Stark700

Watching Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara (Iroduku) is like a taking a journey into a storybook adventure. But in that adventure, there’s magic, creativity, and feelings that’s hard to be put into words alone. Produced by P.A. Works, I had high expectations for Iroduku considering their recent lineup. Being a powerhouse studio, P.A. Works has always captivated me with their wealth of ideas. From school life dramas to a dark thriller about vampires, this studio continues to establish themselves with their creativity. To my delight, Iroduku turned out to be yet another show that made me realize how an original anime should be done. Believe me,this seemed like a hit or miss in the beginning that looked like an average modern teen soap opera. However, I would say not to judge too fast as the premise itself possesses great potential for a storyteller. From the beginning, we are introduced to the city of Nagasaki where magic is also part of normal life. We meet main female protagonist Hitomi Tsukishiro who happens to be a 17 year old descendant from a family of witches. What we know about her early on is that she has a disdain towards magic. It’s because she lost her sense with colors and also became distant with people. The plot involves her grandmother Kohaku who decides to send her 60 years into the past so they can reconnect. To be honest, this show became a modern fantasy about self-discovery even with the time travel gimmick. At the center of it is Hitomi Tsukishiro. I’ll say right off the bat that the show will test a bit of the audience’s patience. The pacing in the beginning is slow and doesn’t jump over itself to sell its core concepts. But that’s not really a negative of the show. I came to realize that the directors wanted to help the characters grow especially with important relationships. From the first few episodes, it’s shown that Hitomi is not a sociable person and finds it difficult to open herself to others. That soon changes when she meets Yuito Aoi and the photography club. Through their influence, Hitomi begins to climb out of her shell. For some reason, Hitomi is also able to see Yuito’s colors in his drawings. This is important as it enables the both of them to connect on a more personal level. Indeed, Iroduku shines best when it’s able to capitalize on the character relationship development. Hitomi and Yuito is a prominent example. The show commits to developing their relationship from strangers to close friends. It felt like the creators wanted us to experience both of their character growth alongside them. Significantly enough, Hitomi does develop from a withdrawn witch girl into a more mature woman. This is thanks to the positive influence of Kohaku Tsukishiro, who also joins the Photography Club later on. What I find interesting about Kohaku is her outgoing personality and loyalty to her friends. From the beginning, she seems like the opposite of Hitomi and is easily open to others. At the same time, she’s also a bit of a troublemaker for her experiments with magic at school. While I can’t say she is a flawless character, Kohaku brings in a lot of hope for character development. Hitomi begins to regain her sense of magic but also able to make new friends. It’s a very simple and acceptable way to see her character growth. Now you may be questioning yourself if this show contains romance as part of its storytelling. While the show itself isn’t adamant on building romance, it does exist in some ways. As the story progresses, it seems Hitomi develops some feelings towards Yuito and vice versa. Their photography club president Shou Yamabuki also begins to show an attraction towards Hitomi. Meanwhile, there’s Asagi Kazeno in the club who has an obvious crush towards Shou. You get the idea. Not to mention, misunderstandings ensue early in the series when Kurumi (vice president of the photography club) took a video of Hitomi coming out of Yuito’s room. Romance angles exist in the show but really doesn’t overshadow the story’s flow. P.A. Works have been known to make anime with romance content that can get be stale and overly sensitive. Thankfully, Iroduku isn’t the case even though it exists. Still, the big question to ask yourself is what’s the most you can get out of this show? At best, this show works in wonders as a character driven story with a creative modern fantasy atmosphere. Every character in the show brings something to the table for their role. The show’s main push though is Hitomi for her character growth and self-discovery. Whether you like it or not, the story focuses on her growing with more self-confidence and plays a central part in regaining her sense of magic. She even gets on better terms with characters like Asagi after the two understands each other more. Meanwhile, we also get some unique symbolisms. The most prominent one is the golden fish that symbolizes hope. Not only does Hitomi finds her own world now, she also grows to accept magic. This is also thanks to Kohaku’s presence as she wants to make her granddaughter happy. Magic plays a role and she wants Hitomi to experience the best out of it. As you may expect, the show also contains time travels tropes. But really, this isn’t a show about fixing the past but rather about changing a character in a positive way. I’m probably going easy on this show in some ways but everything felt like it flows so well from start to finish. From Hitomi joining the photography club to experiencing cultural festival together with friends, P.A. Works manages to sell this series as a modern coming of age fantasy. Even if this show isn’t your cup of tea for its drama, the technical content is a feast for the eyes. P.A. Works once again manages to showcase their talent with high level production quality. It’s very well polished that makes the show itself look like a work of art. It’s easy to also accept the show as a modern fantasy with the relaxing setting and lush backgrounds. Magic itself is portrayed in aesthetic style with blending of unique colors. As it’s part of the plot, the show’s visuals manages to capture the essence of that at its finest. My only pet peeve is the character expressions. An easy finger to point at is Hitomi for having the same face for the majority of the show. I get the creators wanted to portray her as a withdrawn girl in the beginning but it’s hard to sometimes feel empathic about her on the surface. This is a contrast to pretty much almost every other character. As you may also expect, this show is very melancholic especially during some of the more emotional episodes. The theme songs reflects that as well along with voice mannerism in those cases. There’s probably countless ways to accept this show but the simplest way is to embrace the character growth of the main protagonist, Hitomi. My initial impression of the show grew from a story about magic to how characters can change thanks to others’ influence. Character relationships play a big role for its ability to capture the significance of their growth. Once again, P.A. Works shows how valuable their original anime can be. And to me, I can’t help but recommend Iroduku for those who wants to experience more.

