One of the iron rules for Hollywood scriptwriters is that the audience must root for the hero. Character flaws and bad behavior are permitted, but, in the final analysis, the hero should not be a jerk.
The teenage hero of Keiichi Honda's new anime, "Colorful," comes about as close I've ever seen to violating this axiom. For much of the film he behaves abominably with less reason than usual for a chip-on-his-shoulder adolescent.
As the story begins we see him among the recently dead at a way station to the afterlife when an otherworldly being in the form of a sly, precocious schoolboy tells him he has been given a chance to redeem himself for an evil deed he committed while alive. The catch: He must return to the world of the living in the body of another — and recall his crime.