Colorful (2010 film)

Did You Know?

• The film won the award for Excellent Animation of the Year at the 34th Japan Academy Prize.
• It won the Animation Film Award at the 65th Mainichi Film Awards.
• It received the Audience Award and Special Distinction prize at the 2011 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

Plot

At the train station to death, a dejected soul is told he is lucky and will have another chance at life, though he does not want it. He is placed in the body of 14-year-old Makoto Kobayashi, who has just committed suicide by an overdose of pills. A neutral spirit named Purapura, appearing as a little boy, watches over him. The soul must discover his greatest sin and mistake from his former life before a six-month time limit in Makoto's body expires, and also understand what drove Makoto to suicide.

He finds Makoto disliked his family, feeling contempt for his father, an underdog at work forced to work much overtime, and hating his mother, who had an affair with a dance instructor while his father seems oblivious. His older brother Mitsuru has given up on him due to his moodiness and lack of friends. The girl he fancies, Hiroka, sells sex to older men for clothes and things. A weird classmate named Shoko becomes suspicious of his unusual behavior, so he avoids her.

After being mugged and beaten by delinquents, Shoko visits him at home, but he scares her off. Purapura later explains that Makoto will truly die after six months. However, when Makoto befriends Saotome, a boy who accepts outcasts as equals, he sees joy in life for the first time. They spend time together and begin studying for their high school entrance exam, something neither had ambition for before.