Title: Rainbow Days Volume 11
Author: Minami Mizuno
Editor: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 216
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Release date: 6 August 2024
The story
The trip to Osaka is over and everyone is back at school. It’s time to dive right into the Anna/Mocchi/Hashiba and Tsutsui/Tomoya episodes…right after we get a story arc with Keiichi! Honestly, since the main focus was on the above pairings, I kind of forgot about Keiichi…and Tsuyopon!
Now it’s time to get sporty! Keiichi is taking part in the 100-meter race and Nozomi has caught his eye! She goes to check it out and even goes so far as to make him a custom towel. She wants to give it to him, but she sees that she’s not the only one paying attention to him. She loses her courage and runs away, but Keiichi chases after her. He teases her a little, but realizes that he feels a little weird around her! (We all know what that means!) He asks Tsuyopon for advice, but I wouldn’t say he gets anything concrete out of him. It looks like he’s going to have to figure things out on his own, although he has a good idea of what’s going on.
After that, we’re back to our main couples. Tsutsui gathers up her courage and tells Anna how she feels. Meanwhile, Hashiba is still in limbo. He doesn’t know what to do because every time he tries to talk to Anna, she distances herself from him. In fact, it’s clear to everyone that she hasn’t been herself since she returned from the school trip. Still, everyone is fed up with her nonstop activity, but who will make the first move? Tomoya talks to Tsutsui, who has made up her mind. She will be the one to get the ball rolling because she thinks the faster she is rejected, the faster everyone can move forward!
How will Anna react to her confession as the fateful moment approaches?
Characters
While I enjoyed our two main couples for a while, we kind of forgot about Keiichi, didn’t we? I’m glad we got to focus on him because with only five volumes left in the series, he needed some love too (both figuratively and literally). The way things have been playing out in this chapter, it looks like Nozomi will be the one who ends up with him… unless they just stall us and he goes in a completely different direction. At this stage of the game, I don’t see that happening because there just isn’t enough time to develop things properly, so it’ll have to be Nozomi x Keiichi in the end. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
Does anyone else feel that just because Tusyopon already has a girlfriend, he was sent to the Shadow Realm and is only brought out on rare occasions?
Aside from Keiichi, Tsutsui was the only major development this time around, and while not much has changed with her, she finally pulled herself together and decided to confess her feelings to Anna. After that, her true development will happen, because either she will be devastated and decide to never hang out with anyone again, thinking she’s regressing to her past, or she will run to Tomoya and we’ll get our ship (hint: here it’s most likely the latter). Although the former would be interesting and Tomoya could be the one to throw her off, but… we’ve had enough drama with her. It’s time for her to endure this pain to find her flowers and be happy!
Final thoughts
Only three proper chapters this time. We got two bonus chapters with Rainbow Weather to round things out, which were fun. Nice to see Keiichi brought back into the team and the main couples being developed further, if only a little. My only issue is that it was supposed to end on a cliffhanger, but it’s not really a cliffhanger. They wanted you to believe that Anna’s decision/Tsutsui’s confession was that “hold your breath” moment, but it’s already established that Anna and Hashiba will end up together. They’re the MCs of this little romance, so there’d be no point building an entire series around them just to mess up those expectations this late in the game.
I think it would have been better if this volume had ended with Anna rejecting Tsutsui, her running away crying, ending up in Tomoya’s arms, Hashiba watching, and Tomoya saying, “Looks like it’s up to you now.” That would be a cool way to set up the finale and lead us into what I feel is a typical epilogue. But I’m not the author of this story, so who am I to say how it should continue? It’s just my job to sit back and see how it goes, right?
And that’s what we all will do as soon as volume 12 comes out!
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This article was provided for review by VIZ Media.
