Director – Naoko Yamada – 2024 – Japan – Cert. PG – 101m
*****
A Catholic schoolgirl with synaesthesia inadvertently forms a rock band who find themselves playing a gig at her school – out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 31st
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
That’s the Serenity Prayer, and it opens this remarkable story of a schoolgirl in a boarding school as she prays it to a statue of Mary in the school chapel. A scene of her as a small girl attending the dance class, and scenes of her seeing other pupils in the corridor, are rendered in vivid, blinding colour where bright white light constantly threatens to engulf the pastel shades in which the girl sees. For more on synaesthesia, see A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things (Mark Cousins, 2024).
If you were to land in the middle of this film with no context, for a frame, or a scene (drawn animation parlance for a single shot), you could be forgiven for thinking there was something wrong with the print, or the colour balance. I am immediately reminded of the reviewer who said of Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947) that the film was so visually perfect that it could be shown out of focus and upside down and the audience would still be enraptured by its kinetic abstract colour properties. The Colors Within exhibits the same phenomenon.
![](http://jeremycprocessing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Colors-Within-The-1-800-x-432.jpg)
The shy Totsuko, nickname: “Tonko” (voice: Sayu Suzukawa), notices a girl who appears to her as dark blue. In a dodgeball lesson in the school gym, Totsuko is so fascinated by the colours of the ball when the other throws it at her, that it hits her in the face and knocks her off her feet. The other girl later walks home to the Sakanuga residence, where her grandma lives, to quietly play her electric guitar to the clicking rhythm of a Newton’s Cradle. After Totsuko has no longer seen Kimi in school for a few days, it emerges that the latter has left following a row with one of the nuns who run the school.
Overhearing that Kimi (voice: Akari Takaishi) has been seen working at the till in a bookshop, Totsuko sets about visiting all the bookshops within a certain distance to track her down. She has no luck, and is praying the Serenity Prayer in the chapel when she is surprised by Sister Hiyoko (voice: Yui Aragaki), who points out that the prayer tells us we can change things. The girl tells the nun the latter’s colours are beautiful, then immediately regrets that statement and retracts, fleeing the chapel.
![](http://jeremycprocessing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Colors-Within-The-2-800-x-432.jpg)
Later, Totsuko follows a white cat through some backstreets which lead her to the bookstore where Kimi is working, Kimi playing her guitar at the back of the store at the time. Having found Kimi, the acutely embarrassed Totsuko tries to cover up by buying a music manuscript, saying that she plays keyboards. A boy holding an LP record asks if the pair are in a band, and Totsuko jumps the gun by asking if he’s like to join them.
This leads to a rehearsal in an abandoned church across the bay, of which he has the use, provided he looks after and cleans the place. He plays theremin while Kimi plays along to his quiet chord sequences on guitar and practice amp. After, as they sit on a lakeside wall eating tubs of ice cream, Totsuko christens the band Super Ice Cream. The boy’s name is Rui (voice: Taisei Kido).
![](http://jeremycprocessing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Colors-Within-The-0703-800-x-432.jpg)
Kimi, at home, has yet to tell her grandma she’s dropped out of school. Totsuko dances around the school corridors making up a song about the planets punctuated by the word Amen, later getting the band to try it. Rui visits his mum at the old folks’ health centre, where she reminds him he needs to study for exams because everyone is counting on him to take over the place. And Kimi learns that her brother, rather than coming home, is going to visit his girlfriend’s parents.
![](http://jeremycprocessing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Colors-Within-The-4-800-x-432.jpg)
When Totsuko admits to Sister Hiyoko she is writing a happy song and wants to stay in the school dorm over the Summer break, the latter tells her that a song about creation, beauty and truth, could be considered a prayer. She fakes illness during a school trip so she can sneak Kimi into the building. They are spotted, and Totsuko is made to do a month’s community service. Nevertheless, Sister Hiyoko manages to get the band a gig at the school’s upcoming St. Valentine’s Fest.
That gig is, more or less, the end set piece of the film in which the band, now renamed the White Cat Hall Band after the store in which Kimi worked, play their three songs in their entirety; a surprisingly engrossing sequence.
![](http://jeremycprocessing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/The_Colors_Within_UK_Poster-800-x-1-185-1-691x1024.jpg)
Totsuko’s Christian faith is deep enough for her to ask difficult questions as, like all of us, she struggles to make sense of this strange thing called life which can sometimes be joyous, sometimes make you feel guilty, and sometimes surprise in unexpected ways. Both Kimni and Rui are wrestling personal demons, issues about which they ultimately need to come clean with to their parents. As with Yamada’s earlier, equally impressive animated drama A Silent Voice (2016), about deafness and bullying, issues of being different from the crowd are sensitively handled.
In short, this is a quiet, gentle, unexpected gem which, if you’ve never seen anything quite like it before, may redefine your view as to what can be achieved with animation. Highly recommended.
The Colors Withinis out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, January 31st. Both that version and the English language dub are, however, being shown in UK cinemas, so make sure you know which your local cinema(s) is (are) showing to avoid disappointment.
[Read my shorter review for Reform magazine.]
Both reviews were from seeing the Japanese subtitled version of the film, which I recommend.
Trailer (Japanese with subtitles):
Trailer (English dubbed):