Title: Rainbow Days Vol. 4
Author: Minami Mizuno
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 211
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: June 6, 2023
The Story
Volume four of Rainbow Days focuses a lot on Keiichi. He ends up falling in love with the substitute school nurse; however, his brother gives him a very stern warning and tells him to forget about her. Keiichi gets fed up with his brother because he’s always lecturing him about studying and feels that he’s crossing a line by interfering with his love life. Despite his warnings, Keiichi asks her out only to find out a deep secret about her!
Afterward, the Keiichi train continues when they all go to Tomoya’s house to make revenge Takoyaki because the girls in home ec class made them all Russian Roulette Cream Puffs. There, Keiichi bumps into Tomoya’s little sister. She seems familiar to him and she’s also quite flustered to see him. Suddenly, Tomoya learns of their meeting and becomes a bit overprotective of her!
Lastly, it’s time for the boys and girls to head to the amusement park because Tsuyoshi’s girlfriend scored free passes for everyone. Kobayakawa is going to be there so Natsuki is very interested in going… so much so that he can’t even sleep the night before. There’s a rumor that if you ride the Ferris wheel in the heart-shaped cabin, you’ll fall in love with someone. Right when they are about to head there, spit girl (lol) ends up getting motion sickness from all of the rides they went on. Kobayakawa takes her to the restroom when two shady-looking guys approach her about finding the medic area.
Looks like it’s Natsuki to the rescue!
Characters
Despite everything that happened, there really wasn’t much in the way of true character development. We did learn something about Keiichi though when it comes to his… um… extracurricular preferences… that they are only enjoyed from one side of the green. Also, because of Tomoya’s little sister taking a liking to him, we also learned just how overprotective Tomoya can be when it comes to his sister.
Outside of that, there really wasn’t much advancement with the characters but that could change in the next volume given the way this one ended. I won’t go into spoilers but it could all just be a tease or it could be a pivotal moment for one of our boys. We’ll have to wait and see!
Also… just when I thought spit girl might actually see Tomoya in a different light… one tiny innocent slip-up sent that right back through the gates of hell. This is one super-tough shell to crack!
Final Thoughts
If there is one way to describe this volume, it’s Flow. The entire book flowed really well and didn’t feel episodic or disjointed. Every story led into another and it was really well done. Not saying the other volumes didn’t have good flow, it’s just that this one had the best feeling of flow of the four published so far.
With the volume focusing a lot on Keiichi, I thought that the whole Natsuki x Kobayakawa relationship story was going to be put on hold in favor of focusing on one character and, in a way, it kind of was but it picked back up in the final chapter. There was still a bit of tension there from this love rivalry but it still feels superficial and unneeded. Natsuki looks like he’s going to shoot his shot but, to be honest, I’m not really expecting much from it. He’s had plenty of opportunities to do so in the past and he failed at every single one of them. This one doesn’t seem like it will be any different. Besides, if he does go through with it, it’s going to render the entire rivalry angle a complete and total moot point. Canceling it now would just make it seem as if Mizuno-sensei pivoted after realizing it was too late to abandon an uninteresting idea.
For the sake of that story point, I just see Natsuki enjoying a ride with Kobayakawa and that’s it. I hope that I’m proven wrong though because he shoots his shot and scores, that will probably be the catalyst for Tomoyo to finally break spit girl’s shell. Tsutsui can’t stay like this forever… something has to give at some point and maybe this is that point? It would also make sense to pull the trigger here because there are 16 volumes in this series… this is volume 4… there are 4 main characters… each gets their 25% of the series to meet their goals. Mathematically, it makes sense!
Then again, I could just be overcomplicating the simplistic…. Again.
Only one way to find out… Bring on Volume 5!
You can also check out other The Outerhaven reviews on your favorite social media networks:
Subscribe to us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/theouterhaven
Subscribe to us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOuterHaven
Subscribe to us on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/theouterhavennet
This item was provided for review by Viz Media
