After The Rain Episode #05 Anime Review

The scent of rain

What They Say:

Akira Tachibana is a soft-spoken high school student who used to be a part of the track and field club but, due to an injury, she is no longer able to run as fast as she once could. Working part-time at a family restaurant as a recourse, she finds herself inexplicably falling in love with her manager, a divorced 45-year-old man with a young son.

The Review:

Content: (Please note that the content portion of the review may contain spoilers)

The last several weeks have been both literally and figuratively packed with rainclouds. Considering we're dealing with a budding romance between two characters with an almost thirty-year age gap, I suppose expecting anything less than that, though, would be kind of silly. But with every rainstorm comes an inevitable sunshine sometime after. This week, that sunshine comes in the form of a joyous child and his hamster named Tsubu.

If you couldn't tell from my segue, Kondou's son procures a new pet in the fifth installment of After The Rain. However, when he shows up to The Garden to show off his furry friend to his old man, he's met with the news that today is actually his father's off day. Being like six or seven or something (I honestly don't remember the kid's age. He's young), Yuto can't just walk across town by himself. Of course, Akira jumps at the first mention of Kondou's name and offers to walk him there once her shift ends in only a slightly-stalkerish way.

When they finally reach Kondou's apartment, Akira takes her "totally not a stalker" personality up even further by hiding inside of Kondou's closet until almost passing out from heatstroke. Before we get to that, however, I do want to mention that the stark contrast between Kondou's living quarters and Akira's further drives home the star-crossed lovers' theme. While Akira's room is brightly colored and clean, Kondou's entire apartment looks like that of...well, a divorced 45-year-old man. There's garbage strewn all across the floor, empty cigarette boxes laying around, and plenty of books about how to successfully be a manager. It's clear the director wants us to recognize this based simply upon the amount of time spent detailing each and every half-burnt cigarette and trash can.

Okay, back to the closet. When Akira finally busts out in order to preserve her life, Kondou is a little bit surprised, to say the least. In fact, he's so surprised that he even has his son pour tea all over her to cool her off...All right, that's not exactly how it went down- but it may as well have been. With her blouse now ruined, Akira's dreams come true when she gets to wear one of Mr Kondou's t-shirts. Kondou, on the other side of things, heads over to the laundromat and somehow thinks washing Akira's clothes will be rightful penance for fawning over a teenage girl. 

While rain has been used up until this point as a means of signifying clouded judgement or emotion, the rain in this scene takes on a different meaning. Despite beginning in the same manner, with Kondou quietly contemplating his current position, it's cast aside when Akira and Yuto show up with an umbrella. Suddenly, the rain seems less treacherous. So much so that when Akira drops the classic "I want to know more about you" line, Kondou only stammers moronically for roughly five seconds- a new all-time record!

In Summary:

What episode five lacks in plot, it makes up in character development and subtle hints at the world surrounding our protagonists. Small things like the restaurant staff warming up to Kondou and even something as simple as the mention of Yuto's mother go on to sculpt a completely believable setting. With relationships advancing all around, not just between Kondou and Akira, After The Rain remains steadfast in its pursuit of being the most brightfuly melancholic series of the season. As always, I am very much looking forward to the next episode.

Episode Grade: B+

Streamed By: Prime Video

After The Rain Episode #04 Anime Review

Things between you two will never work out.

What They Say:

Akira Tachibana is a soft-spoken high school student who used to be a part of the track and field club but, due to an injury, she is no longer able to run as fast as she once could. Working part-time at a family restaurant as a recourse, she finds herself inexplicably falling in love with her manager, a divorced 45-year-old man with a young son.

The Review:

Content: (Please note that the content portion of the review may contain spoilers)

Now that Akira's feelings are out in the open, Kondou walks the fine line between being a respectable adult male and an unlucky cradle-robber. Having accidentally asked her out on a date (Which may or may not have actually been an accident) Kondou reorganizes the schedule at work so that he and Akira both have off on Saturday. Of course, Akira notices this immediately and, without hesitation, pretty much forces Kondou to promise that he will take her out this weekend. He obliges because that is the premise of the series- but with all good premises come several forced conflicts.

The conflict this time around is that Kase (The long blonde-haired cook) is willingly a pedophile, as opposed to Kondou accidentally being one. Kase winds up learning about Akira's crush on the manager while he was innocently looking through her school textbooks- an incredibly normal thing to be doing during work. Instead of feigning ignorance, however, he tells Akira that he will keep her feelings secret under one condition- she must go on a date with him.

The date gets off to an only slightly-creepy start with Kase taking Akira to the movies. He attempts the stereotypical anime-male mission of using a horror movie in order to scare her into holding his hand. This would have worked for most girls, and I'm sure Kase has succeeded in such multiple times, but he must have forgotten that Akira is unexpectedly badass. She winds up leaving him in the dust, watching the entire film as straight-faced as Sean Connery at a poker table. When the film ends, she even hands Kase some money and tries to bail, clearly uninterested in him. It is here where the episode takes a dramatic shift.

