Opus.COLORs

Once shunned by the art world, Perception Art has taken the world by storm. The medium has evolved to incorporate all five senses, allowing viewers to completely immerse themselves in pieces of art. As the son of the creators of this movement, Kazuya Yamanashi has inherited his late parents' talent and creativity for Perception Art. Now enrolled at Eisen High School, the first-year has his sights set on becoming the best Perception Artist.

Kazuya has a reason besides ambition to attend this prestigious institution, as he hopes to make amends with his estranged childhood friend, third-year student Kyou Takise. But the rift between them may be difficult to repair since Kyou and Kazuya belong to different streams of study at the school.

As luck would have it, the two are partnered for the exclusive Staircaser competition, in which the winners will represent Eisen for the year. In order to stand a chance against their competitors, Kazuya and Kyou will have to learn to set aside their differences first.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yamanashi, Kazuya Main

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Takise, Kyou Main

Oosaka, Ryouta Japanese

Tsuzuki, Jun Main

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Sakaki, Chiharu Supporting

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Kirinoe, Mashuu Supporting

Suzuki, Ryouta Japanese

Haijima, Iori Supporting

Umehara, Yuuichirou Japanese

Mikuriya, Kaede Supporting

Nakajima, Yoshiki Japanese

Ikaruga, Anju Supporting

Yashiro, Taku Japanese

Yura, Takumi Supporting

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Takise, Tougo Supporting

Toriumi, Kousuke Japanese

Maru, Ryouji Producer

Sugimoto, Mika Producer

Tada, Shunsuke Director

Aketagawa, Jin Sound Director

Reviews

Jun 23, 2023

Bisalissy

Recommended

Opus.COLORs is an original anime that wasn't popular to begin with. A terribly slow first episode alongside very weak production values didn't help it either. But hidden behind this awful first impression, there is actually a solid and emotional story. It has a little bit of everything: Mystery, Drama, (BL) Romance and even short insert songs along the "Perception Art" pieces shown.

The story starts of with the Staircaster competition. Six Teams, each consisting of an elite "Artist" and "Grader" from Eisen High School, enter an art contest for the best "Perception Art".
Perception Art is essentially a drawing in a VR space, but very ... advanced, including even sounds and smells. These are created by the "Artists", then published and advertised by the responsible "Grader". Alongside establishing these premises, the contest is mostly about introducing the rather large supporting cast of this show and only lasts 3 episodes.

Afterwards, the main character Yamanashi Kazuya, who has the special ability to experience feelings from the artist of a Perception Art piece, is asked to help the school staff find the author of an unauthorized Perception Art drawn on school grounds. Realizing this "Scribble" might be connected to an accident he was in 10 years prior to the story, he sets out to find it's creator.
On this journey, there is a lot of content on the other characters introduced in the Staircaster competition, who join Kazuya's quest one by one. This eventually develops into a very emotional mystery drama, as Kazuya gets closer to the awnsers of his questions.

The relationships between the characters, alongside the progression of the main characters, is probably the strongest point of the show. And even though the supporting cast is a bit oversized, the characters did get their time to shine in their own sidestories.

The whole concept of how Perception Art's standing among traditional art and the importance of both Artists and Graders for the success of this art form is also an important and intriguing part of the show.

Personally, I'd say this show really grew onto me. And if you are interested in an emotional story in the world of Sci-fi Art and it's hardhips, or just looking for some Boys' Love in the current drought of that genre, Opus.COLORs might be for you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 23, 2023

Jaikeis

Mixed Feelings

Opus.COLORs starts out less than promising with murky direction and unimpressive animation. The setting is poorly explained, centered around an original form of "perception art" involving some element of VR, but how the mechanics work is vague to the point of obtrusiveness. We know that the art process is inherently collaborative, needing both the efforts of an artist and what the show refers to as a grader, who appears to take on some form of editorial role. It's unclear how the grader actually contribute to a project beyond things like basic marketing or choosing what frame to put a painting in, which all seem like ... tasks an artist could easily do alone. Moreover, the perception art obsession the world has is relatively new. Not a decade ago, the public were up in arms protesting over its growing popularity. How could something as inconsequential as an art medium inspire such fervor?

Beyond that, the show seems to function like an average insecure gacha adaptation, featuring a bloated cast size and surface level character exploration in an attempt to please every fan. The first half of the show are focus episodes rotating between new characters learning how to better understand each other in mundane, predictable ways. The show is dogged by a sense of soullessness, that a committee looked at what character dynamics were popular out in the joseimuke space and copied them down while ignoring all context. While a few of the musical numbers at the end of most episodes are more visually creative than others, they all feel shoehorned in yet still artificially short. It's as if they were the cutting room floor scraps of when the staff were still working on Starmyu and hey, they might as well go into this project too.

Eventually though, the show does find its footing, and that footing is, no joke, morphing the narrative into the mold of a murder mystery. The show starts with speedrunning our protagonist's tragic backstory, orphaned as a child after losing his parents in a traffic accident, evoking feelings of sympathy and pity with all the subtlety of a hackneyed light novel. But about halfway through the show, we go back to that accident in a flashback episode, and we get to see the parents seemingly fine and dandy walking out of the crashed car. So what happened? How did they die? The element of intrigue builds somewhat slowly, initially relying on its audience to doubt what is shown to them for any sense of momentum, until it intensifies enough to become the centerpiece of the narrative. The VR art gimmick of the show that seemed largely pointless suddenly takes on a more interesting, even conspiratorial angle on if people really saw what they thought they saw. The resolution doesn't quite live up to its potential and the art worldbuilding never escapes feeling lacking, but the emotional core in the final product works fine enough. The last few episodes give the show some much needed focus, exploring themes of loss, survivor's guilt, and learning to cherish what you still have. Or to be blunt, it's basically a BL melodrama that's too cowardly to commit to being BL, but it's carried by the voice actors doing as decent job as they could working with the material they're given.

