I recently finished this film on BluRay, The Colors Within (Japanese: きみの色, Hepburn: Kimi no Iro, lit. 'Your Color') by Naoko Yamada.
Totsuko Higurashi (the main protagonist of The Colors Within) apparently has both synesthesia and possible color blindness. She perceives the world in a unique way that's hard to explain to others. She doesn't like to talk about it for fear of being judged "weird" by her peers. But new found friends Kimi and Rui accept her. Rui calls her ability "awesome".
In the dub I know it's not Laura Bailey but holy cow does her performance really echo the mannerisms of Tohru Honda (Fruits Basket) that make her adorable despite her klutzy nature.
I appreciate that the "concert scene" that is the climax of The Colors Within 
is an actual concert with multiple songs and not just one big banger to represent the entire concert...and they adapted all the songs into for the English dub! Now I can re-watch in subtitled form to enjoy them in Japanese as well. One of the tracks sounds straight up like Depeche Mode and that's so cool!
While it would've been a perfectly valid movie, in a way I'm glad The Colors Within did not go the route of "these teens are gay and sad and the church is going to crush their spirit."...I think the church gets off a little easy in the movie, only the Principal and Mother Superior are notable antagonists and not permanently so either. Instead it's the story of 3 awkward people finding each other and becoming friends who support each other.
There's a bit of a yuri tease between Kimi and Totsuko; I picked up on a bit of romantic longing by Totsuko for Kimi. She crosses herself for having sinful thoughts about Kimi at one point. But it's more of a background leitmotif than front and center.
Eh, on second thought, I'm being a little oblivious...the way Totsuko spaces out as she looks at Kimi and says "pretty!" before Kimi whacks her in the head with the game ball in dodgeball is kinda on the nose. You don't semi-stalk another girl all around town hitting up all the bookstores in the neighborhood hoping to find her behind the counter...just to be friends? ....that's PAINFUL romantic longing driving that! Has to be!
I don't know that Kimi feels the same way about Totsuko but she's willing to be her friend at least and liked her well enough to sneak over to her dorm and hang out having fun and eventually they huddle together in Totsuko's bunk bed....but wind up getting caught by one of the nuns when Kimi has to get up to pee and Totsuko escorts her to the bathroom down the hall.
Totsuko is lucky to have a mentor in one of the Nuns who at an earlier stage in her life was herself in a rock band as a teenager. She encourages Totsuko and her friends to explore their feelings through music and if they find and convey truth and beauty then such music can rightly be classified as a hymn.
Rui is the third member of the band, son of a woman doctor and expected to go to med school to take over the family clinic. But he loves music and especially enjoys playing the Theremin. He's sensitive and poetic.
The film is a really slow burn but I'm glad it has a positive message and is not the gut-punch tear jerker I feared it might be.
The film's creator was reportedly asked about the same-sex attraction possibility for Kimi and Totsuko and indicated while she really hadn't thought of it that way she was always fascinated by the myriad ways her film was interpreted by the audience and encouraged people's imaginations.
Anyway, Happy Pride 2025 to all LGBTQIA+ folks out there. Go enjoy this movie if you haven't seen it!
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