As sensitive as ever to teenagers’ growing pains, animator and director Naoko Yamada paints an exquisite rainbow of adolescent blues in this gentle tale of music and friendship, her first feature since the critically acclaimed Liz and the Blue Bird.
It follows a trio of teenage misfits whose colliding paths lead to enchanting self-discoveries and epiphanies. In her grey uniform, Totsuko might seem like an unremarkable student at her Christian boarding school, yet she has synaesthetic perception, and when she looks at people, their auras and spirits are rendered in vibrant hues. Through Totsuko’s eyes, Kimi, a classmate who is expelled for her rebellious behaviour, is pure electric blue. Rui, a senior from a different high school, is the final member of this band of outsiders; his spirit sparkles with emerald green flashes.
