There is a much memed anime clip going around. You may recognize it below.

Toho Studio. WIT Studio. (2023). 【荒木哲郎×SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]：Hata Motohiro】『COLORs』／TOHO animation ミュージックフィルムズ. Youtube.

If you’ve looked beyond the memes, you might know that this is actually not from an anime series, but a music video for the song COLORs by Sawano Hiroyuki and Hato Motohiro. The anime stylings from the video are recognizable as the work of Toho Studios (Your Name, Jujutsu Kaisen) and WIT Studio (Attack on Titan, Spy x Family).

If you have not seen the original music video, it is worth a watch and a listen. What I do understand from three and a half minute animation is the dark haired protagonist’s fascination with the iconic pink-haired individual, and some sort of military situation that seems like a mix of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Extinction (2018). I don’t know enough to comment about the exploration of gender that occurs in the music video, but it is another prominent point, and element that many of the memes using the clip focus on. The translated lyrics do not do much more to elucidate the plot of the video, speaking only appreciating a unreachable and transient sense of beauty in another person.

If you have your own theories on the meaning of the animation and song, I’d love to hear them and I’m sure folks around these parts would too.