Title: Rainbow Days Vol. 9
Author: Minami Mizuno
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 203
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: April 2, 2024
The Story
The gang is on their trip to Osaka and Hashiba wants to confess his feelings to Ana; however, a monkey wrench is thrown into his plans! The overall class is too big to fit on one plane so it was divided evenly between two and guess who got separated? What made things worse was neither one of them would see each other until dinnertime! Meanwhile, Hashiba worried about Mocchi making his move during the day. It bothers him so much that he cannot enjoy a single aspect of their trip.
After the aquarium, he decided to send Ana a text but opted to keep it casual. He sent her a photo and when she received it, she became depressed because it looked as if Hashiba was having fun without her. When they finally get to meet, Hashiba realized that Mocchi hadn’t made his move yet and invites Ana to his room for some tea while the class rep meeting was going on. While there, they have a bit of fun and things turn serious as Hashiba decides to go for it but… just as one would expect… an interrupt literally comes knocking. His plan will have to wait.
The next day, Mocchi gets a pep talk from Kakei after Mocchi reflects on why he likes Ana and how it’s obvious that she’s in love with Hashiba. Thanks to Kakei’s words, he’s going to go for it anyway because whether he gets rejected or not, he owes it to himself to see his path walked to the end. We’ll find out how it played out next time.
Characters
This volume was very focused on Hashiba and Mocchi and while they both had the same goal, they both had different paths to walk mentally.
For Hashiba, it has been what he needed to do this entire time… gaining that mental fortitude to ask Ana out. The fact that he was about to do that before being interrupted meant that he was ready but, at the same time, he wasn’t. Had he been ready, he would have stopped Ana from answering the door and finished his confession. He wouldn’t have let an interruption get in the way of things so that tells me that Hashiba still hasn’t fully committed himself; however, I think he’s getting there…
Mocchi on the other hand questions why he likes Ana. We have nearly an entire chapter of him retracing his steps, everything he did, everything he noticed, when he realized his feelings, etc. etc. It was quite the journey; however, I feel it came a little too late from a reader’s standpoint. Until now, he seemed like a pointless rival. Imagine if Ana didn’t have obvious feelings for Hashiba and we saw all of this at the start of their rivalry! This would make him seem like a legit threat but even with him steeling himself to go through with his confession, it feels as hopeless as his character does. I can’t imagine a world now where Ana is going to say ‘yes’ which means the cliffhanger we were left on feels so empty.
This development could have been so much better had the order of events been much different.
Final Thoughts
I know this series is trying to create some suspense and drama but it’s not working. If we get a yes out Ana at the beginning of volume ten, that would end up being the most nonsensical twist I would have ever seen in a romance series. Again… the same events, same material, and different order in the timeline, and this could have been a suspenseful ending but it just feels pointless. If this is being done just to give Mocchi his closure and get him out of the picture, fine. Do it and get it over with but it wasn’t worth dedicating a cliffhanger to.
Even if she does say yes and throws this entire build-up out the window, there is only one path to go from here… and that is for her to date Mocchi and realize he’s not the guy she was meant to be with, dump him, then goes running to Hashiba to make things right. With seven volumes to go, it could happen. I think it would be pointless and a slap in the face to readers, but it could still happen. I guess that’s the only thread of “drama” we can hold on to as we wait for the next volume.
Seeing as how this series does like to draw things out, I’m going to even guess that Ana gets shocked by the confession, Mocchi will tell her to think about it and, in the end, her feelings for Hashiba will win out and she’ll reject him which, of course, will cause Hashiba to stumble even more, become even more wishy-washy, and delay his confession because his type of personality wouldn’t take advantage of a girl who just went through something like that.
Just my guess, though. We’ll see what truly happens in Vol. 10.
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media.
