The Director of ‘The Colors Within’ Has a Message: ‘It’s Going to Be OK’

In much of today’s filmmaking, from superhero movies to TikTok videos, time is compressed, speeding the action along much faster than it could ever go in reality. In the animated worlds meticulously crafted by Japanese director Naoko Yamada, however, life moves gloriously, realistically slow. Schoolchildren walk at a measured pace, pausing outside their classrooms to remove shoes. A grandmother pushes the bridge of her glasses up her nose. A tram stops to let a single passenger off before slinking away again. It’s all in the service of expressing, and evoking, emotion. “[The plot is] the outer elements happening to someone, but I want to look inside a character, deeper into their emotions,” Yamada tells Rolling Stone, through interpreter Satsuki Yamashita. 

Most of Yamada’s work — including her latest, The Colors Within, currently in select U.S. theaters — is slice-of-life, a popular anime genre that focuses on the mundane. She has a deep interest in character interiority, and has challenged herself to express it in frameworks other than words. “[In The Colors Within], I wanted to use music and color, so that no dialog or very little dialog is needed to express what I wanted to express,” says Yamada. “I think that also helps the audience expand their imaginations.” 

By deprioritizing plot, Yamada makes entire universes out of characters, and then invites the viewer into them. In The Colors Within, we most often see the world through the eyes of wide-eyed Catholic school teen Totsuko (Sayu Suzukawa). Totsuko can literally see other people’s auras, a synesthesia depicted for the audience as layers of colorful lights radiating outward. “I get the sense the ‘colors’ I feel might also exist in a slightly different place,” Totsuko explains to the viewer in the film’s opening minutes. “Like how butterflies and bees seek out pretty flowers, and dolphins hear tones that humans can’t, there are colors that I ‘feel’ more so than ‘see.’” When Totsuko starts a band with soft-spoken school dropout Kimi (Akari Takaishi) and reserved music nerd Rui (Taisei Kido), her first song is inspired by Kimi’s mesmerizing, lapis hue. 

Yamada has depicted music-loving teens before, in K-On!, K-On! The Movie, and Liz and the Blue Bird, all from within the same franchise, but The Colors Within is an original story, conceived with frequent collaborator and veteran anime writer Reiko Yoshida. In making the new film, Yamada was inspired less by making-the-band movies and more by stories about “kids working hard to accomplish something,” like The Goonies. This foundational sense of ragtag adventure and curiosity informs the music Totsuko, Kimi, and Rui eventually produce and perform as their band White Cat Hall. “I wanted to make sure that their performance doesn’t sound like something that adults, or professional musicians, could make,” says Yamada. The filmmaker worked with Kensuke Ushio (DanDaDan), who has composed for all of Yamada’s major projects since 2016 feature A Silent Voice, to craft the sound of the film.

Generally, Yamada credits her success as a relatively rare female auteur in the Japanese anime industry to the belief she has in her team and staff, and she is known for her frequent collaborations with both Ushio and Yoshida. When asked what she appreciates about Yoshida’s writing, Yamada highlights its kindness. “When I read her dialogue, I can figure out what to say to the person next to me, or to friends or family.” Yamada says Yoshida’s writing “changes my worldview” and encourages her to be a better person. “I do wonder, ‘Am I kind?’” reflects Yamada. “I don’t know because there’s a lot of times when I feel like, ‘Oh, I used the wrong words,’ or ‘I chose the wrong words to express myself or to express something to someone else.’ And I always have a lot of regrets about what I said.” 

For Yamada, her film and TV projects are opportunities to work through those regrets. “I want my characters not to make the same mistakes that I would,” she says. “I want to make sure that they choose the correct words.” Indeed, the world depicted in The Colors Within is exemplary in its kindness. Though its young characters feel anxiety, shame, and regret, those responses are rarely reinforced by the external world. Consequences exist, but they are never dreadful. This is all possible because Yamada’s characters are defined by their empathy. “I really take importance in [characters’] points of view — what they’re seeing, what they’re watching — and then make sure that they can see the other person that they’re interacting with. That’s really important to me.” 

Yamada got her start at Kyoto Animation, a studio known for its ethical labor conditions, a higher percentage of women artists, and prioritization of quality over quantity. Her recent works, however, including The Colors Within and the 2021 historical epic series The Heike Story, have been produced under Science SARU, a studio known for its multinational staff, international co-productions, and more experimental styles. (Netflix’s recent anime hit, Dan Da Dan, comes from Science SARU.) Yamada cites Science SARU’s “global outlook” as one of the reasons she wanted to work with the studio, noting that she hopes it allows more people to see her films. “If there is a chance to work with them again, I think it’ll be even more fun,” she reflects. “Maybe I want to challenge myself to some more extreme [style of] animation.” 

For now, Yamada is hoping the people who might find comfort in The Colors Within see the film. “I think there are a lot of young people especially who think that they’re insignificant or that they’re not someone important. [With The Colors Within], I wanted to make sure to let them know that they’re very special [and] it’s OK to exist,” says Yamada. “I wanted anxious audiences to see this movie and think, ‘It’s going to be OK.’” The Colors Within does this by letting its characters “teach each other what is good about each other.” 

In one of the film’s most moving scenes, Totsuko, Kimi, and Rui spend a candlelit night snowed in at the rural church hall where they practice. As the snowflakes fall outside, a song from the classic ballet Giselle comes on the crackling radio. Totsuko admits to her friends that she has always dreamt of being a dancer, but gave up when she was young because she wasn’t good enough. Rui plays the song on his theremin, and Totsuko dances for her friends and for herself, coming alive. “If there’s something that you like within yourself, it’s OK to say it out loud,” says Yamada of the film’s message. “If you have secrets, you can accept it as it’s a part of you. Yes, I know these may be small in the whole scale of things, but I think they’re really important [to remember] in everyday life.”

From Rolling Stone US.