Instead of grabbing the money from her hand, Kase quickly grabs- well, her actual hand. It's hard to put into words but the manner in which this was animated is actually borderline-jumpscare material. Kase clearly has some impure intentions and is not willing to take no for an answer, forcing her into a nearby cafe. When she attempts to leave, he even follows her into an alleyway- forcefully kissing her on the cheek before being pushed away. Akira handles the entire situation in a relatively surprising manner, not appearing threatened despite being forced into a literal corner by another older male (Though, much younger than her ideal number of 45). At the end of the day, she simply shrugs everything off and allows the anticipation of her real date to well up within her.

When that time finally comes, the clear contrast in which Akira viewed both dates immediately comes to light. From the way she acts to how she dresses, she's a completely different person. It was actually pretty darn adorable seeing how excited she was to be going on a date with Kondou. On the other hand, Kondou seems to be having a bit of trouble. Despite the date getting off to a light-hearted and innocent start, things take yet another dramatic turn when he notices how young everyone around him is. Kondou essentially leaps out of his seat, telling Akira that they need to leave before starting their voyage home. Along the way, memories of Kondou's past begin to assail him yet again and the line between his young self and his current self becomes impossible to look past. And while the date comes to a close in a rather unsatisfactory way soon after, a brief, dreamlike sequence shows us what could have been if Akira acted on her emotions once again. But instead, the events of the last few days appear to hold her back from her normal, impulsive-self.

In Summary:

After The Rain maintains its downhill ascent into forbidden love. The introduction of the first major conflict comes on as strong as it needs to be and turns the series on its head, albeit for only a short amount of time. As Kondou's past continues to haunt his obvious current desires (Along with a slew of other legal issues), it's not crazy to expect After The Rain to taper off into a series of dramatic and depressing events from this point on. With little to no depreciation in quality thus far, I'm excited to say that this series may be even better than I expected it to be by the end of it.

Episode Grade: A-

Streamed By: Prime Video

After The Rain Episode #03 Anime Review

What a good thing we lose.

What They Say:

Akira Tachibana is a soft-spoken high school student who used to be a part of the track and field club but, due to an injury, she is no longer able to run as fast as she once could. Working part-time at a family restaurant as a recourse, she finds herself inexplicably falling in love with her manager, a divorced 45-year-old man with a young son.

The Review:

Content: (Please note that the content portion of the review may contain spoilers)

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that after just three episodes, After The Rain has wandered into the territory that I previously feared it would avoid. With Akira's curiosity of her own feelings and a mix of adolescent lust, we've been literally thrust into the beginning of a forbidden romance between a divorced 45-year-old man and a 17-year-old schoolgirl that will be essentially inescapable from this point onward. Hell, Akira even went as far as confessing a second and third time just to make sure that we couldn't revert back to how things were in the first episode. But before we get into the romantic aspect of the show, it's important to first explore the other half of this episode- being as it's just as (If not more) important than the lovey-dovey section. That half, of course, is the impact that losing everything had on Akira's life.

This week's installment of After The Rain begins with a relatively despondent Akira, confused at how her half-confession from the night before would impact her relationship with Mr. Kondou. But in the midst of her sorrow comes an old acquaintance from the track team that strips her from her sadness and invites her back to watch them practice. Reluctantly, Akira returns to the track, but what she finds isn't solace- it's regret. Memories of her time belonging somewhere come flooding back in the form of flashbacks and montages. The feelings weigh her down as soon as they arrive, playing hell upon her already wandering mind. With only half of a goodbye, she leaves the track and wanders off into the rain in one of the most beautifully executed and thought-provokingly silent moments I've seen in recent memory.

When she arrives back at the restaurant, the silence breaks. She confesses again, this time leaving Kondou in the dust as she disappears back into the fog. It isn't until the next day that he's able to confront her about everything.

Desperate to, you know, not be a pedophile, Kondou tries reasoning with Akira. He goes on to talk about how there's no way the two of them can be together because of how everyone around them would see it. But Akira, being the headstrong gal she is, refuses to back down. In fact, she seems to get more even into the whole romance thing with every single reason Kondou throws her way. What's most interesting about all of this, however, is that she doesn't see anything wrong with it. In fact, it's like she refuses to acknowledge that their age gap is even remotely unusual. Kondou, of course, doesn't know how to handle this apart from blushing like a maniac and forcing himself to awkwardly look away every four seconds. At the end of the day, it's clear to see that being with Akira is making him feel young again. And with just how close he is to succumbing to temptation after just one day of this, I think it's easy to see how this relationship may end up several weeks from now.

In Summary:

The latest episode of After The Rain is met with a level of poeticism previously untouched by the other two installments. Kondou becomes more than just an aloof and out-of-touch old man, adding a layer or two to him that places him only several steps down from Akira. The shift in After The Rain from just last episode to this one is almost palpable, completely changing the tone of the series. And given just how much I've been looking forward to that tonal shift, it's hard to skip out on praise for episode three. If this level of quality can be reiterated in the weeks to come, it will be easy to place After The Rain at one of the top slots of Winter 2018.

Episode Grade: A

Streamed By: Prime Video