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+==========
+ Colorful
+==========
+:CreationDate: 2015-03-08 16:15:30
+:Id: anime/review/colorful
+:tags: - anime
+       - review
+:rating: 3.5
+:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/colorful
+
+First person visual, our point of view / protagonist is in what looks
+like a train station: souls of the dead collect their ticket and
+shuffle toward their transport, for the afterlife, or reincarnation.
+Our point of view is intercepted by a boy, clearly not one of the
+souls; he says that the protagonist has been selected for another
+chance at life, and they can't really refuse: take it, or never again
+be reincarnated. He'll be the guide, not quite a guardian angel, not
+exactly a judge. The protagonist takes it, grudgingly, and falls
+toward the world, toward the body of a just-deceased boy who's
+committed suicide, Makoto Kobayashi. The not-dead boy opens his eyes,
+and his crying mother and father are overwhelmed by joy.
+
+Our protagonist then has to settle down into the life of Makoto,
+trying to turn it for the better (he killed himself, he clearly didn't
+think his life was that good), and also figure out what they did in
+the previous life, what their sin was.
+
+Thus starts "colorful", directed by HARA Keiichi (原 恵一) from a
+novel by MORI Eto (森 絵都). The premise is interesting, but the story
+feels weak: the protagonist seems a bit of an idiot, at times
+considering Makoto's family and schoolmates as strangers, at times
+taking what they do very personally, holding Makoto's grudges without
+having actually experienced the slights. Yes, you can argue, knowing
+how the story ends, that there are reasons, but I still wanted to
+throttle the protagonist for not *doing* something to connect with the
+family, to make friends, instead of isolating themselves. Then again,
+I have that problem with quite a lot of characters from many anime and
+manga…
+
+The rest of the characters get just as much depth as needed for them
+to support the protagonist's discovery of Makoto's and their own
+lives: the bullied girl, the girl who can't settle into a simple
+persona, the boy who's friend with everyone, the distant father, the
+doting mother, the introverted brother. There's flashes of interesting
+personalities, but they're not developed enough for us to get attached
+to them.
+
+Not having read the novel, I don't know how much of these issues
+come from it, and how much are a result of the adaptation. Hara said,
+in the Q&A after the first showing at the ICA in London, that he had
+to cut something out to fit the story in 130 minutes, but he also said
+that the whole part about the trains (easily 15 minutes long) was his
+own addition, so I can't discount the possibility that the parts that
+didn't make it to the screen could have improved the film.
+
+The animation is quite good, and although the character design is very
+simple, it's functional to the story: Makoto has intentionally a very
+generic face, for example (Hara confirmed this).
+
+Overall I found the message to be quite bland ("have a life, forgive
+others, make friends") and bluntly delivered. It reminded me of "It's
+a wonderful life", but with all due respect to Hara (I really like his
+"Summer days with Coo"), he's no Frank Capra.