Life after escaping the reformatory is harsh, but there’s a certain beauty to it all.
What They Say:
Mario’s training for his next boxing match, and Turtle’s hustling Western cigarettes around town. Later, when the gang poses for a commemorative photo, there’s one face in the picture that isn’t smiling.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With time passing since the escape of Sakuragi, Turtle, and Mario, life has moved on and different things are certainly afoot. Mario is working hard at his training to become a boxer that can actually compete against the American soldiers while Turtle is doing the best he can by working as a black market seller by getting the cigarettes out there from his connection with Lilly. Setsuko continues to help the guys out and they’re doing well overall as Sakuragi is recovering. An interesting twist is that Soldier manages to get out of the reformatory a bit early with a plan to join the military directly, which has him just needing to finish out another ten days while the service gets all its ducks in a row for him.
A good bit of time is spent with those that Setsuko is with trying to figure out how to move on so they don’t cause her any further problems. There’s a charming moment where the four have a picture together, since she does very much care for Sakuragi, but the other two are thinking of what’s best for her and for them. Sakuragi himself just can’t feel calm at all since the breakout and he’s not sure what to do, though he is recovering well and getting better every day. With the doctor at the reformatory thinking Setsuko may know something, he’s starting to work that angle a bit which adds a nice element of danger to what has become rather routine for the boys.
With Ishihara getting all juiced up to get his revenge, he puts his plan into motion using Setsuko and starts to hunt them down one by one. Turtle gets nabbed first and that leads to more problems since he has the backing of Lilly who wants to keep her stuff on the sly, though there’s the chance that the police won’t push back against someone associated with the military at this point. Lilly does come through in a pinch though and offers the right words to get Sakuragi thinking about what he has to do to protect Setsuko while Mario makes his next entry into the ring where he intends to win, especially since there’s a good chance he’s the next to be picked off after using his real name for this.
In Summary:
Rainbow hits the double digits rather well as it shows us how life has moved on for those inside and out and some of the ways they’re trying to adjust and move forward. Going into the military is certainly a positive approach and one that gets them into a new life and on the outside. For Sakuragi and the others, their challenges are more personal and you can see the difficulties they’re facing and how they struggle against it. Setsuko’s story has been the surprise though as she’s gotten very close Sakuragi and I’ve enjoyed watching that play out. The real neat part this time around though is seeing how far over the edge Ishihara has gone, to comical territory just about, and the way he’s intending to take them all down and how it looks like Sasaki will make it so that Ishihara ends up out of the way as well. The violence is only going to get worse for these kids but they’re becoming stronger by the day and watching that is fascinating and beautiful in its own way.
Originally Streamed By: Funimation
