Beautiful Colors Lyrics Meaning: OneRepublic’s Emotional Anime Song for Kaiju No. 8

Beautiful Colors is OneRepublic’s latest anime song for the Kaiju No. 8 soundtrack, released on July 25, 2025.

As the Beautiful Colors anime ending theme, it closes each episode with a swell of emotion that mirrors the show’s blend of action and introspection.

It’s the band’s third collaboration with the series, following the buoyant Nobody and the swagger-leaning Invincible.

Where those tracks carried an energy designed to offset Kaiju No. 8’s darker narrative, this time Ryan Tedder and company were asked for something different, “deeply emotional,” the kind of song that could give listeners goosebumps or even bring them to tears.

Tedder has written for films and television before, but he’s admitted that anime presents a unique challenge.

You can’t just lift lines from the source material without sounding awkward, and yet you have to connect to its emotional DNA.

For Beautiful Colors, that meant leaning into the idea of seeing in someone what they can’t yet see in themselves – a reflection of Kaiju No. 8’s central themes of inner strength and hidden potential.

As Cumulus Media’s Greg Frey put it, the track is “an uplifting anthem about seeing in others what they can’t see themselves.”

The song’s opening lines, “Feels like you won’t ever find / What you want when your world is only black and white,” set the tone immediately.

It’s a picture of isolation and doubt, countered by the narrator’s promise: “But I can see behind your eyes / All your beautiful colors.” 

This interplay between shadow and light mirrors Kafka’s journey in Kaiju No. 8, where the weight of secrecy and transformation meets the trust of those who believe in him.

Many listeners say the Kaiju No. 8 Beautiful Colours lyrics feel like they were written for Kafka himself, capturing his struggle to reconcile strength with vulnerability while reminding viewers that the right person can reveal the colours you’ve been hiding.

The studio version is classic OneRepublic balladry elevated by cinematic strings, piano lines that brush up against Adele’s Someone Like You territory, and Tedder’s voice front and centre.

It’s patient but not static, swelling with the kind of orchestration that recalls the band’s earlier hits like Apologise.

Fans have picked up on this too, and often point out its emotional hook, “You try to hide undercover / But I see a light that’s burning through” and “orchestral elements” that feel like a homecoming, perfectly suited to the anime’s emotional high points.

The official music video reinforces this mix of intimacy and spectacle.

It opens in muted tones, with characters cast in shadow against bursts of colour, or “colours,” as UK fans might search before veering into playful absurdity.

Tedder turns bystanders into glitter with laser eyes, an anti-heroic twist that’s sparked debate.

Some interpret it as the chaotic release of inner brilliance and the risks it carries, while others see it as pure anime whimsy.

That tonal shift mirrors Kaiju No. 8’s own balancing act between high-stakes action and moments of levity.

It’s not the first time OneRepublic has embraced that duality for the series. 

Nobody injected warmth into a story about literal monsters, and Invincible fused pop uplift with themes of resilience.

But Beautiful Colors feels more intimate, as if it’s less concerned with an adrenaline rush and more with the quiet after the battle, when characters take stock of who they are and what they’ve endured.

OneRepublic themselves are in a prolific phase. In the past three years they’ve released their sixth album Artificial Paradise, collaborated with Kygo and David Guetta, and reimagined Starlight for its 25th anniversary.

Their work on Kaiju No. 8 is part of a broader embrace of international projects, something Tedder has said reflects his personal connection to Japan and his belief in the power of global storytelling.

Whether heard in the series or as a standalone track, the Beautiful Colors anime ending theme amplifies Kaiju No. 8’s message that even in a world of monsters, beauty still finds a way through.

It’s both a love letter to Kaiju No. 8’s characters and a reminder to all that sometimes it takes someone else to point out the hues you’ve been carrying all along.

The fade-out doesn’t signal an ending so much as a quiet afterglow, letting the Beautiful Colors anime ending theme carry those hues beyond the final frame.

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Below are the full Beautiful Colors lyrics from OneRepublic’s Kaiju No. 8 anime ending theme.

Verse 1
All of the voices tell you lies
While you’re in the shadows building castles in the sky
Feels like you won’t ever find
What you want when your world is only black and white
But I can see behind your eyes

Chorus
All your beautiful colors
All of the shades you never knew
You try to hide undercover
But I see a light that’s burnin’ through
Yeah, I can see your (Ooh-ooh-ooh)
Colors (Ooh-ooh-ooh)
Beautiful colors

Verse 2
Know that you’re running out of days tryna find something that moves you
Yeah, vultures circling around, now they’re singing hallelujah
Yeah, they talking but they really ain’t got much to say
Your words are like a bullet, let ’em ricochet
You’ve been trying to numb it all out, fading into the crowd
But I see you now (Oh)

Chorus
All your beautiful colors
All of the shades you never knew
You try to hide undercover
But I see a light that’s burnin’ through
Yeah, I can see your (Ooh-ooh-ooh)
Colors (Ooh-ooh-ooh)
Beautiful colors

Outro
Colors, colors
Colors, colors
(Ooh-ooh-ooh)