I often end up more touched in my soul when I go and watch an animation movie rather than a normal one. As an adult I feel that I need to remain in contact with my inner child and allow her to go and watch beautiful colorful animations.
I would lie if I would say that this movie did not make me release a little salty drop of liquid in the corner of my eyes. I did not expect such a complex intrigue with such a simple subject to touch me so deeply.
What if instead of seeing colours you could feel them? What if you could have a magical power to see beyond what people normally wear and have the ability to look inside their soul while the colour of their aura tells you their real story?
Totsuko Hiragashi is the hero of the movie. This girl is able to see people in colours. Some call this colorful field aura. She is enrolled in a girl’s only christian highschool with nuns as teachers.
Image source Totsuko
She is mesmerized by the particular blue colorful field of Kimi Sakunaga, one of the girls from campus.
Image source Kimi at the left
One day Kimi stops coming at school and this comes as a shock as she was in the choir and an eminent student. Totsuko is on a mission to find her. Guided by a white cat she finds her in a thriftbook shop. A magical stuff is happening right now: the third hero of the story appears. A shy tall boy Rui Kagehira.
Image source Rui, the theremin player
He notices the guitar that Kimi practiced on while sitting at the shop. Totsuko lies about playing the piano only to buy a book in order to not seem like a creepy stalker to Kimi. All of a sudden the boy comes up with an idea: could they start a band? Totsuko jumps in joy and agrees. From here on everything is an adventure.
The three kids share a common pain: the lack of courage to pursue their God given gift. There is a lot of pressure to conform. Kimi has abandoned school but she is hiding this from her grandmother who is raising her. She would love to play music and write songs. Totsuko used to adore to dance ballet. But she gave up as she did not excel that much. Rui comes from a family of doctors. His mother owns a clinic and the boy is expected to pursue a medical career. But Rui loves to play the theremin and he finds joy in this. Totsuko can see the colorful field of both of her friends. In this hidden dynamic of a musical band getting born in secrecy, as the girls aren’t supposed to be in a band with boys according to the christian’s school rules, I got to witness the beauty of vulnerability and dreams. Totsuko lies and breaks all of the rules in order to help Kimi. A nun from the school starts to sniff that something fishy is happening. But instead of criticizing them and bringing them to light...she also “sins” by helping them out to pursue their musical dreams.
Image source And this is how friendships are made...
You see….this animation is more than seing the colorful aura of people. Seing colors is a metaphor for seing someone’s joy when being immersed in doing what they love. When you have a talent and you allow yourself to use it without thinking about money, career, peer or family pressure, you glow. I looked at this movie and realized how sad my inner child has felt a lot of the times. I wonder how many adults could sit with their inner child while they are sobbing for the dreams that they were not allowed to follow because family or friends said otherwise.
In this very moment it is worth taking a moment and sit in silence with the sadness. It is good to be serene about accepting what one cannot change, as Totsuko continuously prayed. But it is also necessary to muster the courage to change what can be changed. And here many of our inner children got blocked and stifled.
Sister Hiyoshiko helps the three children accept themselves and muster the courage to show up as a band and perform at Saint Valentine Festival, the place where their family will appear after the kids have confessed their wrongdoings.
There is so much emotional complexity in this movie that I can barely tackle my own emotional reaction to it. The theme of friendship is beautifully portrayed: all heroes are in fact lonely children. And many of us can relate to how it was to be the unpopular kid in school, the one that sat isolated while yearning to genuinely bond with somebody else. In their weekly music rehearsals kept in an abandoned church on an ferryboat-only access island where the boy lived we can witness how their friendship is slowly formed. One time a winter storm catches Totsuko and Kimi in the island and they are unable to come back. Rui could have easily went back to his home but he has chosen to stay overnight in the church with the girls, bringing blankets and keeping them company. As this unfolds, he calls his mother saying:” Mom, I finally made some friends”. This moment hit my heart so deep as I know now as an adult how powerful it is to know that you have friends, especially in moments when you feel that you have a really hard time bonding with others.
The movie is about the power of dreams which can never be stifled no matter how much we try to push down our feelings and follow the norms. Totsuko manages to see her own colour only after she has a spontaneous ballet dance moment. While absorbed in dancing frentically she has a quick snippet when her hand turns red. She notices that with a fascinated elation. The pure state of magical joy is reached when she is allowing her gift to shine through, allowing herself to just be and create.
Human beings are made to create and to be. This animation shows how the human spirit can be crushed from an early age if adults , consciously or not, kill the expression of the inner gifts of the child. If we could count the number of painters, musician or dancers that have been killed when parents told children to stop dreaming nonsense and go get an engineering diploma or a degree in mathematics... I wonder how would these parents feel if they could go inside their child’s heart , now as a grownup himself, and look at that sad inner child. I bet that many parents might end up regretting and despising themselves for being so narrow minded.
We need to allow our inner child to speak to us. To cry to us his wishes and desires. It can scream and shout until we hear him. It often happens later in our lives, when we reach a critical age when we feel no satisfaction in what we do as a job or what we have become. That nagging voice that never leaves us alone is our inner child, desperately wanting to be heard and seen. We can refuse to see our own purple or blue colour but the denial process can’t last for a lifetime as the matters of the soul are not easy to be swept under the rug.
I really loved the christian elements sprinkled throughout the movie. I remember when sister Hiyoshiko told Totsuko that even songs which describe the suffering of the soul can be considered holy songs and that she was once in a rock band herself called God Almighty. The movie has spiritual elements from the Bible mentioned in it and it invites the viewer to reconsider spirituality in the context of doing the higher good even if sometimes that means to bend the rules.
This movie will speak to your inner child. There are high chances that she or him is still wounded. Maybe you have chosen a career that is far away from what God has ordained for you. Maybe you are ignoring your native talents and secretely listening to your parents who said that there’s no way you could earn a living by using them. Maybe you have lost confidence in your own power to make a change for the 11th time and risk it once again in order to see if you could make it. Maybe you have no idea what talents you have because no one gave you the opportunity and right to explore this field when you are child.
You are not alone. Tell your inner child that he or she is not alone. They have you now and if you are commited to heal yourself, you can start by promicing to the little one that , this time, an adult will always have their back.
Do you dare to try to see your own colour, as Totsuko did?
Do you dare to dream in colours and see where does it take you?