Karafuru

First, the story is kind of unique. Maybe too melancholly. But, the story has wonderfully been drawn into scenes and animations. Well, the animation itself is not perfect, but still can represented what the story want to tell.

Second, the perspective of story is also a great idea. It is a thoughtful imagination that been translated into scene by scene. Somehow, I just really appreciated the story been telling from this perspective.

Considering their target audience, youth issues tend to be a major theme in manga and anime. The animated format moreover tends to give creators rather more freedom to experiment with fantasy elements that can explore deeper underlying issues. Directed by veteran animator, Keiichi Hara, COLORFUL for example manages to touch on an important subject with a message that is perhaps rather more difficult to reach a younger audience through conventional live-action drama. That subject is teenage suicide.

Passing through the transit between life and rebirth, a dead soul in danger of obliteration is given another chance to reform and regain the right to rebirth. Brought back into the realm of the living, the soul is reborn into the person of Makoto Kobayashi, an artistically-inclined 14 year-old boy who has just attempted suicide. With the assistance of Purapura, a guide in the afterlife, the 'new' Makoto considers why someone from a seemingly happy family attempted to kill himself and tries to pull the young boy's life back together. COLORFUL is literally a 'finding yourself' film that considers the challenges facing young people who are finding it difficult to cope socially, to fit into the world and deal with the problems of friends, family and relationships.

The fantasy element of the film isn't the most convincing, but it does have a powerful pay-off at the end and it undeniably finds a unique way to tap into the mind of a young alienated individual and how he might respond to the world, particularly one who has been driven to attempt suicide. Keiichi Hara uses an animation style that is reminiscent of GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES in how it touches obliquely but incisively on the challenges facing youth. One seemingly irrelevant sequence based around the disused 'Tamada' trolley car, for example, is just beautiful and transformative. Using such techniques COLORFUL manages to cover a wide range of difficult issues and personality types in a realistic fashion and offer some measure of sympathy and understanding for its characters. It manages to do so moreover without ever becoming sentimental or talking down to its audience.

Some movies are never worth to write a review, I learned that today!

Second Chance.........

We all wish that, to have a second chance to renew our life again.But do we really get that?Probably never.All we get to run in a new way, not looking behind.Road is pretty big right?

This movie made me regret on what I did to my life, my failure, my hope, everything.

Again it made me feel that nothing is never over.We have to live on.Doesn't matter roads we have passed were broken.We still need to keep walking!

"No need to kill yourself when you are already dead" :-)

Hence, I continued to live like a Zombie from now on........

This movie is about a soul that gets a second chance to reform from its deadly sin and earn a rebirth by inhabiting the body of a teenager, Makoto, who committed suicide. The movie covers the pursuit of the soul to find out why Makoto attempted suicide and his own deadly sin to reform.

The story has a good plotline to make an intriguing, inspiring movie with high emotions. The story arc is written well as the soul tries to learn about Makoto, his family, his usual routine, and how his relationship with everyone. There were some good add-ons like, the interaction of the soul and the guiding angel, Purapura with their difference, others reacting to the change of Makoto's character, his realisation of life's importance and to cherish it even how bad things turn out, the soul makes the first friend for Makoto, the soul finding his deadly sin and the reason of Makoto's suicide.

The climax was satisfactory and inspiring, with a major reveal of the guiding angel's final words to the soul. The drawbacks of the film are the slow pacing and narration dull the fulfilling experience. The scenes of the soul neglecting the few characters instead of dealing with them were monotonous.

The Voice acting was good as they emote their emotions and make them connect with me. The animation and frames were good. The music was minimal, the emotions would have heightened if it had been used well.

In conclusion, I like this movie as it describes the importance of life and inspires me to cherish life without making any wrong decisions. I recommend everyone to watch this movie once.

Not every anime movie has to be good. This one has very good backgrounds but they look like photographs. Not even that is good.

• the plot does not advance at all.
• feelings are all ankward. It doesn't make sense why he behaves the way he does. How he talks to people and why he hurts others.
• animation in sometimes very very bad.
• the motivation of the main character is never explained. His coldness is also never explained.
• the reason why he gets friendly put of the blue with his only friend, when others treat him the same way, and why he laughs at him anyway, is never explained.
• the reason why he is cruel with the rest does not make sense.
• fake feelings, cheesy. Anime is in general that way but this one goes too far.

We have to be critical sometimes. Not all full length anime movies have to be good, even when they try/fake to be deep, they are terribly shallow and weird. Maybe people can think it's because Japanese people lacks sensibility, but as you can see on Ghibli's films, it is nothing like that. This one is a terribly boring, ilogical film, that fakes to be a great movie. I give it a three start because the artists at least did a good job.