Rainbow Days (Japanese: 虹色デイズ, Hepburn: Nijiiro Deizu) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Minami Mizuno. It was serialized in Shueisha's shōjo manga magazine Bessatsu Margaret from December 2011 to March 2017, with its chapters collected in sixteen tankōbon volumes. A drama CD was released with the seventh volume of the manga in October 2014. A 24-episode anime adaptation produced by Production Reed aired between January and June 2016. A live-action film was released in 2018.
Contents
Plot
The manga follows four high school boys who are all friends. They do not belong to any club and just like to hang out with each other. Natsuki, the protagonist, is a hopeless romantic who has a crush on a girl named Anna who he met after his ex-girlfriend dumped him. He realizes he is in love with Anna and with the support of his three friends, he tries to show her how he feels in hopes of a relationship. However, he is faced with many obstacles.
Characters
Main characters
Natsuki Hashiba (羽柴 夏樹, Hashiba Natsuki)
Voiced by: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka
Nicknamed Natcchan (なっちゃん), he is a hopeless romantic who immerses into his delusions of love. On Christmas, he was dumped by his girlfriend. While crying alone in the street, he saw a girl handing out tissues in a Santa Claus outfit. In return, he gave her a scarf that was to be for his girlfriend and immediately fell in love with her. The girl turned out to be one of his schoolmates from another class, Anna. He tends to get bullied and teased a lot by his friends, but they still care for him and support him in pursuing Anna. He once kissed Anna on an impulse while suffering from a very high fever but does not seem to remember doing so after recovering from the fever. Natsuki was a member of the tennis club in middle school and was quite good at it, but quit the club due to a problem related to his seniors. He later becomes Anna's boyfriend after confessing his feelings for her during the school festival and they attend the same university together after graduation.
Tomoya Matsunaga (松永 智也, Matsunaga Tomoya)
Voiced by: Takuya Eguchi
Nicknamed Mattsun (まっつん). He is a playboy who is popular with the ladies. Confident and a bit of a narcissist, he usually spats with Mari from time to time, until he realizes that he has feelings for her. Mari does not take him seriously the first few times he confessed to her, but his patience and understanding of her personal issues eventually won her over. Not one to shy away from grand gestures of love, Tomoya then becomes a doting boyfriend, much to Mari's embarrassment and distaste. He has a younger sister named Nozomi, whom he is very protective of. Tomoya is good at singing, has a knack for baking, and plays the guitar as a casual hobby. He later attends the same university as Natsuki, Keiichi and Anna. Much like his sister, it is hinted that he maybe a masochist.
Keiichi Katakura (片倉 恵一, Katakura Keiichi)
Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki
Nicknamed Kei-chan (けいちゃん). While Keiichi appears as cheerful, he actually harbors sadistic fetishes. In fact, he constantly carries around a whip in case anyone provokes him. He also is very athletic, excelling in every sport. He likes basketball and tends to help out with the basketball team. His older brother, Yuji is a teacher at the school. He has an interest in older women and also once had a crush on the school nurse, Satomi. He confesses his feelings to her only to find out that she herself is also a sadist. He immediately gives up on her after that. He later falls in love and dates Tomoya's sister Nozomi, after she continued pursuing him even after discovering his sadistic side. After graduating from high school, he attends the same university as Natsuki, Tomoya and Anna.
Other characters
Taizou Sanada (真田 泰蔵, Sanada Taizo)
Voiced by: Shinya Hamazoe
He is the captain of the basketball club and belongs to Class 1. He is good friends with Keiichi, since they both went to middle school together. He is able to dodge Keiichi's whip attacks because of this. Later on in the manga, he begins dating Chiba.
Wataru Mochizuki (望月 渉, Mochizuki Wataru)
Voiced by: Yū Hayashi
Wataru is the ace of the basketball club. He is Anna's classmate, and a rival to Natsuki as he also has feelings for Anna. He is usually polite. He confesses to Anna even though he knew that she had feelings for Natsuki. After being rejected by her, he later supports and encourages Natsuki to confess to Anna. He is very popular among the girls in his school and usually finds it hard to deal with this popularity.
Shinsuke Nezu (根津 慎之助, Nezu Shinsuke)
Voiced by: Yūsuke Ōta
He is also a member of the basketball club. He is short-tempered and passionate. He was born and raised in Hyōgo Prefecture and speaks in Kansai dialect. His nickname is Nezutchi. Tomoya calls him "Shin-chan", which irritates him to no end.
Chiba (千葉)
Voiced by: Megumi Toda
Natsuki's classmate and captain of volleyball club. She is an outspoken girl who later becomes Taizou's girlfriend.
Yuuji Katakura (片倉 優二, Katakura Yuji)
Voiced by: Shōta Ebina
Keiichi's older brother. He teaches Math at Shiritsu Seiryo High. By the students, he is usually called Katakura-sensei. Like Keiichi, he is also sadistic, even more than him.
Media
Manga
Written and illustrated by Minami Mizuno, Rainbow Days was serialized in Shueisha's shōjo manga magazine Bessatsu Margaret from 13 December 2011 to 3 March 2017. Shueishha collected its chapters in fifteen tankōbon volumes, released from 25 May 2012 to 25 April 2017. A spin-off volume was released on 25 June 2018. A drama CD was bundled together with the seventh volume as a limited edition in October 2014.
In February 2022, Viz Media announced that they had licensed the series for English publication. In France, the first volume was published by Kazé Manga on 3 February 2016 and the second volume was released on 13 April 2016. In Indonesia, it was licensed by Elex Media Komputindo.
Anime
An anime television series adaptation was announced in the September 2015 issue of Bessatsu Margaret. Tetsuro Amino served as chief director with Tomohiko Ohkudo directing at the animation studio Production Reed. Aki Itami handled series composition. The voice cast from the drama CD reprised their roles for the anime. The series debuted on 10 January 2016 with each episode 14 minutes length. Sonar Pocket performed the series' opening theme song titled "Best Friend" (ベストフレンド, Besuto Furendo), while its ending theme, "Rainbow Days!", was performed by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Takuya Eguchi, Nobunaga Shimazaki, and Kouki Uchiyama, the voice actors for Natsuki Hashiba, Tomoya Matsunaga, Keiichi Katakura, and Tsuyoshi Naoe, respectively. The anime is listed with a total of 24 episodes in the six Blu-ray and DVD volumes.
Live-action film
A live-action film adaptation directed by Ken Iizuka and distributed by Shochiku was released in Japanese theaters on 6 July 2018. Rainbow Days opened at #3 on opening weekend and sold 87,000 tickets with a box office gross of ¥110 million. The film was also screened with English subtitles at the Japanese Film Festival 2018 in Australia.
Reception
The manga has had over 3 million copies in print.