DISCLAIMER When this movie was released, I coincidentally was in Japan, so I decided to give this movie a watch before I come back. While my Japanese is good enough to understand most of the movie, there were certain words and dialogues where I had to throw multiple guesses, so take this review with a grain of salt as I could be missing out on the bigger picture. ▶Directing Yamada Naoko has always been notoriously known for meticulously crafting authentic character interactions and bubbly moments to radiate that sense of realism and earnesty within each frame. With this movie, she was able to exceed every single one of her works with the subtle way the characters move, emotes, and choice of words the characters utters to one another, paired with incredible detailed animation that is reminiscent of Liz and the Blue Bird's Quality. __ Theme__ The whole entire point of this review is for me to gush on how much I adore the story that is being presented, so I'll be nerding out for a bit in this section. To me, what this movie hammers on the most is the idea of how lying could cause harm to us and other people. Of course, lying is technically a bad thing, like you could get scolded by your teacher, you could be sent to detention, or you could lie to yourself by gambling away all of your earnings to get some PNGs in a gacha game COUGH COUGH.

And while those aspects are inherently true, The Colors Within talks about how lying to other people, lying to yourself, or simply running away from our problems could easily rope in good people in helping you protect that lie, putting them in harms way for you, or making them worry over you.

By continuing to run away, we would grow anxious and uncertain over our actions. Guilt would start to pile up until it reaches a point where we're completely overwhelmed to the point that we would get lost in what we have to do going forward.

While everything I say sound like this movie is a major deal (even though it is with how much I LOVE this movie), I would like to clarify that this movie's overall tone is still really wholesome. Every single drama that occurs in the narrative doesn't have the characters slapping each others' faces and running in a rainy storm just to express their true thoughts. Every character is uncertain, anxious, and tries their best to approach their problems in their own ways without being overly indulgent in their friends' personal struggles, which makes every development come from the characters' desire to be better people.

Totsuko, Rui, and Kimi aren't overly complex characters, but they're just normal people that are facing normal problems with all of them pushing each other to face their problems from their collective struggles and personal drives to be better people, and I personally love relationships like this be presented in anime, as I feel a lot of them feels like, "OMG SHE'S DEPRESSED! AS AN EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE MAN, I SHALL FIX HER!"

Conclusion

I know that this "review" isn't necessarily a review, but I never intended this thread to be a review in the first place. I wanted to express my love for this movie, how much it impacted me, and how much it helped broaden my view towards human relationships. Of course I could talk about the technical aspects like how the visuals are filled with warmth and kindness, the comforting OST coming from Kensuke Ushio, and the songs that they play are an absolute vibe and I could go on for hours with how incredible the song compliments the characters' feelings and perceptions, but I've already gone on a pretty long rant, and I'm sure you could tell that the songs are really good from the trailers.

Finally, I want to further clarify that EVERYTHING I WROTE ARE BASED OFF OF MY PERSONAL FEELINGS .
I feel that I really have to enforce this as I don't want people to blame me that the movie isn't as good as I make it sound to be. (If there's even anyone that are interested in reading this review)

This movie is incredible well made, really wholesome, and it will make you feel warm and fuzzy by the time you're done with it, so please keep this in mind!