Colorful (manga)

Colorful
The cover of the first volume of Colorful
カラフル
(Karafuru)
Genre Parody
Manga
Written by Torajirou Kishi
Published by Shueisha
Demographic Seinen
Magazine Weekly Young Jump
Original run February 1998 – December 2000
Volumes 7
Anime television series
Directed by Ryutaro Nakamura
Written by Kazuharu Sato
Music by Moka
Studio Triangle Staff
Licensed by
Original network TBS
English network
Original run September 6, 1999 – September 30, 1999
Episodes 16

Colorful (カラフル, Karafuru) is a Japanese manga series by Torajirō Kishi. It was eventually adapted into a 16-episode anime television series by Triangle Staff. The episodes are composed of vignettes typically involving men and teenage boys attempting to catch a glimpse of women's panties and/or look down their blouses. The episodes are fast-paced, experimental in animation, sound design and music, manic and very short, about seven minutes each, and filled with comedy. The show is rather ambiguous as to whether it supports the fetishes it deals with or not. The perpetrators within the show usually fail at their attempt to catch a glimpse, get caught in the act, or suffer Karmic retribution.

Anime fanatics tend to either love or hate the series as it is considered either wildly funny, or tasteless and depraved. Colorful shares similarities with Golden Boy in several ways: most notably the inclusion of one of the characters acting the toilet fetish of Kintaro Oe in one of the episodes.

The opening theme is "Boku no Taion wa 37.5 C." (僕の体温は37.5℃, "My temperature is 37.5 degrees") by Yūko Miyamura.

The English (U.S.) DVD was released on March 18, 2003 and was distributed by A.D. Vision. Some puns were left out of this dub, but were included in A.D.V. subtitles. One such pun involves Steve referring to his panties shots as "Japan's exotic upside-down Fuji".

Cast and characters

Colorful's cast is very varied with some characters only appearing once in the whole series. There are also several characters that make appearances across episodes.

Hirokawa and Itani are two freshmen at the University of Tokyo. They are perverts in their own way. Hirokawa and Itani are seen enjoying the wind blowing girls' skirts up and seeing their attractive English teacher showing them how to pronounce their L's and R's. Hirokawa shares an apartment with three people.
Hirokawa voiced by: Nobutoshi Hayashi (Japanese), David Matranga (English)
Itani voiced by: Yasuhiko Kawazu (Japanese), Tommy Drake (English)

Aki Yamamoto is the cute athletic star who is the coach's main focus for his fantasies. The show features clips of Yamamoto's face in between vignettes, either winking or with her name being printed all over the screen with "Yamamoto!" being said by multiple people in different ways.
Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese); Hilary Haag (English)

Steve is an American exchange student majoring in photography and cinematography at the University of Tokyo. He uses his cameras for voyeuristic panty shots.
In the manga, he is African-American; in the anime, he is white and wears glasses. Voiced by: Yūichi Nagashima (Japanese); Greg Stanley (English)

Kariya is a man with circular sun-glasses who usually steals things from unsuspecting people.
Voiced by: Daiki Nakamura

Shimoi Chino is the reporter for the TV show Psychic Spot (Channel 2 Night Beat in the dubbed version) whose main goal is to sit beside Barbara Walters on The View.
Voiced by: Nina Kumagaya (Japanese); Shelley Calene-Black (English)

Other characters

  • Fumihiko Tachiki as Yamamoto's Coach (Rob Mungle in the English dub)
  • Miho Yamada as Mademoiselle and Space Alien
  • Urara Takano as Pamela
  • Jamie, a friend of Steve seen only in episode thirteen.
  • Giant Schoolgirl, a giant female who only shows up in episode 12.
  • Prize A, the grand prize from a contest that Hirokawa and Itani entered. She was first seen with Hirokawa meaning he won. A similar Prize A was seen with Itani later on, but later left him. She shows up in Episode 15.
  • Prize B, the consolation prize from a contest that Itani wins. She is a two-dimensional anime standee with light green hair and gold eyes, wearing a provactive light pink dress. Prize B tries to do whatever she can to make Itani happy. However, he finds her annoying and sealed her up in a box against her wishes. Itani soon comes to appreciate Prize B after Prize A left him with debt. Prize B also shows up in episode 15.
  • T, a mysterious man who has supernatural powers. Shimoi did investigations on accounts of his former neighbors concerning him. Many refused to talk to her out of fear of retaliation from T.
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