“Colorful,” an animation directed by Keiichi Hara, is a masterpiece. It presents heavy topics partnered with a happy ending. 

A young boy, Makoto Kobayashi, has committed suicide while, in the spirit realm, another young boy is being given a chance at reformation. To achieve this, he must figure out what horrible thing he did in his past life and why Kobayashi has committed suicide. 

Hara is a purple medal honoree. This award is based on academic and art improvement, development, and accomplishment. Hara released the animation in 2010 after the manga “Colorful” written by Eto Mori.  Mori has been described as “one of the most celebrated female writers of fiction in Japan today.”

The manga that this film is based on has received the Sankei Children’s Book Award, a major and the oldest children’s literary award in Japan. This award recognizes the most distinguished Japanese children’s literature and picture books for children. 

The English dub voice actors of Colorful are well known among the anime community. It includes Greg Ayres, who appears in many mainstream animes today like My Hero Academia (Koji Koda),Emily Neves, who played many main characters in older and newer anime such as Future Diary (Minene Uryuu), also makes an appearance, and Brittney Karbowski, who plays many main characters today such as Hitoka Yachi from Haikyu!!. 

Anime production studio, Sunrise, produced this anime as well as Cowboy Bebop, Inuyasha, Code Geass, Love Live! School Idol Project, and the Gintama movie. These are popular and well enjoyed in the anime community, giving this movie quite a reputation to live up to.

The art style used in this movie is unique. The characters look a lot more realistic and do not succumb to an artist’s biggest pet peeve, same face syndrome. You can tell who is related based on details in the face shapes and other physical features. Everyone carries themselves and speaks differently. Some speak more flat while others have a wider range of emotion. Barely any of the characters are really able to fit into a certain cliche or school clique which makes for a diverse range of personalities. 

The topic of suicide is a sensitive subject but this movie approaches it with grace and mindfullnes.  All scenarios in the film can happen in real life.

I highly recommend this movie and believe it can help start a conversation about mental health.