Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing, from GKIDS

In the Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage “rhythm game,” virtual singers are sort of like the literary characters who come alive in Twilight Zone episodes, except it is a relatively common phenomenon. Supposedly, if real-life singers perform with enough emotion, they can bring their virtual collaborators to life and even join them in “Sekai,” special dedicated rooms in the dimension between the IRL and virtual worlds. Weirdly, several bands and their virtual “Mikus” encounter a mysterious new Miku who cannot connect musically in Hiroyuki Hata’s anime feature, Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing, produced by animation house P.A. House and released by GKIDS, which starts a limited 4-day theatrical release today.

Move over Minecraft, because Hata and screenwriter Yoko Yonaiyama managed to adapt a game not unlike Guitar Hero or old-fashioned karaoke. However, there was a large cast of pre-existing characters whom Yonaiyama assumed the audience would already know. There is a bit of catching up to do, but astute viewers will hopefully pick things up as they go.

Several bands have connected with the own virtual collaborators in their specific Sekai. For Ichika Hoshino that would be Hatsume Miku, who is about the purest incarnation of a j-pop idol as you could envision. One day, she also encounters a new Miku, who looks somewhat similar, but is much less self-assured. She seems to travel through digital screens, producing static and distortions. Ironically, the frustration caused by her service disruptions makes new Miku’s challenge to connect on an emotional level even more difficult.

Nevertheless, the four bands she reaches out to do their best to help, but they cannot coordinate their efforts, because the alternate Miku communicates with them on different wavelengths, or something like that. They feel for her and the creators she is supposed to be attuned with. Unfortunately, the real-life people hardwired to her Sekai cannot reach it, because they are all mired in states of creative and emotional crisis. In fact, their aggregated depression could drag the new Miku down as well.

It bears repeating, the rules of the Colorful Stage world are a tad confusing for newcomers, but that is the general idea. Regardless, it is pretty impressive how Hata and Yonaiyama built a full feature length narrative out of a smart-phone game that previously spawned a dozen or so ultra-mini anime webisodes.

While there are some thematic similarities with Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle, Colorful Stage! The Movie serves up some interesting world-building. In fact, it would nicely fit with Belle, Summer Wars, The Matrix, Tron, and World on a Wire in film series exploring the porous border between the physical and digital worlds.

It also stays true to its roots, using musical as an important story-telling and character-development tool. If you enjoy various forms of j-pop, electronic music, and “Vocaloid” music, Colorful Stage! The Movie will be like your Woodstock. The animation is also quite lovely, comparing quite favorably to the work of many big-name anime filmmakers. Again, distinctive characterization is the one area in need of improvement. Ironically, the most fully realized persona is that of the new Miku, who is an artificial digital construct.

Regardless, this is definitely one of the better game-derived films. It looks great and never expresses a whiff of cynicism. Highly recommended for J-pop and virtual idol fans, Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing screens in theaters 4/17-4/20, including the AMC Empire in New York.