The director behind one of anime’s saddest movies is here to break my heart again with this 2025 release

The Colors Within, a new anime film from A Silent Voice director Naoko Yamada, is hitting cinemas in January.

The coming-of-age story features schoolgirl Totsuko struggling with her unique talent: she ‘sees’ people and their emotions represented by a color – not too dissimilar to the ability held by Life is Strange: True Colors’ Alex, all told.

After meeting a girl – Kimi, who is depicted with a vivid shade of blue – she soon follows her passions and kickstarts a band with fellow loner Rui. As each of them find happiness in their newfound hobby, they begin to deal with the looming shadow of growing up and finding their place in the world.

As you can see from the trailer above, it all comes bundled with a wispy, dreamlike style of animation that fuses with color and music to create something truly special.

That should be no surprise given the talent involved: director Naoko Yamada is best known for her work on A Silent Voice, an intensely emotional feature involving a deaf woman re-connecting with her school bully after he considers suicide.

The Colors Within also includes “original music” by Kensuke Ushio, who composed the soundtrack for A Silent Voice and the likes of Chainsaw Man. To top it off, Science Saru (who are currently showing its skills on Dan Da Dan) is on animation duties.

Thankfully, this looks a little more life-affirming and a lot less soul-crushing than A Silent Voice – a film that takes pride of place alongside Grave of the Fireflies as one that’s probably too sad for me to ever watch again.

The Colors Within hits cinemas on January 24.

For more, check out our guide to new anime – and dive into all the latest on Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 and the Dragon Ball Daima release schedule.