Title: Rainbow Days Vol. 12
Author: Minami Mizuno
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 195
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: October 1, 2024
The Story
Mari has given it her all and laid her cards out on the table. With everything laid out, Tsutsui apologized but made it clear that someone was waiting for her and that she just wanted Anna to know everything. Anna appreciated her words but they left her in tears and, again, questioning if love was always meant to hurt that much. Soon after, Natsuki enters the classroom and finds Anna in tears. He does his best to console her and, thankfully, it works. This also gets Anna to realize her feelings for him. Almost like magic, the pouring rain that prevented them from walking home cleared up and they decided to walk home together.
Whoever thought that a manga series would find a way to jam two school festivals into its series; however, here we are. Natsuki gets dragged into… well… drag again as he’s been forcefully nominated for the cross-dressing contest. Meanwhile, Tsutsui was nominated for her class’ “Miss” contest while Tomoya was nominated for his class’ “Mister” contest. He went to Tsutsui to see if it was okay with her for him to participate since the unwritten school rule is that whoever is the Mister and Miss of their class, typically ends up as a couple. Tsutsui says she trusts him and gives him the green light!
Meanwhile, Natsuki makes a firm decision that he won’t let things get away from him like they did at last year’s festival. He’s going to make his move and tell Anna how he feels; however, in typical Natsuki fashion, when he had a chance to do it, he chickened out which made him do a bit of soul-searching. Once he realizes everything and sorts his feelings, he decides it’s now or never! Will he have the guts to pull it off?
Characters
This volume circled back and placed the focus heavily on our two main pairings.
First off, congratulations to Tsutsui and Tomoya! Although, there is still room for doubt because they never actually asked each other out. It just kind of happened so their relationship could be seen as an official couple or it could be seen as two people who are growing closer to each other. It’s a bit strange but, oddly, it works. I can’t see either one of them confessing in the traditional sense since it doesn’t fit their personalities. I think the way that it happened was perfect for who they are as characters.
Getting together also created a big change in Tsutsui. She’s almost a completely different person. Of course, there are still some moments where she reverts back to her old self but it’s nothing like it was before. She’s not verbally abusing or spitting on Tomoya anymore and she’s leaning on him more and more. She’s finally understanding that she doesn’t have to be alone in the world and there is something out there who cares for her. It’s a big step for her character and if her development were to settle on this version of her, I would be happy as I think this is the perfect balance!
As for Natsuki, the only real development received was, once again, looking inside of himself and realizing his feelings for Anna. Can we really call this development, though? How many times has he done this only to run away in the end? It’s to the point where I’m not convinced that the opening to Volume 13 is going to deliver the moment we’re been waiting for. The biggest complaint I’ve had with this series is Natsuki and how his confession has been handled. It just screams of artificial extension which is why I’m having a hard time believing that Volume 13 is going to be the definitive moment. We’ll see if he finally and truly came to an understanding with his feelings but with it already being a bust so many times, you can’t blame me for being skeptical… especially where there are three volumes left.
Final Thoughts
It was refreshing to see Keiichi in the last volume but now that we are back on our main couples, much like Tsuyopon, he seems forgotten already. The other gripe I have is going back to, yet again, a school festival. I understand it’s one of the go-to places in a slice-of-life manga, especially one that takes place in high school, but going to the well once too often in a genre that overuses the trope already is a bit much. It doesn’t exactly scream ‘pushing the envelope’ here but it is what it is. What made it even worse is that they just went with the whole cross-dressing story again from the first festival so it’s not like Minami Mizuno attempted to do something different.
Outside of that, the volume was more of what you would have expected from our two main couples. With the unofficial official shipping of Tomoya and Tsutsui, that’s one of the major couples out of the way. The rest was made up of the typical wishy-washy stuff from Natsuki as he, once again, wrestled with his feelings.
I don’t want my negativity to sound as if the volume was bad, though. It was an enjoyable read with a lot of cute and adorable moments but I can’t just sit here and not call out the fact that it’s just the same stuff being repeated. To me, this is a series that could have ended four to five volumes ago. The fact that we still have three more shows how much this series was artificially extended.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that while the story continues to be good, it’s also painfully obvious that none of it was needed because it should have been over and done with already. Still, with only three volumes to go, we’ll see if Natsuki actually confesses this time around which makes me wonder what the final two volumes will be like because that’s a bit excessive for an epilogue. Maybe we collect the missing milk cartons on Tsuyopon and Keiichi?
Time will tell.
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media.