LaLeLuLiLo

I feel that it’s safe to say that all stories in some essence are contrived. I mean these are works of fiction, fake stories concocted by a writer/s imagination. From characters, settings, plot conventions, conveniences, and anything else under the sun, the writer has full control to manipulate them however they wish. Of course this is only looking at a work in a very reductionist point of view. Because even if they are contrived, most don’t give off the air or feel of being one. Due to the fact of the creators embellishing their stories that makes their characters more compelling, thesettings having a sense of place, and for the plot to come off as more “naturel”. Why is all this important? Well because Irozuku seems to be in conflict with two different elements, with one being the tale of self growth as a character and the other being a magical time travel romantic melodrama. From the start off it’s easy to see that there was a good amount of effort put into the visuals of the show. With a show with the name color in its name, it does make sure to bring it to the screen with a vibrant color pallet being applied to almost everything. However sometimes the vibrancy doesn’t work in it’s favor when it comes to the characters as they come of as glossy making them at time look a bit plastic like. What also doesn’t help for their characters is their designs, at least their faces. While i’m kind of fine with most shows and their minimalist design of the faces this show takes a it a small step more that ends up being to far. With the nose being far to small, and thanks to the glossy look of the show almost non-existent, and that could also play in part with now the eyes looking a bit far apart from the face that they start to look like fish people. Anyway the main story is about Hitomi, a girl from the future, where magic is commonplace and not the type where technology is advance that it’s like magic, but actual magic. Due to her very strained relationship with her mother, she has lost the color in her life. I don’t mean in a metaphorically melancholic way, but she has honestly become monochromatic colorblind. Then her grandmother comes and has some inkling of how her granddaughter feels and then she just sends her to the past, after which this series of events happen. Hitomi wakes up in some guys empty room, she “secretly” leaves but forgets her earing, she is seen by some people who happen to be the friends of the guy living in the room, she realizes she lost her earring, she finds the guy who lived in that room with her earing, and finally the guys drawing are the only thing that Hitomi can see in color, and mind you that this is just the first episode. It’s not all the small conveniences that are the problem, but how they constantly stack up on one another that makes them so forced and so contrived. Events like these happen every once in a while in the show, and across multiple episodes that it is easy to be taken out of the experience that it is trying to sell. Now i’m not going to get into the whole time travel thing since that’s a whole beast i don’t care enough to go into it, other than it’s just kind of dumb. The magic i don’t mind as much and i’m fine having it be somewhat ambiguous. However it’s obvious how these are used as plot devices and probably the main vehicle why so many parts of the story just feel so forced. It just leaves lingering questions of why the creators of this work would go to such lengths to create such extraneous plot lines for a show about personal growth. Sure this is an anime original and it was trying to be original in its premise from other derivative Japanese high school anime. But that’s just how far they went, only the premise. Since outside of the whole magic and time travel thing all that’s left is a dull school romantic melodrama. None of which are bad elements but the show does nothing to make them work in its favor. There’s not much about the romance that makes it really endearing or compelling. Especially with how all the characters are “coupled up” with the main couple, the childhood friends, and the other two. None of them are in actual relationships with each other but the show still makes a point to make it overtly obvious. Even when there’s romantic conflicts which make up most of the melodrama portion. Most of it is just eye rolling and annoying and makes me internally scream, "get on with it already"! These problems probably had more to do with the characters themselves. There’s not really much to them when it goes to characterization and personality since it’s rather basic and on the surface and the few who do have some character development, it’s also rather basic and isn’t really that well done. There’s not much about them that makes them really compelling. Even the main character and her developing from her angst into a better person in end is still a dull character. Now the whole show isn’t that bad. The theme of self growth is rather consistent across the show and it does have moments that are rather good and touching. It even hits a really good stride during the last two or three episodes, even if it’s undermined by more plot contrivance. The production value is fine even if there are some poor decisions with the directing of the show like when it the POV of Hitomi but from her perspective she can still see color and then a few seconds later it turns to monochrome to make a point that she’s color blind in case it wasn’t obvious enough times. In the end there’s not much that is worthwhile about this show. With a cast of just boring 2-dimensional characters. A plot that could have gone down a more simpler road while still maintaining it’s core theme, but opted for a more convoluted yet easily convenient one. There’s not much that hides the intrinsic contrivances of the story. Maybe the show should have upped the plastic look of the characters so the writing could have something to match with.