Music has always been a recurring theme in Naoko Yamada’s works, from her directorial debut K-On! and now her latest work The Colors Within. “Music allows people to communicate without words,” Yamada tells The Japan Times. “It gives you a way to share your feelings. It crosses borders. Through sound, through music, you can share what you like.”
Embarking on this new journey with Yamada is writer Reiko Yoshida. They’ve collaborated since K-On!, and Yoshida has many more anime and live-action series and films in her belt, including the Violet Evergarden movie, and A Silent Voice.
“I give her some key words and phrases, and she weaves them into a complete story,” Yamada says. “When it comes to turning the idea into text, I leave everything to her, and when it comes to turning that text into animation, she leaves everything to me. It’s a relationship of complete trust.”
The film follows three teens, Totsuko, Kumi, and Rui, as they navigate school, being a teenager, and making decisions that conflict with either their personal beliefs, or familial tradition. Coming together to form a band challenges their everyday routine, and helps them form bonds that give them strength to find acceptance within themselves.
As for the heart of the story, Yamada wanted to go with a theme that resonates with everyone. “I wanted to depict the strength that comes from accepting things within others that you don’t have within yourself,” says Yamada. “For me, the most important thing when making a film, the core element, is love.”
Yamada also wanted to find joy and happiness in the mundane. “In shaping a narrative, some people might expect those kinds of ups and downs, but in that case, the story feels ‘constructed,’” says Yamada. “I wanted to avoid that. I wanted to carefully depict very normal things, the things that are near us every day. Rather than surface-level accidents, I wanted to dig deeper into everyday moments.”
Watch the trailer below.
