The director behind one of anime's most extraordinary films manages to completely subvert my expectations with latest coming-of-age adventure: "Having a secret was really important"

The Colors Within is full of the same soft, pink harmony that a rosebud exudes while opening – in its initial scenes, there is a flower on the chapel floor, and then we watch a girl's braids as she talks to God. In just these seconds, as protagonist Totsuko prays for peace, I knew that A Silent Voice director Naoko Yamada's latest film was about to become one of my favorites, but I couldn't have predicted how sunnily it refreshes the retread topic of coming-of-age.

In hindsight, I should have. The movie, which is out now, is as sweetly original as the gum-wrappered insides of a high school student's locker; Catholic school girl Totsuko doesn't quite have synesthesia, but she sees people's colorful auras. Kind, spiritual, and a little bit of a dummy, Totsuko is lost until she starts a band with her blue-green friends Kimi and Rui, a "music otaku," Yamada said through a translator at The Colors Within's New York premiere, who happens to play the theremin – teen stuff.

"There's really no name for why [Totsuko] is this way," Yamada tells us through a translator during an interview conducted ahead of the Animation is Film Festival in October 2024. "It's really just how she sees the world, and how she relates to other people. [...] I was hoping it would be an opening into helping audiences realize something about themselves, like, 'Oh, when I talk to people, this is where I get this feeling.'"

Watching The Colors Within, I was moved by how much I related to Totsuko in unpredictably tiny ways. Like the protagonist, who bounces around with hair rendered wheat-gold by Yamada's pastel-colored brush, I was raised Christian, with an emphasis on expression and feeling God in your heart. Totsuko and I both sing and pray for the orbit of the planets, ice cream, and even the snowfall sway of Gisele, a ballet I love that I was surprised to discover Totsuko loves, too.

This is the power of specificity. Though many coming-of-age movies strive for universal relatability with blanket facts – gym class, mean dad, best friends – I found The Colors Within so emotional because its characters couldn't be mistaken for anyone else.

"With an original [film]," Yamada, who's worked extensively on manga adaptations like K-On!, explains to us, "I have to create something from scratch, be the biggest fan of it myself, and then make it. [It's a] big hurdle, because if I start to think, 'Oh no, of course it's not going to be interesting, because it came from me,' there's no way I could sell it to my staff. So I think I put in a lot of effort into [...] looking at myself objectively."

Though it's perhaps an unintended byproduct of her process, Yamada's characters in The Colors Within strive for confidence in a similar way to what she describes. At the film's New York Japan Society premiere this week, Yamada said she wanted the film to embody "the courage to say, 'This is what I like.'"

That kind of clarity can be difficult or embarrassing for anyone, but especially for The Color Within's awkward protagonists. Though the music they play – composed by DanDaDan soundtrack creator Kensuke Ushio – has so much sparkly spirit, Totsuko, Kimi, and Rui hesitate to tell anyone about their band practices out of fear of punishment or judgement. Even so, "Having a secret was really important" to the trio, Yamada said, "because to have the courage to reveal that secret was a really important step in the characters' lives."

In their own shy way, the teenagers eventually learn to form their identities like seaglass, bright little fingers of patience, resilience, and surrender. And, by reminding me of my adolescent self – who I still carry with me like a shiny, holy penny – The Colors Within imbued me with resilience, too.

I never expected it would; coming-of-age movies are ubiquitous, and though I love similarly girly anime series like Nana, I so rarely feel understood by a genre overrun with super samurai and caricatures of women.

But my childhood is as true as it was confusing. Remembering it, and the potential I felt life had then, through Totsuko was motivation I didn't know I needed to stay hopeful as a sleepy adult.

"Adolecense is a time when both your heart and your body are not fully grown, so there's so much possibility." Yamada said in New York. "And I think that's really beautiful."

See The Colors Within in theaters starting January 24, then unwind with the 25 anime series you should be watching in 2025.