Let me set the stage just as the movie started us out with. We start out in the first person perspective of a person walking though a rather hazy looking transit room. It’s gloomy and almost has this strange grunge about the people and walls but there really isn’t anything that stands out. There is nothing to show where we are, who we are, or even why we are in a place like that. There is a strange gray boy standing in front of us and he tells us that we had won a chance to atone for our past discretions. It turns out we are in the land of the dead and if we do not atone for the things we did in our past, we will not be able to be reborn again into the land of the living. We are then forced by this little boy to possess a young boy named Makoto Kobayashi, a young boy who had committed suicide by overdosing on some pills. And here is where we are given a chance to fix things. Once our main character takes over Makoto’s life, we are finally given a third person perspective on all the things he does.
Now, given the way this story started out, you would think they would head more into the supernatural mystery side of the genre, wouldn’t you? Well, strangely enough, you would be wrong in that aspect. What we get is more of a modern day slice of life of a middle school boy who is just trying to get by. The only supernatural thing around him would be the strange ‘angel’ or the gray little boy who goes by the name of Purapura. Purapura tended to be more of an informational character to help us learn more about Makoto’s back story and sometimes ended up being sort of a conscience for the Makoto we follow. The most interesting part about all this is that our main character that was given no name before he was put into Makoto’s body actually seems like he is right at home after a while.
The amazing thing about this show is that it seems to dive into the psychology of a young boy having to go through a lot of tough times. We are given information from Purapura about the problems that Makoto had to go through. Things I would be very surprised a child could deal with on their own. He was bulled, had his crush seen going into a shady hotel with an older man, saw his mother having an affair, had a father who rarely was at home, an older brother who barely spoke to him, and just overall was alone with no friends. Looking at the psychological aspect of his life, it was no wonder he chose a way out. And in this, I guess it might be time to bring out a rather sad story of my own.
You see, I was a lot like this main character growing up. I had problems keeping friends, fought with my mother many times, had a younger brother who seemed to always belittle me as I am very bad when it comes to computers, and my father was always busy with work so I sometimes would rarely see him. I wasn’t exceptionally good at school although I wasn’t the worst one in the class and was always so sensitive about stuff that probably shouldn’t have bothered me. I started to cut myself to feel something different then the pain I felt inside, and even almost killed myself as well. I just felt alone for so long and couldn’t understand why. About a year ago, I was diagnosed with BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder, which helped to explain some of the reasons why I felt so out of touch with the world, but this was when I was 25 years old. For those 25 years before, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I think that because of my experience, I feel a bit more connected to the main character, or at least Makoto himself. In fact, there is a line in this show that might be considered a little bit of a spoiler, but its one that jumped out at me that became very dear to my heart. Our main character says this, ‘…People are not just monochromatic; they all have so many colors to them. It’s fine to have many beautiful colors… for a long time, I didn’t know my true colors and was at a loss.’ For someone with BPD, this stands out a lot as my different personalities feel like those different colors and it was hard for me to believe that it was normal to have them.
The artwork is really simple and mostly on the subtle side. We don’t get splashes of bright colors or the normal anime tropes of huge eyes, girls in small skirts, and even strange colored hair. In that way, I consider it more real life then most anime even if the design of the characters is bland. None of the characters really stand out though and sometimes get lost within the background including our main character. This would probably be a bad thing if the story didn’t seem to make more sense as to why he was lost within the world he seemed to be in himself. Even with this, there is a fine line between the world of the dead and the living as the world of the dead looked even more run down and depressing then the world of the living. The world of the dead looked hazy, with sort of this murky brown while the world of the living did have some sharper looking lines and was a bit cleaner to see.
The dubbed voices are… alright I guess. Again, they don’t stand out just as the characters don’t really stand out that much. I think that the lip sink is fairly good at some parts of the show while in other parts they seemed to lose it. I blame the fact that when the character is overly distort, their mouth tends to move much more freely and seem to express their words fuller. The words they are saying in the movie are actually from the Japanese sound track I believe so it can tend to lose it when it was transferred over to the dub. Still, with all those problems, the dubbed voice actors did a really good job putting Emotion into their characters. I was extremely surprised when I found out that Greg Ayres did the voice of Makoto because he was able to get the right soft of tone for a boy who had not hit puberty yet was not annoying when he got so emotional.
So this show might be a bit boring for those who love fast passed stuff or those that are really into the supernatural aspect, but I still think this is a show that many people should watch at least once. The show has a really beautiful story to it and a very deep meaning that really needs to be explored. In this way, you might actually be able to see why everyone is so colorful and except who you are.
