Kimi no Iro

Wouldn't contest that this is Yamada's best-looking work yet. Movement here is so beautiful and well-realized that it looks nearly effortless. Her trademark leg-shots never looked so insightful.

Unfortunately, I guess, it's the Yamada work I ended up having the most trouble connecting with. There's a drama tag here, but - and though in some ways you can feel a sense of internal drama just by virtue of all the visual language this shares with A Silent Voice - it's not... really a drama. This is pure slice of life at its most artfully and serenely boring. The conflicts aren't really conflicts more than they're discomforts. ... There are painful emotions sometimes, but they're introspective and self-inflicted, out of step with the reality of the situations these characters are actually in.

And that's not a problem, that's just a core tenet of slice of life as a genre. The problem is more that I wanted more than what this movie was able to offer in its runtime. It's most similar to the K-ON! movie in its "things just sort of happening, but there's cute girls there and they're having some type of feelings about it"-ness. And I love the K-ON! movie. But that had an entire two season series behind it to sell me on these characters and the inherent value of their aimless vibing.

The Colors Within only has itself. What it does have is a cast of characters with great - GREAT - designs (how often do you get a chubby moe girl?), sensitive and sweet personalities, and who believably care for each other despite their apparent distance. But in the grander scheme of their lives, this really is just a slice. I wanted to see so much more of them. I wanted to see them hangout more. To the extent I wondered if maybe some of these lingering, languid scenes around the school could have been excised...

I suppose it didn't help I had to watch the dub, since it was the only showing available at my theater. With very limited exceptions, dubs affect my average watching experience like having a cold affects eating a nice meal. The sense of something missing is difficult and frustrating. Though, the dub for this movie is really impressive. Particularly among the main cast, there are some wonderful and extremely endearing line reads. But there were also plenty of distracting ones that just made me twitch, knowing full well they probably sounded more natural, more suggestive of characterization in the original JP. Curse of being a fucking weeb.

The concert is wonderful, though. Some actually great music. And I've never seen insert songs actually get dubbed and end up sounding amazing - like nothing had even been changed. I need to find the insert album for this shit pronto.

All told, inoffensively good, even if I felt a little unsatiated. I'm just glad I got to show up for a Yamada joint.

I was enamoured by the trailer for this film and waited for it to be screened internationally for many months and I really did enjoy watching it but it left much to be desired.
I didn't realize the film would focus so much on Christianity. Although I'm not a Christian (I practice a Dharmic faith), this wouldn't bother me as long as the story is good and the characters are well developed but there was a lot set up in the first half of the film that was never fully resolved in my opinion. [Spoilers] Each of the main three have something that they hide from ... the world and end up lying.
For Totsuko, it's her synesthesia-like ability and also being in a band with Kimi and Rui- her desire to be in a band with them causes her to lie several times throughout the film for which she seems to be constantly repenting.
For Kimi, she dropped out of school- the actual reason for which is never mentioned- and she's unable to tell her grandmother (who previously attended that very school herself) and ends up lying about it. She also feels guilt because she believes she's making Totsuko lie as well.
Rui hides from his mother that he's passionate about music and that the responsibility of continuing the legacy of the clinic is burdensome to him.
I really enjoyed watching the three of them grow closer and especially liked seeing Totsuko and Kimi's relationship but the way the film attempted to resolve each of their problems left me pretty unsatisfied.
Kimi and Rui coming clean about their lies was very anticlimactic- almost as if their worries did not actually hold any significance. Especially with Rui since he ends up agreeing to continue the clinic and going off to college despite the reluctance he shows towards this at the beginning of the film.
Kimi was also apprehensive about showing herself to her ex-classmates and for a good reason because they do spread rumors about her in the beginning but when she later performs at the school festival, it's like none of that ever happened. It's the same with Totsuko- she's apprehensive about being friends with a boy in the begging because of the strict nature of her school but by the end of the movie, nobody in the school cares that she's performing with a male bandmate and a drop out.
Overall, it feels like the movie was set up to want to say something about the environment that each of them exist in but ignored that entirely by the end to just have them perform wholesome songs on stage.
Either way, I still did really enjoy the film for the beautiful animation, colors, character design, and catchy songs. I absolutely loved seeing Totsuko and Kimi's relationship unfold and especially loved watching Totsuko sneak Kimi into the dorms.
I don't know if I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone but I enjoyed watching it nonetheless.

Take the sister act
Remove any sort of charm
throw in bland band that never harmonizes or feels cohesive even in the end.

Extremely Preachy religious imagery callously shoved on the screen with no real message behind it.
Elephant in the room subjugation by the nuns isn't expanded on.
Absolutely dreadful pacing for the first half. Multiple mundane scenes that don't add any character development nor story theme. one fun scene that seems to tease a possible lesbian relationship that is then ruined by the mentioned subjugation by nun. A band movie where we never actually see all 3 members practicing together. The male character acts like a ... Labrador retriever and lacks any sort of personality. Every single character (save the red head into style who the movie should have been on ) acts extremely timid. Always walking on egg shells . None of them ever just seem to be relaxed with one another and it shows in the chemistry.
Main character is given synesthesia seemingly just to have promotional colorful material for ads because its used so sparingly and without direction that its effectively pointless.
Was sadly really disappointed. You have Science Saru which did a fine job of the animation , and you have a great director who is more than capable of producing fantastic works ; yet here we are with a mundane manufactured committee think film with no heart and no message..

Made me want to watch Girls Band cry to wash my mouth of this .