After the Rain

After the Rain (恋は雨上がりのように) is a 12 episode slice of life romance based on the manga of the same name by Mayuzuki Jun.  The series aired over the Winter of 2018.

    Tachibana Akira is in love with her boss.  After quitting the track team due to a traumatic injury she gets a job at a neighborhood family restaurant.  In order to spend as much time as possible with the person of her affection she works as much as possible.  The manager is a middle aged divorce named Kondo Masami.  He struggles with a life that ended up going no where and resigns himself to plodding along in obscurity.  Driven by her emotions, Akira confesses her feeling's to Masami.  Astonished by the confession and unsure what to do, he placates her the best he can instead of pushing her away.

    After the love confession the two navigate their lives with little change.  Akira does as much as she can to get closer to the older man, to see his life out of work more clearly.  Masami on the other hand is distracted with regret over his lost ambitions.  While he understands the girls feeling's, he can't recognize it as anything more than a fleeting admiration.  He doesn't seek to change their status as manager and employee, not wanting to push her away and make her feel awkward.  He has no interest in forming a relationship with her outside of work, even though she tries hard to change that. 

 

    It may be due to the main characters reserved personalities, but this series was generally very low key and somewhat hazy, even after watching a second time to rewrite this review after abandoning it a few years earlier.  What stands out though is this story not following tropes that you would expect from a story of a high school girl willing to give her self up to a much older man.  Instead you get a story about two lonely individuals who struggle to understand their place in the world.  Akira, is trying to forget the loss of her joy of being on the track team, even straining her friendships.  She's also trying to resolve her continuing feelings for Masami.  Masami does little to even let Akira's affection interrupt his own problems.  A reunion with a college friend--turned professional author forces all of his regrets and lost time to the surface.  He struggles with the reality that there is nothing more to his life than his career managing a restaurant.  Hes responsible but detached from anything else, living a life of regret and resignation.

    Over all the series is a warm and enjoyable tale, relying heavily on allusions of various types of rain to highlight and reinforce the mood of the episodes.  The character design is classic shojo fashion, thing, lithe with long necks and large watery eyes.  The backgrounds are given quite a bit of detail though and some segments are quite well done indeed.  This was a good story all said and done, it doesn't meet expectations of a simplified overview of the plot.  Instead you get a brief snapshot into the lives of two very different people, people who struggle to come to terms with their place in the world.

    The series was simulcast and is still currently available streaming in North America.