Colorful

Just when you had already blocked your agenda for March 20-24, we come up with yet another new date for which you will have to cancel your appointments.

On March 12 at 7:30 PM, Japan-Square is organizing a unique film experience in collaboration with Internationalisation@home of Ghent University: Keiichi Hara, the anime god behind Doraemon, the world’s most famous blue feline, will honor us with a film screening of his masterpiece Colorful (with English subtitles) and a Q&A interview afterwards. The topic of the evening: “Culture and Catastrophe: the social role of Japanese animation films in times of crisis”.

A unique event for every anime and film lover.

Unlike Doraemon and the title of the film, Colorful is not a film that could quickly end up on Nickelodeon. The film is too refined and socially engaged for that. Thanks to Hara’s masterful direction, the viewer is drawn into the world of “boku” (I) from the very first lines of the drawing. We learn how he gets a second chance at life after his suicide by reincarnating not only in the body but also in the life of Makoto, another young man who also ended his life at the age of 14. Gradually, the boy reaches his catharsis, and so does the viewer who, before he knows it, has made a piece of Japan his own.

Awards:

• Award for Excellent Animation of the Year at the 34th Japan Academy Prize
• Award for the Animation Film Award at the 65th
• Audience Award and Special Distinction prize at the 2011 Annecy International Animated Film Festival

All images: © 2010 “Colorful”