The Tiny Bird & The Colors



The Tiny Bird & the Colors (ことりとりいろいろのいろ, Kotori Tori Iro'iro no Iro; lit. "birdie bird [and] various colors") is a book mentioned in the Black★Rock Shooter anime. The book is stated to be about "a bird that takes people to a world of different colors".

Description
In Mato's world, it was clearly popular enough to merit having more than one edition printed, also suggesting that it may be a very old book.

Mato is extremely fond of this book, to the point where she reads it over and over again and has a phone charm of the eponymous Tiny Bird. Yomi Takanashi also seems to be interested; she has a copy of the first edition, and drew a picture based off of a picture on the cover of the first edition to serve as her phone wallpaper. She later sends this picture to Mato.

The basic description is that the bird traveled to many different worlds and absorbed colors into its wings, such as "the blue of tears", "the pink of sneezes", and the "orange of smiles". They made Tiny Bird's wings beautifully rainbow-colored. However, the bird still wished to travel to new worlds, and it eventually absorbed so many colors that they started to mix, making the wings more and more dull and black, so the bird died in the end.

All the main motives of the anime come from the book and it seems the most important item in the story along with colorful chain bracelets.

General Notes

 * It seems that "The Tiny Bird & The Colors" only use phonetic writing system, hiragana, despite the fact that usually Japanese is written with ideographic kanji for concepts and hiragana only for grammar endings, particles etc. It can suggest that "The Tiny Bird & The Colors" may be addressed to little children who are still learning to read kanji.
 * However, when Mato quickly writes "happier ending" in the book, she uses kanji for "white" (白, shiro) instead of its hiragana (しろ).
 * It seems that "The Tiny Bird & The Colors" hasn't much text per page and is mostly picture-based, which also suggests that the book may be adressed to children. An example can be seen when Mato looks at the page describing Tiny Bird's wings turning black and the bird itself falling down. ""...her wings turned black and it fell""

- 「やがてつばさは、くろになって おちる、ことりとり」


 * Once Mato stated that black actually belongs to the group of "various colors" within the "world of various colors". However, judging by the fact black appeared as an effect of mixing colors and before that happened the wings were colorful and bright, black may not be among the "various colors" (the bird either didn't recognize black as a color or haven't gone to any black world) and Mato made a mistake.

Colors


In-Anime References

 * The first words of the series are clearly refering to "Tiny Bird & The Colors" as they form a short poem about a little bird, the sky, the sea and blue. It's rich in repetitions with recombinations of the words. ""Little Bird flies in the blue sky. The sea reflects the blue of the sky. The blue of the sky is the sea of the sky. In the blue of the sky there are tears of the sky. In tears' blue the little bird flies.""

- 「ぶのはい. るはの. のもの. のにの. のにぶ. 」


 * Despite having some synonyms, words "iroiro" ("various"/"many colors") and "iron'na" (んな; "various") are often used in the series, mainly when refering to "The Tiny Bird & The Colors". Sometimes these words are used for puns with "iro" ("color").
 * At the first day at school, Mato describes Yomi as "colorful girl" (色んな色の女の子, iron'na iro no onna no ko).
 * When Mato invites Yomi to the festival, she says they will "iron'na mono miyo" (んなよ, see various things), Yomi repeates it as: "iron'na... iro" (んな…, various... colors).
 * Mato pays great attention to colors, as in the first episode, when she thinks about the fact that sky is blue and Yomi's skin is almost white. In the last one, Mato, as a narrator, uses a Homeric simile comparing the world to a mix of various colors. The monologue ends with the statement that accepting more and more "colors" make us more and more mature.""This world is so colorful. Bright colors. Warm colors. Sparkling colors. As well as dirty, lonely and sad colors. Colors aren't all wonderful. But even so, this world is beautiful! There are firends who laugh with you. There are many different colors and things... all of which we will accept one by one. We will accept them all and grow up. We will grow up in this world.""

- 「このにはんながある. しい. い. きらきらの. いや. しいや. しい. なりじゃないけど. それでも、このはっりだ！ があって. でいあって. んな、んながあるけれど… それでもつつけとめる. けとめて… つつにってく. こので… にってく. 」


 * After Yomi didn't go to a festival, Mato tells her that she really is "Takanashi" ("no hawks"), not "Kotoriasobi" (小鳥遊; "birdie play"). Then she shouts that she thought Yomi is a playful tiny bird who will take her to various colorful worlds but she was wrong about that. ""Takanashi... You surely are Takanashi. You're not Kotoriasobi! Takanashi-san, I thought of you as a little bird at play. A little bird that would take me to a world of many colors! But you're not a little bird at play! You're not a little bird at all! Because you don't go anywhere! Even though you should really be able to go to all kinds of worlds! That's not right! That's definitely not right!""

- 「さんは、やっぱりさんなんだ. じゃない！ さんの、だってった. をのにれてってくれる、！ でもじゃない！ さんはじゃない！ だってさんにけない！ は けるはずなのに！ そんなのしい！ しい！」


 * Mato thinks about herself as the Tiny Bird during the climax fight with Insane Black★Rock Shooter. A voice in her head says Tiny Bird is dead, but she responds that she can still remember colors so she will fly to see them. ""The Tiny Bird died." "But still..." "It died." "I remember colors..." "Died." "The colors... The blue sky! That's it. I will fly to see many different colors. And to fly, I'll...""

- 「ことりとりはんでしまいました」 「それでも…」 「んでしまいました」 「のが…」 「んで」 「が… い！ そうだ. はんなるにぶ. ぶには…」

Lingual notes

 * The exact translation of the book's title is "Birdie Bird, Various Colors" but it is translated in many ways, including "The Tiny Bird & the Colors", "Li'l Bird Li'l Bird Colorful Colors" and "The Little Multicolored Bird".
 * The generally accepted translation of the name "Kotoritori" is "Tiny Bird", but the exact meaning is "Birdie Bird" (when "Tiny Bird" is "kotori" alone).
 * In most of translations the bird is female (they use the pronoun "she"), though originally only the name is used concerning Kotoritori so its actual gender is unknown.
 * It seems that the book's style resemble a poem but most of the translation don't take some of its resources of language into account, for instance, in translations most of the sentences are usually full sentences, while originally they aren't.

Trivia

 * Yomi's phone wallpaper is avaliable for download in Goodsmile Company's mobile site.
 * Some of the colours described in the book, such as "blue of tears", the "orange of smiles", and the "red of anger" are the theme colors of the "other selves" which appear in the anime. However, "pink of sneezes" isn't one (though Chariot's land in the Otherworld is pink) and there are two anime "otherselves" theme colors which don't appear in the book: yellow and green.
 * There are two very popular Tiny Bird colors in its fandom: "Green of Pain" and "Yellow of Possesion". Their popularity may be caused by the fact that they are the only two which are needed to make a very well-fitting set of Otherselves' colors, including their characteristics.