Colors ✨

Now Playing: "17-sai" by Harukatomiyuki

[a complete lie i'm not listening to this right now i think i would totally be overwhelmed w/ emotions if i heard this atm LOL
but i looped it a lot before and love this song and the visuals to death ugh play this at my funeral pls]

Earlier this week I finally finished the 13 episode run of probably my new second-favorite anime, Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara (aka Iroduku: The World in Colors) 💖💖💖 First will always be Tsubasa Chronicle haha.

I really feel like this anime was made specifically for me!!! There's too many specific things about it that I particularly love or can identify with—it's such a treat for both the eyes and the soul. In a previous post I already talked about how much I'm completely whipped for every single aesthetic/conceptual/thematic aspect of this show: the magic, the colors, the photography, the magic shop, the children's book illustrations, the sparkly star sand, the wholesome friendships and gentle romance... All of it is what makes up the atoms in the deepest crevices of my half-frozen heart. 

It brings back so much of what I loved as a child, and what I want to keep within me, and I realized that that might be why I'm unwilling to re-brand myself despite my alias "waterpixieva" being from 15+ years ago. That's something I just thought of today, that maybe I don't want to "grow out of" being the person who identified as Water Pixie. ;o; I already mentioned this in my other post but felt like writing about it again: my childhood character Water Pixie owned a magical healing potion shop! And also was a part-time leader of a spy agent team but that's unrelated to anything LOL. In elementary school, my dream was to be a children's book author and illustrator, and then turn my Pixies stories into an animated series. This vague sense of direction helped push me towards working in video/audio production and I also feel a strong connection to photography as I grew up always equipped with a camera and devotion to capturing memories.

Now that I've finished the series I realized that the overarching theme is really about the protagonist Hitomi breaking out of her shell. The story begins with her living in gray—literally as she's colorblind but also emotionally since she's very guarded, is pessimistic, unconfident, cannot smile, is socially isolated, and hates that she's a mage. Her journey is about discovering the beauty and colors in the world and in herself, and I feel this really resonates with my own journey in the past few years... ;;

...to become a brighter and warmer person, be less embarrassed and more expressive about being myself around people, to be able to pull myself out of pessimistic thoughts, try to find and cherish those little sparks of happiness everyday, to no longer feel bored of the world/of living, to notice wonderful things in my surroundings and in my life. ✨

I always think back to this blog post from 2017 (a year and a half before Irozuku aired!) in which I write about my coworker who marveled at how cool the clouds looked that day!!!! I envied her shining interest in the world, her ability to see beauty in things that I found to be mundane and uninspiring. "I realized that maybe I'm not necessarily bored of life... I'm just not paying enough attention to life?" In my quest to change, one of my challenges to myself was to pay more attention to colors around me! (Are we sure Irozuku wasn't written specifically for me?) I remember to do this from time to time when I'm feeling impatient; it's an ongoing challenge. In fact I'm still working on all of those things I listed earlier but I think I've still come a long way ❤

Anyway, here are some more screencaps I've saved from Irozuku hehehehe I want to do a rewatch just to save more pretty frames!