Opus.COLORs is inarguably a technical mess, but it does something unique and weird enough to stand out among the mass production of anime that gets pumped out these days. It may not be what you could call good by any conventional means, but I can't say I wasn't ultimately entertained.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 8, 2023

BirbSMB

Not Recommended

Funny

Google Glass: The BL anime. The whole premise of this anime was doomed from the start.

Enter the 'Sci-Fi' of perception art - it's literally Google Glass (or the highly ridiculed and memed Apple Vision). This concept was invented by one of the MC's parents (Kazuya). Fast forward 10 years and now our MCs are going to school for this so-called sci-fi concept. How is this Sci-Fi if the concept is literally something we already have? In addition to that, the cast eventually gets divided into two groups, which is known as Graders and Artists. Anybody would be able to predict that this will end ... up creating some of the most mundane drama possible. The anime attempts to make the premise more interesting by shoving some more melodrama halfway in, but it falls completely flat and it even gives aneurysms. It's just painful to watch, and the fact that this is labeled Sci-Fi and not Boys Love is just completely false advertising.

For an art-themed anime, the characters are as far away from art as possible. You have Kazuya, the boring genki guy destined for greatness. Then there's Jun. Your stereotypical childhood friend character. However... The anime completely shafts him despite being listed as a main character! Kyou holds back some trauma, which makes him potentially interesting, but he's so unlikable that it's hard to even pay attention to whatever possible character development he faces. If you thought the relationships in other drama-heavy anime such as Domestic Girlfriend and School Days is toxic, just wait until you see this. It's not even the kind of dumpster fire that people want to see. It's literally walking into skunk spray. Artist/grader relationships are so uninteresting yet so toxic. To top this all off, they start introducing a ton of side characters that are as monotone and monochrome as possible. Any sense of character development that might have happened is ruined by how flat and dull all the main and side characters are.

So, that also brings art into the question; It has colors in its name, so it must be a visually appealing anime, right? WRONG Just look at Yuru Camp, another anime by the same studio. Literally a CGDCT about camping has more color and better visual quality than a visual arts anime with color in its name. Opus.COLORs uses some of the most monotonous color schemes out there. Every character looks like they're dulled out visually, and the same can be said about the backdrops. On top of the atrocious color scheme for what the anime's topic is, it also uses visually unappealing CGI. I'm generally not too critical of CGI in general, but having this on top of a story that's DOA and characters that make Nina Einstein and Hina Sato look well written, this just adds injury to insult. The CGI makes this already unbearable disaster of an anime literally unwatchable.

Given that this is an art-based anime, one would be forgiven to expect good quality music, but remember: this is Opus.COLORs, not Nana. It's not Bocchi the Rock either. It's just a garbage seasonal with uninspired music too (okay, may be calling it garbage is topo generous). While the voice acting from the cast isn't that bad, any positive here is completely drowned by the amount of other things Opus.Colors does wrong.

Do you enjoy watching paint dry? I mean, that's still technically art related because it involves paint. If you do enjoy watching paint dry, I have good news: this anime might just be for you. When your main cast is so boring and the anime fails to even make the viewer even want to know about the side characters, there's literally no enjoyment to be taken from this anime. it's the kind of anime you just watch while playing Minecraft or something while going autopilot with mining. Or, better yet,: let this anime run its runtime while reading some quality manga. I ended up doing both these things while trying to watch this anime.

A closing note:

Remember, this anime has colors in its name, yet it's outdone in color by a slow-paced CGDCT camping anime. This anime is one of the most soulless and painful anime I've ever had to sit through. I could have spent my time rewatching some actually good anime. I spent my time staying on top of this bullshit instead of Birdie Wing S2 all because I don't drop anime. When an anime is DOA with the story, there's not much that can be done. Just watch any other anime out there; this feels like they tried to string a whole bunch of bad MVs together.

Opus.COLORs is the worst case scenario for colorblindness ever.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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	Poll: Opus.COLORs Episode 12 Discussion tsubasalover - Jun 22, 2023	15 replies	by OberonFelsach »» Sep 7, 2023 11:01 AM
	Poll: Opus.COLORs Episode 10 Discussion tsubasalover - Jun 8, 2023	5 replies	by OberonFelsach »» Sep 7, 2023 10:02 AM
	Poll: Opus.COLORs Episode 8 Discussion tsubasalover - May 25, 2023	6 replies	by OberonFelsach »» Sep 7, 2023 9:12 AM
	Poll: Opus.COLORs Episode 7 Discussion tsubasalover - May 18, 2023	6 replies	by OberonFelsach »» Sep 7, 2023 8:36 AM
	Omg Why does this anime have an incredibly low rating? Vivian_Lira666 - Jun 15, 2023	10 replies	by Tofurtle-chan »» Aug 19, 2023 10:05 PM