If you’ve ever asked how inconsequential a film subject can be, I might have an answer for you in the form of animated Japanese release The Colors Within. Among the dullest films I will see in my lifetime, The Colors Within celebrated a mediocre teen showing rebellion at Catholic school by *gasp* forming a band! (The difference between this and any other “forming a band” film being that this teen doesn’t really care about music; hence, neither should we.)
Totsuko Higurashi (voice of Sayu Suzukawa) is a blonde Japanese girl (as so many are) away at a Catholic school. She has a form of synesthesia in which she sees colors [read: true colors] in the people around her. Yes, I know this sounds cool.
It isn’t.
First of all, the phenomenon isn’t all that. Ex. “Wow, you’re green with a little blue.” On screen the effect of seeing a person as colors through Totsuko’s eyes barely rises to the level of “LSD trip in Yellow Submarine.” Secondly, there’s little to do with this information; it’s every bit as useful as proclaiming with regards to fashion, “You’re an autumn.” or “You’re a winter.” Lastly, and most important, the film uses this “power” mostly as a parlor trick. Totsuko doesn’t use it often and when she does, well, yippee?
Totsuko is shy and lonely and decides to follow a particularly colorful classmate into a bookstore. This starts a fairly pathetic chain of events where Totsuko ends up forming the band White Cat Hall, named after the place where they visit.
They’re not exactly Wyld Stallyns.
Perhaps the most chilling part of this adventure is when Totsuko gets caught by the nuns 
having a sleepover. They force her to pen a daily apology for a month … however, the kind nun says it can be song lyrics, which -when performed- becomes “Written Apology, The Good, The True, and The Beautiful” … which ain’t exactly “Stairway to Heaven.”
I guess we’re happy that the nun can condescends, “Any song where you show your heart can be a hymn.” OK, great. But why do all songs have to be hymns, hmmm? And when did we start adding Bible quotes to Japanese anime?
There’s nothing wrong, necessarily, within The Colors Within as a presentation of something one can do on film. It seems amiable enough, and I think it has its heart in the right place. It’s just really, really, really tame. And that makes it boooooooring. I guarantee your attention cannot stay on this film for more than ten minutes. Totsuko is a sweet girl, but there’s just not much here.
There once lived a girl with synesthesia
Who saw people as colors to please ya
There was no demand
Then she started a band
So dull, they could be named “Amnesia”
Rated PG, 101 Minutes
Director: Naoko Yamada
Writer: Reiko Yoshida
Genre: Movies that don’t move
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Authors of crappy anime hoping the bar is so low that any piece of crap you put on paper can now come to life in a theater
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who like to feel things
