Flying Colors

Sayaka Kudo is in middle school but has no friends. She is socially anxious and often bullied by her classmates. She has two younger siblings; brother Ryuta and sister Mayumi. Her father only focuses on Ryuta who he thinks will one day become a baseball superstar. The sisters are often left alone with their mother who takes great care of them. All of Sayaka’s classmates have a dream in life. She, however, wants to do nothing. Because of her lack of ambition, she is not good at studies either. One day, Sayaka gets hit on her head with a ball in the playground. Her mother is called by the principal and told that they cannot teach someone like Sayaka in the school.

The teachers think she is suffering from some kind of mental illness and needs to go to a special school. Sayaka’s mother begs them to give her daughter a second chance but her words go to waste as the principal dismisses her. While returning home, Sayaka sees two schoolgirls walk past them. She comments that their uniform is pretty and hence is admitted to the same school. Sayaka is nervous on her first day of school, scared that the new classmates will bully her like the old ones. But to her surprise, everyone is nice to her, especially a group of three girls who befriend her instantly. They make her fold her skirt to make it shorter so it would look better.

 They also do her makeup and hair in the washroom and welcome her to their group. As the girls grow up, they transform into gyaru, a person who follows western traditions, typically dyes their hair blonde, and wears revealing clothes. They frequently dress up, party, drink, and smoke, completely disregarding their studies. Their homeroom teacher Mr. Nishimura scolds them every day and believes that they will certainly not get into college. Most days, Sayaka returns home in the morning when her father and brother are exercising outside the house. The relationship between her and her father has become non-existent with time. He only talks to her when he has to scold her while she ignores him entirely. Her mother, however, is always on her side and supports her, even though she doesn’t understand her lifestyle. Sayaka’s life changes on the first day of sophomore year.

That is when Mr. Nishimura discovers a hidden packet of cigarettes in her school bag. She is immediately sent to the principal’s office to face the repercussions of her action. Her mother is called and briefed about all of Sayaka’s shenanigans. She begs the principal to let her daughter stay, arguing that the school’s job is to teach its weakest students, not profit off the smartest ones. On her repeated request, they agree to let Sayaka off with a month of suspension. Since Sayaka has all the time in her hands, she dyes her hair blond. Her mother suggests she try to get into a university. She genuinely believes that if Sayaka tries, she can do it. To prepare her for her university entrance examination, Ms. Kudo sends her to Seiho Cram School. The teacher Tsubota is shocked to see someone like Sayaka interested in being tutored by him. He motivates her and takes on the challenge to help her enter Keio University. It is considered one of the most prestigious and difficult to enter universities in Japan which makes Sayaka laugh at the thought that someone like her can be selected.

To check the level of her academics, Tsubota makes her take a test. Sayaka scores zero out of hundred but the teacher is still impressed because she answered all the questions, when any other student would have given up at that point. After evaluating her academics, he declares that her knowledge is comparable to a grade four student. Hence, he starts from the beginning, teaching her the syllabus from middle school. The next day, Sayaka goes to a restaurant with her friends but studies the entire time. The girls are shocked and happy at the same time that she is working hard for something. After studying in the cram school for a week, she scores five out of hundred for the first time. Tsubota is happy about the result and urges her to work even harder.

He is a great teacher to all of his students. He never makes them feel dumb for not knowing something and does his best to keep their spirit up. However, with Sayaka, he struggles a lot because she doesn’t even know simple things like the north is always opposite to the south. Sayaka’s father refuses to pay for her cram class because it is too expensive. Moreover, he doesn’t believe that she can ever get into a university. Her mother, on the other hand, is determined to work harder and pay for Sayaka’s tuition. One day while Sayaka is studying in the cram school, a mother drags her son Reiji inside. He is also a gyaru like Sayaka and is uninterested in studying. Reiji’s parents are lawyers and want him to take the same profession but he is only interested in playing video games. Tsubota asks him if he knows what revenge play is. 

This piques Reiji’s interest and he starts to study hard to get into law school and teach his father a lesson. As days pass by, Sayaka makes significant progress but Tsubota wants to accelerate it. Hence, he finds an interesting way to teach her. He makes her take off a layer of makeup for every wrong answer. He even promises to show the students an embarrassing picture from his childhood when Sayaka scores a hundred in middle school’s English test. Starting that day, Sayaka studies all the time and eventually gets a perfect score on the test. As promised, Tsubota shows them a picture from his childhood and tells him how he was an average student which is why he wants to help them. Following that, Sayaka dyes her hair black and continues going back to school. When Mr. Nishimura finds out she is aiming to go to a university, he jokes about dancing naked in the school’s playground if she succeeds. Sayaka challenges him and is even more motivated after the incident.

