TV REVIEW: LOVE THROUGH A PRISM

4/5

The Colour Of Love

20 Episodes. Starring: Atsumi Tanezaki, Koki Uchiyama, Megumi Han, Yōhei Azakami, Shogo Sakata, Yuki Kaji, Akari Kitō, Yūko Kaida, Junichi Suwabe, Sumire Uesaka & Hōchū Ōtsuka. Created By: Yoko Kamio. On: Netflix.

Love is the greatest art and early twentieth-century London serves as the compelling canvas for the new Netflix anime 'Love Through A Prism' from 'Boys Over Flowers' author Yoko Kamio (also adapted into a manga in the same month from 'Special A' student Maki Minami). Now, it's brushes over boys, or maybe not one, as a Japanese student from Yokohama heads to the Big Smoke to make her dreams of being the next Van Gogh, Matisse, or Hokusai come true. The voice of Anya Forger from anime megahit 'Spy x Family', Atsumi Tanezaki, plays the plucky lass, Lili, and you'll barely be able to recognize that it's her as she enters a great British school of art on the parental proviso that if she doesn't come top of her class within six months, she's to come back on the next ship heading for the port town that this writer now calls home in the Land of the Rising Sun.

If this all seems a little paint by numbers, then just you wait until you see the sketching pencil thrown into the blue paint works. Lili thought she already had her work cut out for her, from her literal fish pie mornings, to keeping up with a scholar (Hōchū Ōtsuka) who likes to quote Shakespeare more times than the Globe Theatre. But now she's literally met her match in the stoic Kit Church (Koki Uchiyama) who would rather break a pencil than crack a smile. But he'll offer you a piece of bread covered in charcoal, like he was a beggar on the streets running by the Thames he sketches, like the Houses Of Parliament. Now wouldn't it be something if our young Japanese exchange student fell in love with said passion project rival? Wanting Church to call Lili his one and only like The Smashing Pumpkins song for all this melancholy. You'll certainly fall in love with this amazing anime of brushstroke beauty. Big Ben looking bold as such, with some classic Cotswolds countryside takes to deliver you from the big city bluster.

There's even a Marks & Spencer's, like this was Hong Kong, for this Far East hit. Yet, it's when this London creative calling animation heads back home to Japan that things get really traditional for the iconic Japanese art form. Beautiful black and white stroking and serenading you to the pan crackling sizzles of the old film style, sounding like a needle has been dropped on a record. Ending this twenty-episode serial, that never gets old, with a Holy Trinity, heaven sent, big-three. There will be fireworks too, my new city is famous for them, as you'll never know quite where the paint will run in this anything but predictable plot. Voice actor stars Megumi Han, Yōhei Azakami, Shogo Sakata, Yuki Kaji, Akari Kitō, Yūko Kaida, Junichi Suwabe, Sumire Uesaka round out the rest of the cast in the pub that turns this all into one of the modern day's greatest art forms. With the blooming 'Star Flower' of Chilli Beans in closing, following Naoki 'naotyu-' Chiba's terrific theme. Through a prism of love, this has all the colours or rich vibrancy and life itself. Hang it in the grandest of galleries to look through. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Further Filming: 'Violet Evergarden', 'Kids On  The Slope', 'Miss Hokusai'.