Reviews

The theme of transience is often expressed in Japanese culture as "mono no aware." For the uninitiated, mono no aware is roughly translated as "the pathos of things," a Zen mood essential to several Japanese traditions, such as hanami (cherry blossom viewing). Both Ozu and Shinkai heavily transmit the concept, but one of my favourite examples of mono no aware in cinema is in Edward Yang's Yi Yi. There's a part in which NJ, the father of the Jian family on whom the film focuses, spends a whole 24 hours exploring Tokyo with his ex-lover during a business trip. They walk through a shrine, by the beach, on the streets, all the while catching each other up on their lives since they had last been together and, eventually, talking over their past romance, its dissolution, and the resulting emotional trauma. It's a brilliant illustration of mono no aware, as even though the two reflect on the past, they are portrayed in this time as their selves, in the current, in their respective lives, having grown apart. Irozuku attempts to arouse this same wistful projection of the past onto the moment of the now in a very strange, roundabout manner.

The premise of Irozuku is convoluted in the sense that it combines two frameworks, time traveling and school life, as a means to a telos not commonly seen in either. The two employ elements already at odds with each other. Time travel imbues a story with dramatic irony and direction by establishing an ending inherent in the beginning: the audience knows the time traveler must inevitably return to their timeline. School anime tend to be slice of life comedies, which is a genre known for being relaxed and intentionally aimless. Perhaps, when watching Irozuku, you might wonder: "Where is this going?" For most of its run, the show does indeed feel directionless, to the point where the thematic components seem haphazardly stitched together, but by the final episode, it's made apparent that the colour motif, the magical time travel setup, and the aimless pacing all serve a purpose.

Colours, or the concept of, are undoubtedly the selling point of the show as they are the root of Hitomi's internal conflict. With such seemingly obvious symbolism, the gut reaction is immediately to decode it. However, Irozuku is a little shrewd, and the most obvious readings (depression, emotions, love, etc.) are red herrings on closer inspection. Colours don't really "represent" anything in particular; they serve as a visual cue to the audience that Hitomi is unable to experience. Full stop. Her complete achromatopsia severs her from experiencing the phenomenon of the moment. She's so wrapped up in her own preconceptions of her relationships with others that she is unable to see colour (and by extension, she is also unable to produce magic, which is viewed in this universe as a means to help, and thereby connect with, other people). It's a dramatic manifestation of her psyche, but intelligible nonetheless. Theoretically, this show wouldn't have worked as a book, since the visual euphemism is so crucial. During scenes in which we see through Hitomi's eyes, the contrast of the vibrant palette against the monochromatic world enhances the exuberance of the moment by sucking the audience into the graphic instant.

The knowledge that Hitomi must return to the future by the end is kind of a wink to the audience about the ephemerality of youth. We know that Hitomi's time with the Magic Photography Arts Club is limited, which makes the experience much more somber. Yet she ultimately finds meaning in her time with the club, and the fruits of her time traveling emerge in the final episode in which she and her elderly grandmother Kohaku "reminisce" about their shared school days. This uncanny, almost bizarre scene conflates Hitomi's past and present self quite literally; the 60-year-old photos of Hitomi with the Magic Photography Arts Club are skimmed by present day Hitomi, who has only aged a couple of weeks since then. The juxtaposition of Kohaku's genuine nostalgia against Hitomi's newfound awareness for her own "present" evokes plaintive rumination in a manner suggestive of the mono no aware of the aforementioned scene from Yi Yi.

The endgame of catharsis you expect from a show like this isn't really the point, rather the point is that the individual moments matter even though you know there will eventually be an end to them, as youth is in fact fleeting. That's why the banal, slice of life events that actually happen in the show seem like they weren't "going anywhere": they weren't. The romances, the hangouts, the club affairs, none of it really matters in regard to building up to a narrative climax. What matters is that they actually happened so Hitomi had something to look back at sentimentally and feel like she truly enjoyed experiencing.

Unfortunately, the stories comprising Hitomi's experiences in the past aren't very engaging, or at the very least, I'm unable to recall most of them. There were a couple of memorable moments, like the scene in which the club runs across a bridge in an attempt for a photo op with a night cruise, or even some of the mundane shots of some of the characters walking and talking against the streetlit night. But these glimpses into transient youth were few and far between. Most of the vignettes were too goal-oriented and relied too much on tired school cliches, which is a poor decision when the bulk of the narrative relies on such moments. Maybe Irozuku's aimlessness would have felt more justified had it more moments of genuine humanity.