Title: Rainbows After Storms Vol. 8
Author: Luka Kobachi
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 163
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance, Yuri
Publication Date: February 10, 2026
The Story
We open up with a sports day of sorts. There are three events, and Chidori’s class gets stuck with playing dodgeball. Of course, she is afraid of the ball, so she wants Nanoha to protect her, which doesn’t go well!
After that, thoughts turn to life after high school. Chidori mentions that she wants to attend Waseda University in Tokyo, and it suddenly hits Nanoha that their relationship would become long-distance. While this worries her, Chidori isn’t fully committed to the idea just yet and wants to take a tour of the college. Nanoha wants to go with her because the tour ends at Noon, which would leave them to go on a Tokyo date afterward… there’s only one problem… Abe from the volleyball team is aiming for that college, so one of the staff members has them take her along.
While in Tokyo, they take the tour, get separated, but then meet up to eat some food together. On the ride back, Abe asks Nanoha if she has a boyfriend, since she had a lot of advice about long-distance relationships, since Abe is about to enter one herself. Nanoha lies and describes Chidori nonchalantly without giving too much away.
When they get back, Nanoha has a nightmare about Chidori always shutting her down whenever she tries to get romantic. Chidori denies it, but eventually caves and admits it. This leads to Chidori being insecure once again, as she can’t make up her mind about whether or not to buy a certain dress she likes. Then, we close out the volume with a simple chapter of it being cold outside, so Nanoha needs someone to warm her up… so she lets Chidori’s hands do all the work!
Characters
It was more of the same between Chidori and Nanoha. Chidori was, once again, the center of attention here with her uneasiness about playing dodgeball, her insecurity issues continuing with the dress, and the fact that she’s aiming for university in Tokyo. Like most things, her indecisiveness about the university fits her perfectly, but it seemed odd that she seemed gung-ho about it at first, even going so far as wanting to take a tour, only to not know for sure if she wanted to go. I wonder if she also realized it would have meant a long-distance relationship for her and Nanoha, and that’s why she pulled back? It’s a bit obvious since they included Abe in this mini arc, and suspiciously had her in the same situation, but it seems as if she worked everything out with hers… too bad Chidori was asleep when they talked about it!
Outside of that, there wasn’t much in the way of character development. We’re just slightly over the halfway point in the series, so it feels as if the characters are just on cruise control right now.
Final Thoughts
I had a bad feeling that Mai would have been relegated to the back burner once her arc concluded, and not only has she been placed back there, but she was completely forgotten about in this volume, as she didn’t make a single appearance! I would have thought that she would have at least tagged along on the Tokyo date, seeing how she knows their secret, but we got Abe instead. The problem here was that Abe’s character development didn’t seem like development, but more like a convenient plot device to help make up Nanoha’s mind about a long-distance relationship with Chidori. It would have been better had Chidori been awake for the conversation, but I guess that just leaves things out in the open for a revisit somewhere down the line.
Other than that, things returned to their normal episodic format filled with more cute moments and antics. The biggest focus was on choosing a college, as that created the biggest amount of drama. Plus, it allowed Nanoha to start thinking about life after high school, something that she hadn’t seriously done until now. With there only being five more volumes, this is the perfect time to plant those seeds to see what things will look like at the end of the series. This may get revisited in the future, possibly pushing Nanoha to study harder to attend the same school as Chidori, or maybe things do go the long-distance route, and we get a convenient time skip to when Chidori returns, and it serves as our epilogue. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen something like that in a romance manga, but the last time I did, coma strategies played their part in one of the worst endings I’ve read.
If you know… You know…
I can’t see anything like that happening there, though. This series is just too pure and innocent for something like that to happen. I don’t know what to expect in volume nine, but I’m sure we’ll get more episodic chapters, more of Chidori being a mess, and more of Nanoha wishing Chidori would do things to her! We’ll find out next time!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
