Akari Takaishi, animation, Eddy Lee, Eileen Stevens, Japan, Keiko Toda, Kylie McNeill, Lani Minella, Libby Rue, movies, Naoko Yamada, reviews, Sayu Suzukawa, Taisei Kido, The Colors Within, Yui Aragaki
January 30, 2025
by Carla Hay

Directed by Naoko Yamada
Available in the original Japanese version (with English subtitles) or in a dubbed English-language version.
Culture Representation: The Japanese animated film “The Colors Within,” which takes place in an unnamed city in Japan, tells the story of three very different teenagers who form a rock band together.
Culture Clash: All of the teenagers have different reasons for hiding their band activities.
Culture Audience: “The Colors Within” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in anime films about the subtleties human relationships.

“The Colors Within” is a lovely and low-key anime drama about three teenagers who become friends when they form a rock band together. Each band member has different reasons for keeping the band a secret. “The Colors Within” might bore some people who are expecting this anime film to have more action. It’s a movie that’s geared more to viewers who want to see a story about this friendship evolves between the three teenagers.
Directed by Naoko Yamada and written by Reiko Yoshida, “The Colors Within” takes place in an unnamed city in Japan. The three teenagers don’t know each other very well when they decide to form a band, but they share a passion for music. The music they want to perform is pop-rock.
The three teenagers at the center of the story are all in their late teens. They are’
- Totsuko Higurashi, a religious student at an all-girls Catholic boarding school, where the students are not allowed to hang out with boys.
- Kimi Sakunaga, a dropout from the same school, who now works as a sales clerk in a used bookstore.
- Rui Kagehira, a student in his last year of high school, who is expected to become a medical doctor like other members of his family.
Totsuko, Kimi and Rui all meet at the bookstore and almost instantly decide to form a band. Totsuko (who is obedient and friendly) has the ability to read people’s colors or auras. It’s something that she doesn’t reveal to a lot of people because she doesn’t want to be perceived as weird.
Kimi (who is creative and slightly rebellious) dropped out of school because she was caught having a boyfriend. Kimi is being raised by her grandmother Shino Sakunaga, and Kimi is afraid to tell to tell Shino that she dropped out of school. Meanwhile, Rui (who is shy and nerdy) doesn’t want his parents to know about his interest in being a musician.
The three teens name their group the White Cat Hall Band, named after a campus library called White Cat Hall. Kimi is the lead singer/guitarist. Totsuko is the keyboardist. Rui plays the theremin.
One of the nuns at the school is Sister Hiyoshiko, who is younger and more liberal than some of the school’s other nuns. Totsuko confides in Sister Hiyoshiko that Totsuko is writing a song. Sister Hiyoshiko says this songwriting activity should be okay if the song she’s writing is morally righteous.
The voices of the “The Colors Within Characters” characters are portrayed by different actors, depending on the version of “The Deer King.” The original Japanese version (with English subtitles) has Sayu Suzukawa as Totsuko Higurashi, Akari Takaishi as Kimi Sakunaga, Taisei Kido as Rui Kagehira, Keiko Toda as Shino Sakunaga, and Yui Aragaki as Sister Hiyoshiko. There’s also a U.S. version, with the dialogue dubbed in English, that has Libby Rue as Totsuko Higurashi, Kylie McNeill as Kimi Sakunaga, Eddy Lee as Rui Kagehira, Lani Minella as Shino Sakunaga, and Eileen Stevens as Sister Hiyoshiko.
“The Colors Within” has a pleasant message about seeing and appreciating people for who they really are and not how others want them to be. The voice performances are adequate, and the movie takes a little too long to show the band members’ full musical talent. However, “The Colors Within” is a solid option for people who want to watch an anime film about friendships that begin and grow under unlikely circumstances.
GKIDS released “The Colors Within” in select U.S. cinemas on January 24, 2025. The movie was released in Japan on August 30, 2024.