Cocolors

In an apocalyptic world stripped of all life and emotions, how can one find hope and the will to live ? Cocolors revolves around this concept of hope through a drawing made in collaboration with the two main characters, Fuyu and Aki.

As time goes by, more and more people are dying in the colony which profoundly affects the moral of it's inhabitants, who have indulged in religious acts probably to keep their sanity. Whereas Aki is drafted to the Salvage Unit, Fuyu completes a drawing illustrating his conception of the outside world, according to Aki's description. However, one question remains : what is the ... color of the sky ? The drawing, which was primarily a way to convey the thoughts of Fuyu, then takes another dimension. It becomes the metaphor of the spirit, with the color of the sky being the soul, as it is suggested by the name of the movie (I suppose it's a mix between Kokoro (spirit) and Colors thus making Cocolors).


Overall, I think it's a good dystopian movie which did a good job at dealing with mature subjects though more childish elements, and has a good balance between dark and wholesome moments. Despite it's short length, it managed to develop a great evolution of the characters and build an interesting story. The OST is pretty good and relevantly used, the CGI is fairly well done and the art really nails the chaotic and cold atmosphere. Overall a good movie, I definitely didn't regret watching it !

The art style was unique and was a change of pace for once, as well as complementary but not overstepping soundtrack. But don't let those qualities fool you.

The show has aproximately of 45 minutes of runtime, and gives a story to match. Which is to say almost non-existent. The entire premise of the movie is presented in a 60 second OP sort of thing which you HAVE to rewatch to get what is going on.

The art style and sound tracks are pretty good I think. There is use of 3D in this anime and I can see why. As there is little ficial expressions due ... to everyone wearing a helmet.

Characters as not really developed and looking at the run time I don't blame the creators. It's just their motivations and actions are not really explored, which could have really sold the ending sequence in my opinion.

With the aforementioned flaws as well as the grim story and little explanation of the situation, I would say it was as mediocre as it could get. The movie left me with a whole hosts of questions about the world as well as the fact that did not allow me to invest into our main duo of characters emotionally. I would say it wouldn't be mediocre if it was allowed to bloom with a longer runtime or even an acutal show.

TLDR; I liked the art and sound track a fair bit and it had an interesting premise which it explored for about 60 seconds in the opening sequence (wasted opportunity)

I decided to make this review since there are only 2 other reviews, both of which give this short movie an 8/10. There are fundamental flaws present in this work that I strongly consider bar it from such a rating.

These are that the story is dull and the animation is trash.

The story revolves around a mute, sickly boy, bullied by his peers and with only one friend. He is passionate about art in an apocalyptic grey world. You see the problem here? It's like I'm reading out of a checkbook of pity tropes. The main issue is that a fat half of the runtime is ... spent on telling you just this. As a result none of the characters have any depth, even for something of this length. The paper-thin story isn't surprising when you consider it was created by a studio best known for Poputepipikku and goddamn Ninja Batman.

The animation reminds me of Malice@Doll, primarily because both works intentionally structured their character designs to be easier for 3D animation. In Malice@Doll all the characters are lifeless, decrepit sex dolls, matching perfectly with the OVA's horror themes. In Cocolors all the characters are empty-faced cosmonauts, devoid of any emotions, matching perfectly with it's themes of...friendship and perserverance? Doesn't really work the same does it. It seems to me that Kamikaze Douga simply couldn't be bothered with character design, which by the way Malice@Doll does have and it alone is 10 times better than this mess. Did I mention Malice@Doll enough? Here's another fact about it, it was made in 2001. Cocolors is from 2017.

Tl;Dr it's japanese oscar bait don't bother