Liz and the Blue Bird’s reimagined character designs and flatter colors perfectly reflect the film’s more grounded, intimate tone while also capturing the dreamy, fairytale feel of a seemingly endless period in life quickly coming to a close.

Futoshi Nishiya, the character designer for both this film and A Silent Voice, was one of the victims of the 2019 arson attack on Kyoto Animation.

There‘s a truly magical quality to his character designs that will be impossible to replicate. He will be greatly missed.

I started this little thread last night in an attempt to capture my thoughts about how much I adore Liz’s characters designs despite how drastically different they are from Sound! Euphonium, but I kept starting and deleting drafts because it felt like a near impossible task.