Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing (Japanese Name: Project SEKAI the Movie: Kowareta SEKAI to Utaenai MIKU) is an anime film and the first in the Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! franchise. It was released on January 17, 2025 across various movie theaters in Japan and got its Indian release on August 29, 2025. It is inspired by the Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! (Project Sekai Colorful Stage Feat. Hatsune Miku) rhythm game, which originally launched for iOS and Android on September 30, 2020 before getting a Western release in December 2021. It is a spin-off of Sega‘s Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA series and features a few other virtual singers, such as Kagamine Rin and Len, in addition to Miku.
I am certainly not the biggest Hatsune Miku fan, but I would say that I am somewhat conversant with the franchise. I have listened to far too many Vocaloid songs. But in case you are like me, I can confidently say: We are not the target audience of this film. Rather, Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing is a film targeted at one audience and one audience only: The players of a game called Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage.
The film does not waste any time trying to explain the setting or introducing the characters – which soon becomes a problem. It was well into the runtime before I was able to work out the fundamental premise of the world: that different groups of young musical artists in different genres can transport themselves to their own pocket worlds with their own distinctive versions of Miku and her vocaloid friends. However, when you leave out the multiple variations of the Vocaloid characters, even the five bands featured in the movie mean that there are more than 20 human main characters to track and the film is not bothered to alternate between them apparently at will.
It is more than an understatement to say that it is a lot to take in all at once. I can’t recall a single name or anything about them other than their appearance, even after watching the film start to finish. Naturally, people who played Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage enough would not experience these problems; they would already know the world and characters and seeing them in full beauty of the animation would certainly be a rare treat. That is why I say that the film is targeted at the game players rather than your average Miku fan.
But that does not mean that the film is inaccessible. The storyline is quite simple. Instead of focusing on any one given band, each of them (blissfully ignorant of the others), is confronted with a new Miku-one of a broken world with no human guests. This Miku has been trying to reach out to humans who need her to make them feel like they are not alone through her songs, only to come out a garbled static on their screens. When she meets the different bands, she attempts to have each of them teach her to connect to people emotionally with her music, just like all of them, in the hope that one day she can similarly do that.
Thematically, the film revolves around reaching out to those in need and how those individuals tend to drive away the people surrounding them. Giving up on a dream can be so much more of a lonely affair and as Broken-World Miku desperately attempts to reach out and tell these people that they are not alone-you cannot care about those who are not interested. It must be the right person at the right time reaching out to have any chance of success. Fortunately, Broken-World Miku herself might not be able to achieve anything on her own, but there are five groups of her new friends who are ready to assist.
We can safely say that music is an essential part of being human. It reaches out to all of us, on an emotional level and can change our moods in a way few other things can. But it is also closely related to personal tastes. One song can be so very close to one man, and a derivative drivel to another. In this way, the culmination of the film is that each band appropriates the song of Broken-World Miku and constructs their own song-attempting to express the message of her song in their own language and their own musical style.
The result of this is the musical highlight of the film. We receive the interpretation of the song performed by Miku in the styles of hip-hop, idol music, hard rock, children’s music and old fashioned Vocaloid music video. It is impressive-particularly considering that the movie is full of excellent music (as you would expect of a Hatsune Miku production of any sort).
The film is not the most beautiful project that P. A. Works has ever produced, but it looks darn beautiful. The animation is extremely detailed and does fantastic work in presenting the real world as well as the different Miku pocket worlds. Light and shadow are brilliantly used and the character designs are so different that, even with the huge cast, one can’t possibly confuse one character with another.
The film takes some inspiration from Miku’s real disappearance incident. Of how she is unable to reach others through singing and disappears; it made me think of the incident. The parts where the groups all make songs for her made me think of others who made fanart and songs to bring Miku back from her disappearance.
The most remarkable thing is the musical climax of the film. In many similar anime, the big concert scene switches from traditional 2D to 3D animation to perfectly reproduce the singers’ movements. However, this film preserves the 2D animated appearance in the entire film-even in this huge scene with elaborate dance choreography and creative camera work. It is remarkable and not a thing I am used to seeing in anime today.
In the end, Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing, is an anime film that has excellent music, animation, and a simple, thematically poignant plot-that shoots itself in the foot by its complete refusal to make any concessions to a person who has not played Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage. I truly envy those who play that kind of game and can watch this movie. Having the world and character backstory fully realized beforehand should make this film even more enjoyable. But managing over 20 new characters, trying to learn the rules of the world as you go… which you expect a mere viewer to do anyway… that is too much. Nevertheless, even without any other suggestion, I would suggest that one should grab the sound-track to this film; it is really good. Bookmark our website for more amazing content!
Final Score: 7/10
