiences. The film's use of color is especially noteworthy, as it plays a central role in the storytelling, with vibrant hues symbolizing the emotions and struggles of the characters.

Sound (7/10): The soundtrack of "Colorful" complements the film's introspective tone. It features melancholic piano melodies and atmospheric music that enhance the emotional weight of the story. The voice acting performances, particularly those of the protagonist and his guide, are well-executed and convey the characters' inner turmoil effectively.

Characters (8/10): The characters in "Colorful" are intricately woven into the fabric of the story, each harboring their own secrets and regrets. The protagonist's journey to understand the life he's been granted and the people he encounters along the way allow for meaningful character development. His guide, Purapura, adds an element of mystery and wisdom to the narrative, serving as a catalyst for self-reflection and growth.

Overall (7/10): "Colorful (2010)" is a poignant exploration of life, death, and redemption. Its thought-provoking story, unique animation style, and well-developed characters make it a standout in the realm of anime films that tackle heavy themes. While it may not be suitable for all audiences due to its mature themes, those looking for a contemplative and emotionally resonant experience will find it rewarding.

As for a manga comparison, "Colorful" was originally a novel by Eto Mori, which was adapted into an anime film. There is no manga adaptation of the story. Therefore, the film is the primary medium through which this narrative is presented, and it stands alone as a powerful work of storytelling in its own right.

Please Note: This review contains spoilers.

If you were given a second chance of life, how would you use it? Would you try to fix all the problems that surround your current life? This was the main idea behind the movie: Colorful. In Colorful, the protagonist (Makoto) wakes up in a hospital bed after committing a grave sin: suicide. Yet he has a second chance to fix the errors in his life: the family disparities, his mom’s infidelity, school bullying, and a fruitless one-sided crush. This movie illustrates the painful harshness of reality. The protagonist: Makoto is the spitting image of a loner. He struggles to make friends. He finds it difficult to cope with his family. His older brother ignores and neglects him. He is ostracized from his classmates. He is also a bully victim. But when he is reborn, he has to relearn all the details about his family members and classmates. Luckily, he makes up for one of his shortcomings: his lack of friends. Makoto starts befriending others. He even tries to change his image by cutting his hair.

I gave this movie a 4/10 rating because I felt the movie really needs improvement, and had inconsistencies. This movie had the potential to be emotional if the protagonist used his second chance of life to fix his problems. It lacked character development because Makoto goes through personality twists throughout the movie. He lacked a consistent personality. If I was in Makoto’s shoes, I would have tried to work on my shortcomings and tried to fix the bullying situation at school. I would also try to resolve his family’s disparities. The character designs were also awfully simple, and minimalistic. So it lacked details.

The hospital scene was also really relatable since I was in the hospital multiple times when my relatives were ill. The movie did bring up those painful memories for me especially when I saw my relatives working hard to recuperate their health. But it also reminded me that life is fleeting so it’s good to cherish loved ones when they’re still alive.

Life is a colorful canvas painted with various colors of happiness and despair. Some moments are tormenting while other events are joyful. So this movie really teaches the audience to paint their lives with a wide array of colors, and try to make an effort to change their lives to be more enjoyable. People are not always black and white. They’re shades of grey.

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.

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.

Complete mumbo jumbo dysfunctional feel-good (at least it tries to be) nonsense, with a garbage message that thinks itself wise but on closer inspection actually solves nothing plus entrenches one's egoic dysfunctions further.

::::::::CONTAINS SPOILERS:::::::::::

I'd say 90% of the movie is simply cringe-worthy with a loser-type main character interacting with other equally awkward characters in attempts to blame the world and justify their situations. The main character behaves judgementally and egotistically with no reprecussions. Unskillful behaviors 24/7. His family supplies him with food and care, and he behaves like a spoilt brat. His mother had an affair, and all he does is judge her without even attempting to talk about it to try and see the deeper cause of the act (the mother in this case also behaved unskillfully by not talking about it.) Obsessive attachments to his 'first friend' for no other reason than being his first, going as far as to ruin his amazing opportunity to pursue an art education in the highschool his family suggested to him, of which it's almost guarenteed that he would make many more friends as they would share the same interest.

Let's break it down further. Main message of the film is this: life is colorful, full of the bad and the good (concepts), and people do beautiful and ugly things (judgements), and it's good to be alive (uh huh). Okay....?? In other words, it's telling viewers it's okay to do bad things and behave unskillfully because that's life and life is full of these different things. It's a warped version of acceptance that is more of an "Oh well!" than what it could've been, which was: "I accept this moment, and will proceed from this point of acceptance to act more skillfully and without attachment."

It is not an exaggeration to say that every character in the movie behaves unskillfully and is living dysfunctionally. It is therefore an absolute impossibility to teach viewers positively or have a beneficial message when the characters themselves haven't gotten themselves sorted out to begin with.

When the ending part came and Purapura announced the main character's "success", one could only say "what?" and facepalm at this confused mess of a story.