Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin

Japan, 1955: Mario Minakami has just arrived at Shounan Special Reform School along with five other teenagers who have been arrested on serious criminal charges. All assigned to the same cell, they meet older inmate Rokurouta Sakuragi—a former boxer—with whom they establish a close bond. Under his guidance, and with the promise that they will meet again on the outside after serving their sentences, the delinquents begin to view their hopeless situation in a better light.

The seven cellmates struggle together against the brutal suffering and humiliation inflicted upon them by Ishihara, a sadistic guard with a grudge on Rokurouta, and Gisuke Sasaki, a doctor who takes pleasure in violating boys. Facing such hellish conditions, the seven inmates must scrape together all the strength they have to survive until their sentences are up; but even if they do, just what kind of lives are waiting for them on the other side?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sakuragi, Rokurouta Main

Koyama, Rikiya Japanese

Minakami, Mario Main

Oguri, Shun Japanese

Maeda, Noboru Main

Park, Romi Japanese

Yokosuka, Jou Main

Hasome, Tatsuya Japanese

Nomoto, Ryuuji Main

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Tooyama, Tadayoshi Main

Kuroda, Takaya Japanese

Matsuura, Mansaku Main

Waki, Tomohiro Japanese

Ishihara Supporting

Ishii, Kouji Japanese

Koike, Setsuko Supporting

Kanjiya, Shihori Japanese

Lilly Supporting

Yamagata, Kaori Japanese

Tamura, Manabu Producer

Shindou, Tomohiro Assistant Producer

Koujina, Hiroshi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Mima, Masafumi Sound Director

Reviews

Feb 19, 2024

MichaelMorbius

Recommended

An incredibly beautiful anime that, unfortunately, I hear very little about. Rainbow takes us to a defeated and destroyed Japan after World War II where a group of young men, in order to survive, commit a series of crimes that will land them in a reformatory, where they will experience hell but in the end they will be able to get out and to make a new life despite the adversities that a group of young delinquents may encounter in everyday life. Put like this, Rainbow's story may seem trivial, but I assure you, that couldn't be further from the truth. Indeed, it is much ... more than the few lines that I wrote. It's a story of revenge, love, brotherhood where you try to look for the good even in the places where you least expect it and you try to survive in a ruthless and disgusting world.

The plot, essentially, is divided into two parts: the first where our protagonists live in a reformatory and try to survive the abuses of Ishihara, a corrupt and sadistic guard, and the director of the facility, the pedophile, Doctor Sasaki, with the hope of meeting again once they leave and making their dreams come true. The second, however, shows the life of the protagonists once they leave the reformatory and how the traumas and teachings of the past return and how they are trying to start a new life. A simple but perfectly narrated plot that teaches many values.

The characters are all excellent: the 7 boys at the center of the events are all extremely appreciable characters with excellent characterizations and fantastic background stories. The secondary characters are also excellent. Personally my favorites are Sakuragi and Joe. But even the villains are no exception: Ishihara and Sasaki are two wonderful villains, rotten and evil to the core, truly easy to hate. And, in particular, I appreciated the narrative arc completed by Ishihara: from a sadistic and corrupt guard to a crazy, drug-addicted man who isn't even worth killing.

I found the animation to be of excellent quality as well as the soundtrack. I particularly liked the opening theme.

An amine that I hear too little about and that should be taken more into consideration when we talk about the greatest anime of the last 15-20 years. A true hidden gem.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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May 7, 2024

2flare

Mixed Feelings

For almost a decade and half I didn't watch this anime because the thumbnail was deceiving. I thought "this looks like just a little juvenile detention show of delinquants"....boy I was wrong. The entire series does NOT occur inside a prison(only the 1st half). This was a plesant surprise that added a huge depth. BE WARNED. The 1st half of the show is NOT like the 2nd half. The first half is concentrated, mature and grim. This 1st half is almost a masterpiece!! The problem is that the 2nd part of the show is completely different. It transforms itself into many "short stories" which ... are infantile and self-contained and its not 13 more episodes of 1 story building upon itself...no. It becomes cheesy 1-2 episode story-arcs with infantile writing. Don't get me wrong , its not horrible but its a complete slap. Its almost an another type of show now. I finished it because I couldn't stop...I had fell in love with the characters of the first 13 episodes....but there was no payoff...Had the 1st half been like the 2nd half, I wouldve skipped the show. Its like the writing in the 1st half was for adults and the 2nd half was for children. This anime was a strong 9/10 and then turned into a generic 6/10 with average to below average story.

I still recommend this anime but if you absolutely adored the 1st half and expected it to continue...you will find yourself with a different show by the end but with the same characters. Had the entire season been like the 2nd half, I would've given this show a 5/10. Not worth watching. The first half is a strong 9/10 though. Its really interesting, one of a kind mature story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 3, 2024

AnimeEnjoyer420

Not Recommended

This is a series that I desperately wanted to like, and it does have the occasional good moment, but generally speaking, this is a story with interesting ideas that is constantly failed by poor writing.

The core ideas here - a story about a group of boys that bond while being abused at a reformatory school in 1950s Japan, and which follows them after their release and into adulthood - are loaded with potential, and that brotherly bond between the characters is easily the strongest part of the series. The storytelling ambition to progress through its story and the lives of its characters rather than muddling ... through a status quo of its own making is commendable as well. Unfortunately, all the other elements are far weaker. From unnuanced villains that do the worst possible things simply because they are Evil to gross writing that has a lurid fascination with sexual exploitation, there is very little to recommend here in the way of storylines or drama. All the emotion in the story is drained away by the ridiculous overacting of the villains and the extreme, edgy nature of how things tend to play out.

Edginess is, unfortunately, the name of the game here. There's a tendency to frame this sort of thing as "adult" or "mature", and indeed it's even listed as such on Crunchyroll, where I watched it. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. The defining characteristic of the writing in Rainbow is really a sort of childishness, with a fixation on sex, suffering and unfair persecution that screams adolescence. Virtually every named female character in the series is either a prostitute or a family member of a character that is introduced into the story so they can be raped by a villain. Virtually every adult is an unhinged, tyrannical fascist or a huckster. While the series begs for understanding of its protagonists, misunderstood boys branded criminals by society for justified acts of self defense or revenge, it does not extend that understanding to any of its other characters, which are largely 1 dimensional and defined by their villainy. It even leads to more significant writing problems, where the logic of the story begins to break down unless you look at it through the lens of "this is a story written by an author that was just trying to write about people doing the worst things he could think of at the time", most unforgivably in the climax of the Anchan vs Ishihara story arc at the end of the 1st cours that I will keep vague for spoiler reasons. Suffice to say that the intended emotion of the scene lands more on the "so idiotic that it made me laugh" side of things than was intended.

These issues start to improve in the 2nd cours, but never fully go away. It does have some nice moments though, Turtle and Lily's story arc late in the 2nd cours is a rare high point in the series. Sadly, this only heightens the pervasive sense throughout the series that it could have been excellent if only it was written by someone without a sledgehammer sense of subtlety and a creepy fixation on prostitution and rape. I simply can't recommend it as it exists in reality though.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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