The Moon on a Rainy Night

*This is a digital eBook, not a physical book.

Synopsis

A high school girl's chance encounter with an enigmatic female classmate whose musical aspirations were complicated when an accident almost completely took her hearing leads to the slow blossoming of love. Perfect for fans of yuri series like Whisper Me a Love Song and sweet, sophisticated romances like A Sign of Affection. One rainy night, Saki is rushing to a piano lesson when she crashes into a beautiful, long-haired girl, dropping her sheet music in the process. Saki stutters an apology, but the girl simply hands back her sheet music and leaves without a word. Saki begins her first day of high school the following morning, only to find the stranger from the night before sitting at the desk next to hers. She learns that the girl's name is Kanon and that she is not quite completely deaf, but very hard of hearing. Though Kanon needs to be close to people to read their lips, she tends to push people away with her icy demeanor. Through one kind gesture, Saki slowly begins breaking down the walls around Kanon, even as she feels something new blossoming within her.

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Review

Sep 17, 2022

8 of ? chapters read

Overall Rating: 9

Call_me_Ben (All reviews)

30 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

The best way I can describe this is "A silent voice" meets "From now on we begin ethics."

It's about this girl who's somewhat deaf and her friend and their relationship as they spend more time together and learn about each other.

What I like about this manga is that it does such a good job of showing the hardships of being deaf while also talking about how we could improve on that. It's not just a plot device to make us feel sorry for the lead, it's just a way of saying "that's the kind of life she lives."

The cast of characters is very likable and read more

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Apr 7, 2025

35 of ? chapters read

Overall Rating: 5

Marleonka (All reviews)

24 people found this review helpful

Preliminary Spoiler

The main thing for me with this manga was how fast the story was progressing and it felt like never really committed to its subject matter. It's very bizarre in a lot of ways, how at the same time it tries desperately to find ways to mitigate the disability of the main lead (she can fully speak, has a special outfitted room so she can hear, is perfect at reading lips), but also introduce problems in how her disability affects her life that seem entirely arbitrary. Like the fact she has to "read the bus display" to know when to get out (which I think everybody does) or she doesn't want to eat with others, because she can't read their lips while they eat. Somehow nobody really thinks of the way to just talk when their mouth isn't full of food. Or how she can't tell when cars are coming at night, as if they didn't have headlights. In general there is a big focus on how she fears to leave the house at night, because of how dark it is, as if street lights didn't exist either. There are certainly problems that people with a hearing impairment face, but this selection of issues feels extremely shallow.

I feel like it's never fully about a hearing impairment and how it affects people, as it constantly finds way to make it a non issue between the main characters, but when the story needs it to be relevant, they just come up with a weird problem. When I've read the premise of it being a romance involving a deaf girl, I was hoping they would go the extra mile, because deaf/mute characters, especially leads, are difficult characters to write and make compelling for many writers. In a manga, that's a much more visual of a format than a light novel, I hoped for more visual storytelling to overcome that hurdle of the character having to use non verbal ways to communicate, but alas, they just find a way to make her not-so-deaf. It's not like I want to diminish the existence of such people, but I just wish the manga would commit to that fully, to give a more unique experience.

On the other hand, it also wants to be a story about invisible disabilities and how people make assumptions about a person. It also strikes me as an odd choice to choose something that's very prominent and noticeable to be the stand-in for the invisible disability. Again, it's not that I'm against this point, but I just wish the manga would commit more to it, with something that's a even less visible, but affects someone just as greatly, if it wants to be a story about that, like autism for example. I dunno if Im projecting a bit too much of what I personally would've wanted, but I just felt like they never fully committed with the premise of the story and it stands at a crossroads and can't go into either direction.

There's also this underlining theme of abuse, and how others see Kanon as lesser and only aim to be perceived better by helping the disabled girl, making themselves this martyr worthy of praise. It is a very interesting subject to tackle, but I feel like ultimately it feels a bit undermined by the fact that the story would flip between her being perfectly capable and not wanting to be treated specially and needing to be babysat by Saki (like the bus display thing or being unable to see cars at night) whenever the story calls for it. In the end it kinda just serves to paint Saki as this angel to Kanon with no ulterior motive, which kinda is exactly what the manga seemed to want to oppose. Often the story would have her have those "Im sorry for existing, it's so insensitive of me" moments with her and I'm not sure what they are supposed to mean, as they never seem to make a point of them especially not about "not wanting to get special treatment". There seems to be this weird double standard for her, and the characters even acknowledge it by saying stuff like "Its not so bad to be babied" or "I don't mind when she does it". It makes me see the main subject matter as even more contrived.

There's also this little part where there's one bully who also loses hearing in her right ear. Again, such a weird choice. I get the whole karma implication, but on the other hand it does feel straight out of a Dhar Mann "Mean girl bullies classmate for being deaf. Instantly regrets it" video. Rather than "Be a decent person, because there are different people and basic human decency is cool" its more so of a "You never know if it might happen to you!". It kinda rubbed me the wrong way, even if it was earnest.
There was also this scene where they run a Maid Cafe for a school festival and Kanon has to ask a client to show her what she wants to order on the menu. Despite looking directly at the client and her saying that she wants two coffees and two biscuits. It normally wouldn't be jarring and would be a totally normal thing for such a story, if her main skill wasn't that she can flawlessly read lips of everybody and she was looking directly at the client. That chapter in general seemed to forget they gave her this ability just so they could give Kanon feelings of inferiority for one chapter. Rather than make an actual point about disabilities, it often feels like the manga treats it entirely as a gimmick that can be switched on and off depending on what the story needs in the current chapter.

But as a romance story, it's fairly standard. The leads are not overly interesting and it progresses surprisingly quickly. That being said, it's one of these yuri where "we don't openly talk about our feelings and its all implied we're just special to each other but never explicitly romantically", which Im honestly just tired of. It's your standard share of "awkward girls being awkward" that's meant to be endearing, but if you've seen enough of it, you just become desensitized to it.

I really tried to enjoy this manga, because of how many good things Ive heard about it, but I simply couldn't find much to enjoy other than the artwork. Truly a shame, because the premise seemed so fascinating!

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Overall	9
Story	0
Art	0
Character	0
Enjoyment	0

Overall	5
Story	0
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The Moon on a Rainy Night

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