Title: Rainbow Days Vol. 5
Author: Minami Mizuno
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: August 1, 2023
The Story
Volume five of Rainbow Days sees Anna and Hashiba take a ride in the heart-shaped cabin on the Ferris wheel. Unfortunately, there are no confessions of any sort; however, Anna talks about how she never fell in love before and never gave it any thought but she’s starting to have those thoughts now. Hashiba can only assume that’s because of him so he calls it a win since he feels they are getting closer together.
After the amusement park, they are at a hotel for a trip. They are playing Old Maid when spit girl says that she’ll go get them snacks simply because she’s not having fun and doesn’t want to be there. Tomoya is sent on a snack run on behalf of the boys and, of course, he runs into Tsutsui. Naturally, things don’t go too well and she runs off but things get a bit worrisome when she doesn’t return.. like.. at all. Everyone goes searching for her but nobody can find her.
Anna and Hashiba are together and have a bit of a conversation about Tsutsui. She overhears all of it and goes off to cry. Tomoya, of all people, is the one to find her but, ironically, she actually opens up to him and wants to go back to the hotel room with him! It’s not like things are fixed but this is the first crack in the tsundere shell we’ve been waiting for!
Lastly, we get sort of an oddball chapter dealing with the seven mysteries of the school. Of course, the old “spirit in the bathroom looking for lost love” is played here as a spirit is looking for Anna…. But the spirit knows her as Saori. So he “borrows” Hashiba’s body and… well… I’ll let you guys read the rest. Talk about your left-field chapters!
Characters
While we didn’t get much development between Anna and Hashiba, there is some hope there. With Anna now starting to take an interest in love, Hashiba can step in and show her the way…. That is if he wasn’t such a gutless wishy-washy coward half the time. But, hey… he called it a victory so let’s roll with that. Micro baby steps seem to be his speed but is it going to be fast enough or will Spit Girl beat him to the punch because….
That brings us to Marippe Tsutsui… aka Spit Girl. As I mentioned, the armor is starting to crack and she took a big step forward by finally acknowledging Hashiba, Tsuyopon, Keiichi, and yes, even Tomoya as friends… although the latter in the group still needs some work as evident on their bus ride home. She has also opened up and talked about her love for Anna but in doing so, she realized that she was wrong hogging her all to herself. She noted how Anna has changed thanks to them and she even admits that she changed, too. When she realized that, that’s when the cracks started to form.
Tomoya is still doubling down on the fact that he likes Tsutsui. He came this far so it makes me wonder if she will have another revelation when Hashiba finally breaks through. Maybe Tomoya will be there for her to comfort her and that’s when the armor will fully crack and fall apart. Time will tell but you can see the pieces starting to fit.
Final Thoughts
Save for the oddball last chapter, this was another great volume that saw some progress on all of the relationship fronts… even with whip boy and sister girl (Keiichi and Nozomi). Everyone seems to have their crush and their goals… equally, everyone has obstacles to overcome to reach those goals. It’s funny because this series is 16 volumes long so we still have 11 to go. Does this mean that they will hook up at varying points throughout the series and we’ll focus on that one-by-one or are we going to get a massive slow burn where they all get together at once?
Normally, we would be at this point in a 10-volume series so it makes me wonder how the next 11 volumes are going to go. I’m willing to bet it will be an overall slow burn with our couples getting shipped one at a time rather than in bulk. So, the question is, who is going to be the first? I know it won’t be Anna x Hashiba. That’s the grand prize so I’m betting we won’t get that until Vol. 15 or even Vol. 16 if the final volume isn’t just one big epilogue. Also, we have to remember, one of the four already has a girlfriend (Tsuyopon), so that leaves Tomoya x Tsutsui and Keiichi x Nozomi left. I’m betting the latter there as The Girl with Much Spit has a while to go because she completely caves.
We’ll see if I’m right as these Rainbow Days march on!
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This item was purchased for review.
