What They Say:
The boys decide to break tradition and meet up to make Valentine’s chocolates for the girls they admire!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The opening episode of Rainbow Days definitely pleased me with what it did across the board. It looked solid with its style and designs, the characters came across as properly fun and full of potential, and it worked the running time very well in order to not feel cramped or rushed as well as avoiding being overly long and drawn out. The introduction of Natsuki and Kobayakawa definitely hit the right spot for me and I really enjoyed his friends, though it’ll take a little time to really connect with them as they’re not the main focus but rather support and playfulness for Natsuki.
With this episode, Natsuki definitely goes big early on as, after spending a little time with her as she returns his muffler to him, he asks if she’s actually going out with the doctor in the school since she’s there so often. Rather than playing at wondering and worrying about it he instead just asks her bluntly. Thankfully, there’s no there to be had there as she just has hay fever issues with medication that knocks her out a lot to cope with it. It’s a little different than usual, but hey, it’s not anemia and that makes me smile. Small wins can go a long way sometimes in making an anime series more enjoyable, particularly when it doesn’t use the same trope over and over.
This episode helps to balance a bit against the male-heavy aspect of it by introducing a friend of Kobayakawa’s named Mari, who definitely has a strong personality and dislike towards the guys in general here – going so far as to spit in their direction. All of this comes amid discussions about chocolate and Valentine’s day, which has the guys opting to shake things up a bit and give the girls chocolates. This lets us see a few interactions among the other guys here and various girls, such as Matsun and how he’s trying to keep things simple in his life, but the real focus is on Natsuki and Kobayakawa overall. What’s nice is that amid the time spent with them it does spend enough with others, taking Mari from the hard type at the start to someone that you really like by the end, especially with Matsun who kind of misreads signals but perhaps doesn’t. It’s the kind of all over the place aspect that works because there’s a decent cast to delve into here.
In Summary:
While Natsuki still feels like the central focus of the series this episode allows it to expand more with the addition of Mari and some focus thrown to Matsun with what’s going on. That helps to expand things so that it’s not a complete two character story, though I’ll admit I’m interesting in Natsuki and Kobayakawa more than anything else so far. That said, Mari looks to be a fun character and expanding the interaction potential between characters is a very good thing as that allows it to work a lot of different angles. The show does some simple humor along the way, some nice nudges on the usual paths taken, and mostly just makes me smile a whole lot from top to bottom with how it’s unfolding.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