One day, Sayaka and Reiji are outside a restaurant when they see Tsubota meeting Mr. Nishimura. It turns out that Mr. Nishimura is also funding the cram classes and doesn’t want Tsubota to take in weak students like Sayaka. He thinks the class’s reputation is more important than the student’s future. Tsubota argues that he has faith in Sayaka and knows that she will get into her desired university. Seeing a father figure stand up for her, Sayaka gets teary. At home, Ms. Kudo notices that her daughter has grown into a better person since she started to go to cram classes. The next day, she is called by Tsubota to discuss Sakaya’s progress. He claims that Sayaka is the fastest learning student he has had but since they do not have much time before the university entrance examination, she needs to come to cram class six days a week. This will cost her a lot of money but she pays the school after taking a loan from her relatives.

Sayaka finds out about this from Tsubota and is saddened that she is causing her mother so much trouble. One day, her friends invite her to a restaurant. Sayaka goes but is busy studying the entire time. The girls then take her to the hot spring and claim that they will only hang out again after Sayaka’s exams because they know how hard she is studying for it. Sayaka cries and thanks them for being understanding. A few months later, Sayaka finally upgrades to the high school syllabus book and has to study how to write an essay. Tsubota gives her several books and asks her to watch a lot of news. When the syllabus gets tougher, she has a hard time focusing. She even cuts her hair short to show her resolve. Over the weeks, she studies so hard that she dozes off during most of her classes at school.

One day, Mr. Nishimura wakes her up by grabbing her by her hair. He calls her mother to tell her that her daughter hasn’t improved since she was suspended. But Ms. Kudo retaliates that Sayaka is not the girl she was a few months ago. The next day at Cram class, Reiji comes in with dark hair, glasses, and a completely changed look. On being asked, he says that Sayaka inspired him to work harder. Following that, Sayaka takes her first mock entrance exam. When the results are published, she is disappointed to have gotten only sixty out of a hundred when the minimum score to get into her desired university is seventy. Tsubota thinks it is incredible because only some months ago, she would have scored zero. But Sayaka is disappointed that all that hard work is still not enough. She returns home to see her father manhandling her brother Ryuta for saying that he doesn’t want to play baseball anymore. Ryuta snaps and pushes his father away, shouting that he never wanted to play baseball in the first place. He storms off and doesn’t return home that night. The following day, Sayaka takes yet another mock exam but doesn’t score enough. The stress and sleep deprivation catches up to her and she loses motivation to study.

Tsubota tries to motivate her but his optimism makes her even more furious. She lashes out at him and runs away from the Cram class. She doesn’t come out of her room for the next two days. Then, one night, Ryuta returns home and informs his father that he has left the school’s baseball team. Ever since Mr. Kudo had to give up his dream of being a baseball player, he had dreamt of making his son the greatest player of all time. Seeing his dreams crash once again, he hits Ryuta, asking him to come back to his senses. Ms. Kudo gets so frustrated that she breaks a vehicle’s window to stop her husband. When he is distracted, Ryuta takes the opportunity to run away from home again. Ms. Kudo tells them about a time Ryuta had an asthma attack the night before a match because he was scared he would be scolded if he didn’t perform well. She belittles her husband for being an awful father to all of his children.

 Later, Sayaka asks her mother to accompany her on a field trip to Keio University. They visit the university grounds the next day and are amazed by it. Ms. Kudo wishes that her daughter will have the same lifestyle as the busy students walking down the hallways. At night, Sayaka goes to cram class and meets Tsubota. She apologizes for being rude and thanks him for being patient with her. She also promises to continue the classes from the next day. A week later, Sayaka takes her third mock exam but is too scared to look at the results. On coming back home, she finds her father burning all the baseball kits that he bought for Ryuta. He has realized his mistake and wants to be a better father from now onwards. He promises to support his children with whatever they want to do in life. As the family shares an emotional moment, Sayaka shows them the recent mock exam results where she has scored sixty-five. Her parents are prouder than they have ever been. Cut to the day of the entrance examination.

The roads are blocked because of heavy snowfall and the bus route is closed. Sayaka’s father offers to drive her which is surprising because he has never been involved in her life in the slightest way. On their way, he asks her to do her best and not worry about the tuition fee because he has it managed. After dropping her off, he even cheers for his daughter for the first time in his life. Sayaka does her best in the test and returns home. Later that day, she goes to the cram class, declaring that it is her last day. She doesn’t want to return to tell him the results, scared that she will disappoint him. She also makes Tsubota sign her dictionary so he would always be there when she studies. Before leaving, she hands him a letter, thanking him for believing in her and making her who she is today. A few days later, she checks the result on the internet, only to find that she didn’t pass. She calls Tsubota and tells him about the result. Tsubotat doesn’t give up and insists that they can appeal for her answer sheet to be rechecked under faculty policies. Sayaka gives up and doesn’t apply for it, so Tsubota does it for her.

 For the next few days, she goes out with her friends every day, trying to live her old lifestyle but no matter what she does, she cannot help but feel disappointed. Then, one day, she checks the results again, and to her surprise, sees that she has gotten into Keio University. She immediately cycles to the cram class and is out of breath when she meets Tsubota. When she tells him she has been accepted, the entire class erupts into cheers. Both Tsubota and Sayaka can’t help but bawl their eyes out. In the last montage, we see Mr. Nishimura naked on the school grounds, taking pictures with the girls as he had promised. Sayaka leaves for college after wishing her parents farewell