Charles Synyard<p><span>3/3 Back from seeing Kimi no Iro (The Colors Within), at the end of its theatrical run. Went in without even having watched the trailer, but I was instantly enraptured. Saving for any mishap, I knew seconds in, this would be a profoundly great anime. As it went on, my love and appreciation built with every delicate moment of beauty, and I’m afraid to say Akage no Anne, Alps no Shoujo Heidi, Urusei Yatsura, Attack on Titan, Pretty Cure, Twelve Months, and other contenders for favorite will have to move down a slot, as I adore The Colors Within like no other anime, and for that matter, really like no other movie. It is matchless.<br><br>In the first ten minutes, there was Catholicism, there was ballet, and there were bevies of beauteous schoolgirls, but those three favorite things are merely the elements of the story. The aesthetics are reminiscent of Liz and the Bluebird, the nearly-standalone Hibike! Euphonium movie, and sure enough, afterward I learned Naoko Yamada directed both.<br><br>The lead, Totsuko, has the ability to see the inner qualities of others as colors, as is gorgeously illustrated time and again. And she is particularly religious: when we meet her, she is in her Catholic boarding school’s chapel, praying the first part of the Serenity Prayer—“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,”—but wrestles with completing it by mouthing the last two parts. When she tells lies, she does not try to justify them to herself, and knows she can get right with God again by confessing them. When she and two friends join a rock band, the song she composes is, as a friendly nun points out, virtually a hymn, inspired by cosmic harmony and repeating “Amen” over and over. Listen: </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-vMM6YblOI" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-vMM6YblOI</a><span> What is going on?<br><br>Her privilegedly rich and significant perception of color, joined with depth of religious feeling, immediately brought to mind Thought-Forms, by Anne Besant. The 1905 Theosophical treatise purported to represent the shapes of human thought as perceived by clairvoyants; I’ve reproduced the page that gives a key to the meanings of different colors, some of which coded for pure religious feeling, intellect, and the like. In the movie, the colors always mean something positive, a reflection of the more optimistic Christian worldview where everyone has some unique blessings to bring to this life. Lest someone doubt the color-religious feeling link was intentional, there is also a window that resembling a Piet Mondrian that appears more than once.<br><br>I believe Totsuko’s color perception is a “consolation”, a special grace God can grant so a sensitive soul can feel His immanence especially strongly. In the 1954 book The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley argued psychoactive drug use could recreate or heighten religious experience (a thesis I disagree with), yet he claimed the experience merely recreated the experience some saints have in religious ecstasy. As you can see, the cover art of The Doors of Perception suggests a similar visual-spiritual link. Throughout The Colors Within, Totsuko lives her life with gratitude and never forgets God. While not loudly or offensively pious, she incorporates her Catholic faith into her music, often visits the chapel, and crosses herself and says briefs prayer throughout her day.<br><br>Is this a coming-of-age story? I saw it more as a vocation story. By movie’s end, Totsuko has not decided what path to pursue after graduation… but there is a strong hint hers is a religious vocation. Toward the end, we learn the writing carved on her bed the dormitory was the name of the rock band her nun friend was in in her school days, God almighty. While the sisters have to keep discipline at school, this is not a dour portrayal. The joy at the heart of their life comes out during the St. Valentine’s concert, when they dance along to the music! There is also neither romance nor sexual tension, even though Totsuko breaks the school‘s rule by fraternizing with a young man in her band—and breaks the rules by having her close friend, an ex-classmate in the band, holed up in her dorm room overnight (a perfect opportunity if there was going to be yuri), another clue she may have a vocation to the vowed celibate life.<br><br>All this, set to the background of a Japan that has seemingly undergone an iconoclasm. All the religious imagery in The Colors Within is Catholic, or at least culturally Christian. The lanes and countryside shots are conspicuously denuded of the reminders of paganism and Buddhism that pockmark the Land of the Rising Sun. After the Christmas decor is gone, there’s a very conspicuous skip past the Shinto New Year’s that usually features in anime, to St. Valentine’s, which is the occasion of a school festival open to the community. This isn’t Anime Catholicism, this is a Catholic Japan. Of course it doesn’t say that and would be absurd to, it’s such a distantly parallel universe… yet it is the only context in which Totsuko‘s story makes sense. She isn’t just becoming an adult, or having fun with friends while still in her youth: she is gaining the spiritual hope and strength that is at the back of praying, not just “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” but also for “the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” and meaning it. <br><br>I do not mean to say that this is Naoko Yamada’s, or anyone in production’s own worldview, but rather that the director and other contributors used the moral/ethical color palette of Catholicism to tell a vocation story better than has any other anime, or even nearly every Occidental artist who actually was or was raised Catholic. </span><a href="https://shota.house/tags/KimiNoIro" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#KimiNoIro</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/TheColorsWithin" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TheColorsWithin</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/NaokoYamada" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#NaokoYamada</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/PietMondrian" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#PietMondrian</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/AnnieBesant" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AnnieBesant</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/AldousHuxley" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AldousHuxley</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/SerenityPrayer" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SerenityPrayer</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/prayer" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#prayer</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/CatholicJapan" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CatholicJapan</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/AnimeCatholicism" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AnimeCatholicism</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/Catholicism" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Catholicism</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/Catholic" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Catholic</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/Christianity" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Christianity</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/Christian" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Christian</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/CatholicGab" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CatholicGab</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/vocation" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#vocation</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/color" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#color</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/comingofage" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#comingofage</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/music" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#music</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/animemovies" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#animemovies</a> <a href="https://shota.house/tags/anime" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#anime</a></p>