Iroduku: The World in Colors – Ep. 2

At this point, it’s down to the story of Iroduku as far as completely winning me over goes. The animators are very clearly doing their part here so it’s up to the people in the story department to do theirs.

Right now, I am really liking where things are going. After Hitomi sorts out the misunderstanding with Aoi, it appears that she’ll have to a wait a little while until her grandmother comes back. In the meantime, all of Hitomi’s ancestors (boy did they accept her presence just fine) decide she should go to school and thus transfers to the one she’ll inevitably attend in the future. Needless to say, it gets pretty awkward from here on out.

Despite Kohoaku still being offscreen, you actually get a good idea of what she must be like in her youth based on how everyone reacts to Hitomi. Apparently, Kohaku is quite the troublemaker as her magical experiments and escapades have damaged a lot of school property and made many afraid of magic. As a result, a lot of people meet Hitomi assuming she’ll be just as dangerous. It’s kind of a surprising development to see such preconceptions. I mean, we just saw a shop where people eagerly buy magical goods for their everyday lives. Then again, those products seem harmless and helpful while Kohaku apparently sounds like she could blow up the school if she tried. I’m curious if this the perception of magic will be a common theme in this story. If nothing else, I really like that we got to know more about a character who still has yet to actually appear.

Now, what actually makes Hitomi feel awkward though is when she’s asked to perform some magic and everyone in the school comes to watch. Apparently, Hitomi doesn’t really like using magic and hasn’t practiced a whole lot. If I had to guess, I think it may be connected to her becoming colorblind. Once she lost that sense and become disconnected with her emotions, it’s easy to imagine her not wanting to practice something as dazzling as magic. Even so, she gets rather embarrassed when she has to display her powers for everyone to see since magic is part of her heritage. While the people asking her ultimately apologize, it does seem like this plot thread is far from over, especially since Aoi personally encouraged Hitomi to practice again.

I’m really liking the relationship between Aoi and Hitomi. Despite their understandably rocky start, there is a compelling connection developing between them. Both seem to keep their practices (Hitomi’s magic and Aoi’s drawings) to themselves but they also show admiration to each other’s said practice. Frankly, it’s just the other characters that I need more convincing over. Right now, they all seem more stock than the leads currently are. At the very least, I can admit that I am starting to like them. I enjoyed watching Asagi (Kana Ichinose) welcome Hitomi to the school and Chigusa (Ayumu Murase) asking the latter to model for his pictures is a pretty funny gag.

As an aside, these classmates are part of the photography club and they all want Hitomi to join. I can’t help but find that awkward given Hitomi’s colorblindness.

The last two scenes of this episode really got me raising my eyebrows. Did anyone else notice that this anime didn’t exactly show Hitomi’s reaction to Aoi’s drawing? I mean, she is looking at it but that’s the thing. You just see her looking at the tablet. No drawings taking over the set and filling the world with various colors like last time. Perhaps that’s the point though. Just the image of her silently staring at the tablet sells how entranced she is with Aoi’s art. Admittedly, you could also interpret this as her not actually being able to see the colors but I don’t know, that just seems too depressing of a development to go with. Then, there’s the following moment where Shou (Seiji Maeda) catches Hitomi practicing magic. I’m curious as to why Shou is the one present. Maybe it’ll have something to do with the photography club? Or maybe Iroduku has a bit of a relationship chart going on?

Regardless, things are really shaping up with Iroduku: The World in Colors and I’m looking to watching more of this anime.

OP: “17-sai” by Haruka to Miyuki

Just a reminder that this anime is freaking gorgeous. Good Lord, P.A. Works is really bringing their A-game this season.

One aspect of the OP that I really enjoy is the transition between monochrome to color in the introductory shots. Just…wow.

ED: “Mimei no Kimi to Hakumei no Mahou” by Nagi Yanagi

Even just a handful of still images by P.A. Works looks great.

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