These days, we mostly have anime shows or movies that tackle rehabilitation with something that can say that we have learned something, and it is something that will affect us for a long period. "Colorful" is a movie from 2010, and I think it has an amazing portrayal of depression, suicide, forgiveness, acceptance, and how we should understand the meaning of living even with our different perspectives, even sorely just for our happiness, as long as we know we are not hurting someone. It deeply shows me how one person in our lives can change us, and even that change can start with you, helping other people, and being the person you want to be.

The movie starts from the perspective of one character, and as he is walking right to the light, there are people everywhere. We see one person who is very different from the others. That one person walks towards us and speaks and explains that we are a soul who has died after committing a great sin but is given another chance to return to the world, making us a lucky soul. He wants to deny it, but he must return. We woke up, and it was an unfamiliar ceiling, but as we looked around, we guessed that we were in a hospital. We see someone who we don’t know who they were, and we don't know who we are either, but we have to do this called "internship", which if we succeed in doing, we are granted to be reincarnated.

After a while, he learns that the person where he is right now tried committing suicide, which explains why he was in a hospital last time. Even though it is a happy family, we later learn that it is just a facade that they tried to put up, and after knowing the truth, he becomes aloof and starts to question what this internship is about and why he is the person who has to be there.

This is where I think the movie starts with its narrative, and it shows the very truth of how a family, school, and society respond to suicide. We are aware that suicide should be given full attention if someone is planning on doing it, and that is why it should have been an open discussion even though we know talking about this with a family is very hard, so we tend to try and open up with other people we know besides them because the majority of depression starts with our family, followed by school or other experiences, and that is why we are thankful now that there are people who are open to discussion like this. Finding help professionally is sometimes hard, but without doing it, maybe this one call can change our lives.

I hated the main character after watching an hour of the movie because I see him as a selfish person who only tries to look for meaning from above and doesn’t try to understand the situation he is in. Like he even said in the movie himself, he is an idiot (not a big spoiler). But that changes because of one character who completely helps the main character develop. I don’t always try to look for symbolism when watching an anime, but I notice that this character who becomes later on friends with the MC always wears green as it symbolizes life, as for the MC, at the start of the movie he had green clothing, but as we progressed, he started wearing dark clothing as I think he became more distant around people. And this character, particularly, is how I think one person in our lives can change us. Maybe that one friend or person who is there is more than enough for us, and we know they are there if we have any problems or need their support. It is amazing how some characters we see in the movie have this clothing, and it is that person who tries to be there with the MC to understand, to open her heart, and to learn how to forgive.

The best scene for me, without spoiling it, is where four people are gathered, we feel the atmosphere and the awkwardness toward each character, a topic has been brought up, and it is about choosing a high school that would be good for him. We can see they’re hiding their true emotions deep inside, but the MC learns how to open up and decide for himself. He is scared he might not get what he wants, but without trying it, he will not know. He said his piece and said what he wanted, and for the first time, we see them understanding each other and letting their emotions go. After a while, everyone has calmed down, smiling and sharing a nice meal. This is, I think, the most powerful scene in the movie, where we see the true colors of our characters.

After finishing the movie, I learned something. It might be very cliche, but it is something I always want to be reminded of. You may have a different viewpoint in this film, and for me, we humans may have a different color in our own lives; it might be a dark color such as gray because of our own experience too, because we tend to change our color of life, maybe being a nihilistic version of ourselves. Some might be a very light color, such as pink, staying optimistic about the problems we encounter. But we can’t deny that somewhere in our lives, we wish for something good to happen. It might not be right now, but maybe somewhere in the future. We wish for that color in our lives, but maybe we already did but did not notice, and that is for our lives to be this colorful.