Nijiiro Days
Rainbow Days

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I read the whole manga today (slow day at work, hah) and overall, it was a good read.

But, it didn't live up to my expectations.

One of its strongest points is that it fleshes out our main 4 dudes, where in many other romance anime/manga the relationship of the mains take over and the characters remain undeveloped, and we even got 4 love interests for each of them!

But.... Just because we got potential love interests doesn't make the manga immediately good. Seems like they went very hard on the main 4 dudes stories and development, the romance was actually forgotten behind.

Throughout the manga it makes you ... feel as though the romance and relationships between the guys and girls are what's important, but at the end of the day it was very lacking.

So many chapters where we didn't even see our mains Anna and Natsuki, let alone seeing Anna at all.

We might've gotten a lot of development of the main male characters, and a bit of Nozomi and Mari but I feel like Yukirin and especially Anna were left out from the development cycle. Which kinda sucks.


The characters were nice as a cast, they interacted well with each other and I think it made a very nice chemistry between all of them.

The story in itself wasn't really anything interesting, a pretty generic school romance.

Overall I will say- If you're looking for a hard romance, this is a tricky one, because it makes you feel like it is, but it isn't. If you're looking for a lighter romance with "Friendship power", this is a good manga to read.

I don't write many reviews, but Nijiiro Days definitely deserved it, so here goes:

Nijiiro Days is a lighthearted story about the everyday lives, (and romances), of 4 friends. Its premise makes it seem like your typical romance slice of life series, but there are many contributors which make Nijiiro Days stand out far above the rest.

Story: 10
The story of Nijiiro Days is quite simple, its about a boy who falls in love with a girl, and with the help of his friends, tries to get closer to her. Pretty straightforward. But the way the author elevates this basic premise, is what truly gets you invested. ... Avoiding spoilers; the author manages to convey many smaller scale stories under the ongoing main story, without overcomplicating things. It gives many its characters their own story, not just completely focusing on the "main couple". There definitely are subplots that drift away from the main driving story, but that never becomes an issue. Because the thing is, at its best, Nijiiro Days is really a story about friendship and growing older, the romance aspects are just a beautiful garnish on top. Transitioning through tough moments and big life choices, with the help of the family you’ve formed on the path towards adulthood. All the individual stories are all connected, and they all intertwine with each other to create this beautiful picture. In the end, that's what differences Nijiiro Days from the countless other romance high school dramas. And in a very good way as well.

Art: 10
For the art to be done well is something that is very necessary in a manga, which heavily relies on the visuals to support the story. For art in a manga to be good, the artist has a very difficult job of not only translating the words into drawings, but having to portray the feelings of the characters as well. Its very important to be able to see emotion, as many times it helps us readers connect with the story on a deeper level. And I gotta say, the artist here did a truly wonderful job at doing that. Every time a character spoke, I could not only read the words, but the images as well. I could tell what a character was feeling, whether they were hiding it on the inside or not.

Character: 10
I can say with utmost certainty, that the thing I enjoyed most about Nijiiro Days was its characters. The story presents us with a very diverse selection of characters, each representing quite common character "tropes", (maybe minus the sadist). This allows for all sorts of interactions, keeping you invested in even the little things. The chemistry between all these different characters is portrayed exceptionally well by the author, and the characters simply interacting as a group create some of the most enjoyable moments in the series. Another thing is the Character Development. In most slice of life stories, there is little to no character development, as these realistic stories lack those "major events", which are often used to trigger development in a fictional character. Without spoiling anything, Nijiiro Days manages to give us character development which is both natural and realistic, and quite often, relatable. Usually with a large cast, it is difficult to connect with multiple characters, as they tend not to get fleshed out individually. But here I found myself relating to almost all the characters multiple times; making me to not only invest in the story, but in these characters, allowing the story elements to hit harder. Nijiiro Days did a truly phenomenal job at portraying its characters.

Enjoyment: 10
You can probably tell from everything I've said up to now, that I truly enjoyed this. No need to further say anything in this department.

Overall: 10
In the end, Nijiiro Days was truly a game changer in the romance-drama genre for me, and I hope to see similar takes on other stories in the future. I 100% recommend this to anyone who enjoys romance or even just friendship stories!

The manga has a great start and a pleasant development. However, in my opinion, it falls a lot from the mid to end of the story.

For a story that has romance as its central theme, it suffers from the same problem that we see in many other series categorized under that genre: It basically stops following the relationship when the characters get together.

This manga especially chooses to change entirely the focus on the last chapters to high schoolers' problems instead of developing the new-formed relationships (that btw took longer than needed to be established). The extra chapters make up only a tiny bit for ... it. (if they weren't there, it would be truly preposterous, how can you end your plot like that???)

Despite that, it still was worth some good laughs and heartwarming moments.

Given that, if you like to see the later parts of a romance not only the lead-up and confession, you will probably be disappointed with this one.