Koi wa Ameagari no You ni
After the Rain

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"Youth... At times it can be wild, at times vicious. And yet, all those emotions from that age become an irreplaceable treasure. Although you may not see that right now..." - Masami Kondou

An injury, the fear of writing again... What do these two things have in common? Yes, they prevent you from pursuing what you want to do, and leaves you stranded alone while everyone else is moving on, as if time itself has stopped.

Story: 9
Revolving around the conflicting themes of moving on to pursue what you love or staying still for love, this is a beautiful allegory of life and regret.

I'm pretty sure that ... this manga is not mainly about romance. Although the theme of love is there, it is not as important compared to the main characters' interests and their decisions for the future.

Akira Tachibana is the best runner in her track club who has to take a break due to her ankle injury, and Masami Kondou is a family restaurant manager who has given up on literature due to various personal reasons.

With an age gap of 28 years (Akira is 17 and Kondou is 45), this manga tries to show the audience a different kind of relationship compared to what some people may think as a "normal" relationship. It is one where both help each other to reaffirm their thoughts for them to live the lives they want.

For me, any misconceptions about their age gap has successfully been removed through Kondou's personality. In the first few chapters they show how he gets scolded by his workers and the way he can't really handle his job. He is a very kind person and cares for his workers despite their criticism. Tachibana is rather blunt with her words, and seems more mature than others, except of course in "love", which she has experienced for the first time. Although they are somewhat similar I felt like they were a really good match allowing them to learn something from each other.

The symbolism of rain was very interesting in this manga. In fact, the reason I started reading this was because of the rain/umbrella on the cover. Obviously there's the melancholic but also refreshing feel, but in this case I think there was more. For me, it represented the length of Tachibana's injury or recovery, because when they first met: Kondou tells her: "I'm sure that it'll stop raining soon.". Now at this point he doesn't know that Tachibana is injured, but you can still say that he wanted her to go back and continue to live her life.

The use of metaphors was really impressive as well, for example the polished sea glass, the Rashomon story and the bookmark with the swallow. They helped a lot to emphasise this theme of making a decision, whether changing something or not. From unlikely things the author managed to connect them with the feelings of the characters. Fitting them into the plot itself mustn't have been an easy task either. Maybe it's just me who's bad at making metaphors but honestly, there were really good.

The reason I gave this a 9 and not a 10 is mainly because of the ending. It felt abrupt, and basically you could predict it from the start. However I do think it was appropriate and I guess you could say it was a beautiful ending.

Art: 9
I love the rain. I tend to try to find any manga with covers showing rain, despite the famous saying "Don't judge a book by its cover". And this manga perfectly nailed it in showing raining scenes. I don't ask for much, but there's this feeling that you get from looking at raining scenes and you really think you're there, you can hear the monotonous susurration or the heavy pattering sound. This was a perfect example of it.

Of course, rain wasn't the only good part of the art. I mostly felt like the art (overall) was cute, creating a relaxed atmosphere (except a certain point in the manga where I got really angry at a certain character. Manga readers/Anime watchers should know exactly what I'm talking about here). I also have to mention the eyes... Wow. especially Tachibana's eyes. They are simply mesmerising.
Only thing that prevented me from giving it a 10 is the sometimes very long and thin limbs and necks of certain characters... I know nothing can be perfect but just saying...

Character: 9
I completely fell in love with Kondou's inspiring lines throughout the manga... The one I showed at the start was just one of numerous examples. He is often cheerful (although he does lament himself for all the bad things his workers say behind his back) and a good father. Thanks to Tachibana, he experiences the youth he thought would never see again and this leads to building his courage again to write once more.

Tachibana is someone who still doesn't seem to know the real meaning of love, I think it's more of an admiration, and that's why I always thought that her relationship with Kondou as "friends" was interesting. Although she could be misunderstood to be a cold-hearted person, she is innocent and caring. Her interactions with Kondou shapes her choice to start running again as the manga progresses.

Haruka Kyan:
Lovely character who truly cares for Tachibana, as her long-time friend. She wants Tachibana to get back to running and does a lot to convince her. A lot of development between her and Tachibana, including flashbacks.

Yui Nishida:
Co-worker at the family restaurant, same age as Tachibana. She quickly becomes friends and talks a lot about her love interests and gets advice from her. I think she was an essential character to affect Tachibana's thoughts on getting back to running.
Would've been great if they showed how she was at the last chapter, but I guess that's asking for too much.

Takashi Yoshizawa:
He loves Tachibana, but it is unrequited. Annoying is probably the best word to describe this guy. I don't think he was particularly needed in the story (ok maybe at one point).

Ryosuke Kase:
Worker in family restaurant, in his 20s. I think his interaction with his sister was very interesting but the author didn't go deep enough.

Enjoyment: 10
I don't know what else to say.

Overall: 9
Give it a try unless you absolutely hate big age gaps no matter what.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend this manga. I like the story; it has an interesting premise, but the character development feels slow and underdeveloped. Furthermore, the manga ends leaving readers with some unanswered questions.

The relationship between the protagonists could have been better developed and had a more fitting conclusion to the initial premise (this is just my opinion).

Did I enjoy reading this manga? Yes.
Would I recommend this manga? No.
Would I read this manga again? I don't think so.

I believe the author probably came up with this story as a good idea, and it was, but the development leaves much to be desired.

This manga is better than ... "Rent-a-Girlfriend."

Story would have been better if it didn't try to be a romance.

The two main characters and how their struggles parallel each other, executed well. The side characters were completely necessary and had well-deserved scenes.

So what's the point of the alleged romance?

In the first place I think this story is guilty of "romance is the ultimate form of love," having this girl fall in love with her manager because he was nice to her, just to preach about how "you don't need a reason to fall in love," like romance is this great, transcendental thing. Uh yeah, there's the physical attraction aspect, and in ... the beginning the manga makes great pains to demonstrate how unattractive manager-kun is by consistently pointing out and drawing his bald spots, how he keeps leaving his fly open, and the weird boomer sneezes he makes (despite me checking the characters page to confirm if the man was reasonably attractive). Doesn't help that how beautiful the girl is keeps getting shoved in my face, but this is what I was expecting from the female-focused cover. Yeah yeah it's "seinen" but i'm tired of this in seinen manga when shoujosei can portray female beauty just fine.

So now. The main issue.
A romance plot was set up at the beginning, however this is promptly forgotten about in favor of dealing with individual struggles regarding personal hobbies that the characters go through, which have really nothing to do with each other except for some vague parallels. This makes the ending even more offensive because it sloppily inserted the theme of not giving up on your passions into their relationship, which made absolutely no sense and made for a terribly unsatisfying ending.

Basically, this story should have chosen ONE:
a) if it was going to forget about the romance, there should have been no romance plot or premise set up in the beginning, where the two may or may not develop romantic feelings for each other over the course of the story that may or may not be confessed;
b) if it wanted to properly deal with the characters' romantic feelings towards each other, actually make that kind of angst progress throughout the story instead of making them forget about that in favor of their hobby angst.

In the end, this story seemed like it tried to go for "realism" in how it handles this premise but ultimately ended up being unrealistic and idealistic in the way slice-of-life can oftentimes be.