I returned from the Cineplex having just watched The Colors Within, which I eagerly anticipated being an enormous fan of both the animation studio Science SARU and its respective director Yamada Naoko.

I consider Naoko to be one of the most distinctly unique and important auteur directors working in anime presently, with such assured masterworks like A Silent Voice and Liz and the Blue Bird, often focusing on contemporary youth life in Japan with understated acuity and a subtly integrated use of filmic grammar (with variable use of focal lengths, handheld camera style compositions, rich color temperatures, etc.). Her exceptionally young age in the industry perhaps explains why she consistently delivers very relatable and evenly handled depictions of what high school students often experience in present day Japanese society. But the major pinnacle of Yamada’s oeuvre personally is The Heike Story, the miniseries she did with Science SARU, which demonstrated enormous growth, maturity and diversity of her style, subject matter and grasp of the anime medium’s possibilities. The series was a means of catharsis for Yamada Naoko, as it was the first major project she undertook after the tragic arson attack of her former studio Kyoto Animation in 2019. Emotionally, psychologically and thematically, the themes of loss and impermanence in the historical Heike saga were so eloquently and truthfully conveyed in the miniseries.

The Colors Within is Yamada Naoko’s first major film since Liz and the Blue Bird as a sole directorial credit and her first work since the The Heike Story miniseries from three years prior. It is a graceful progression, returning to the backdrop of high school bands as in Liz and the Blue Bird but with the stylistic maturity of The Heike Story coming through.

The premise centers on the introverted, awkward yet artistically precocious ballet dancer Totsuko who is a student at a private Catholic school for girls. It’s hinted that she might be neurodiverse which I love as a character trait, because it compliments the theme of living with disabilities that was perfected with the hearing impairment Shoko had in A Silent Voice. Her sense of perceiving the world around her in colors with a heightened sense of imagination filtering what she experiences in the real world is an intriguing parallel to Biwa’s ability to see into the future and know the exact fates of individuals around her in The Heike Story. Biwa was also named after the traditional lute instrument and was meant as a character to be a broad representation of the bards that helped keep the Heike legend alive, again showing Naoko’s fascination with music thematically.

Even the quotation of Reinhold Niebuhr’s serenity prayer by Totsuko and the compassionate and supportive teacher Sister Hiyoko is even used to a similar effect to how the famous opening paragraph of the original Heike Monogatari legend was used in The Heike Story adaptation. Both have the transitory connotations of accepting what never lasts forever and coming to terms with change. In The Colors Within, the effect is gentler but nevertheless just as moving dealing with the primary framework of the plot around impromptu rehearsal sessions for a band in a renovated church leading up to a St. Valentines concert in the school’s hall, juxtaposed with the close friendship between Totsuko and Kimi, a recent dropout student from the same school whose board becomes aware of their late night sleepovers. Mandated community service and letters of apologies for a month almost prevent the rock band's breakthrough show.

Further complicating this friendship are Totsuko and Kimi keeping their fair share of secrets from their parents and teachers, Kimi with her grandmother about her recent defiance against a teacher over boyfriend rumors leading to the dropout, Totsuko addressing lying to her mother about pretending to be sick before a field trip just to invite Kimi late at night in her school bedroom and even fellow bandmate Rui admitting his secret musical developments to his parents expecting him to continue their family’s multigenerational doctor clinic, etc. All these subplots are entwined with the uncertainties high school students often face leading up to graduation, wondering where they will go next in life. Particularly this is true of Kimi who admits to not knowing what she wants to do in the future, and Rui needing to care for his family’s professional legacy in the small town regardless of his immense talent and interest in creating music.

This may seem like a fairly soft, low-stakes plot but screenwriter Yoshida Reiko gives the quiet timbre of the drama around the friendship just the perfect amount of dimensionality established in the characters as well as in the environment to be investing. The Colors Within is quite a unique film within the feature length anime canon for its setting primarily being a Christian private school for girls in Nagasaki prefecture.

Christianity, although a marginal presence as a religion only representing one percent of the population as an adopted belief system in the last few years nationally has been observed in Japan for centuries, beginning with the diplomatic and trade based relations Japan had with Portugal in the 16th century. Although jeopardized by the rhetoric of numerous regimes like the Shogunate before the Meiji era of the mid-19th century and nativist/nationalist politicians in the early 20th century leading up to the Second World War, Christianity usually had to be observed and practiced in total secrecy away from any public awareness.

Even Christmas is widely celebrated in an almost entirely secular context in Japan, perfectly underscored near the last third of the film when Kimi and Totsuko admire snowglobes with ornamented tress in the background and play hymns on Christmas Day. So I found the rather gentle, innocent and platonic dynamic of secrecy between the main protagonists as female Christian private high school students and admitting the most benign of lies or confessions to their guardians in a Japanese context somehow quite endearing. Christianity here is more present in the plot as a philosophical allegory rather than narrowed by any evangelical or ideologically overbearing specificity. Totsuko isn’t being disobedient to either the superiors in the school or her parents intentionally, and neither is Kimi who is balancing the private personal matters of her own life with all matter of peripheral interactions. Sister Hiyoko is revealed to have been in a band much later into the film and nurtures the musical productivity of their friendship throughout as a means of spiritual enlightenment.

Although a comparatively lighter film to some of its predecessors with A Silent Voice dealing with bullying and understanding others with disabilities who sometimes get hurt by people who themselves are recovering from some underlying problems or The Heike Story literally dealing with endless warfare, death and much broader real world dilemmas, The Colors Within has such a vibrant purity and clear identity from all its predecessors and even Liz and the Blue Bird that it commands and wins over my fullest admiration, another valid reason to count Yamada Naoko as a gifted storyteller in both anime and cinema at large.