虹色デイズ

NIJIIRO DAYS

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
16
RELEASE
May 11, 2018
CHAPTERS
80

DESCRIPTION

Nijiiro Days follows the daily lives of four high school boys: the hopeless romantic Natsuki Hashiba, the sadist Keiichi Katakura, the playboy Tomoya Matsunaga, and the smart otaku Tsuyoshi Naoe. Even while constantly struggling in their studies, they spend their days goofing around and having romantic misadventures.

On Christmas Eve, however, Natsuki is dumped by his girlfriend. While crying alone, he receives a pack of tissues from a girl wearing a Santa Claus costume, and, in return, gives her the scarf originally meant for his ex-girlfriend. As the holidays end and Natsuki returns to school, he finds out that the girl is named Anna Kobayakawa—who luckily goes to the same school as him! Having fallen in love with Anna, Natsuki aims to get closer to her, despite his friends interfering with his plans.

(Source: MAL Rewrite)

Notes:

Includes 20 extra chapters.
Includes the one-shot "Aru Toshi to Sorekara no Watashitachi."
Includes the one-shot "Shinbun-bu no Yoriko-kun."
Includes the one-shot "Hitori de Dekiru mon."

CAST

Tsuyoshi Naoe
Keiichi Katakura
Tomoya Matsunaga
Natsuki Hashiba
Mari Tsutsui
Anna Kobayakawa
Yukiko Asai
Nozomi Matsunaga
Chiba
Shinnosuke Nezu

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO NIJIIRO DAYS

TV SHORT ComedyNijiiro Days

OVA ComedyNijiiro Days OAD

Cover Art for Nijikuro Gakuen no Nijichou: Seikatsu Shidou-hen

ONE SHOT ComedyNijikuro Gakuen no Nijichou: Seikatsu Shidou-hen

REVIEWS

Eggsandwich04
100/100
A classic rom-com for romance lovers
Rainbow days also known as nijiiro Days follows the daily lives of four high school boys: Natsuki, Tomoya, Keiichi, and Tsuyoshi—and each of them feels distinct. Natsuki is the sweet, soft-hearted guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve. He’s the kind of dude who’ll blush just thinking about holding hands. Tomoya’s the cool, flirty one who seems like a player but is actually more thoughtful than he lets on. Keiichi is… unhinged in the best way—he’s got a sadistic streak, sure, but he’s also a total wildcard who livens up every scene. And then there’s Tsuyoshi, the quiet otaku who’s probably the most stable of the group, even if he’s constantly off in his own world.

The romance is sweet and slow, but in a comforting way. It’s more about the little moments—blushing over text messages, nervous glances, friends hyping each other up or roasting each other for being lovesick. Nothing super intense happens, and yeah, the pacing can feel a bit too slow sometimes. But if you’re just looking to relax and read something that makes you smile, this is perfect. Visually, the art is clean and pretty standard for a shoujo romcom, but it works really well for the tone. The characters are expressive, the comedic panels hit, and the romantic moments are drawn with just enough softness to give you those fuzzy feels. It’s not the kind of art that blows you away, but it’s super readable and fits the story perfectly.

What makes this one stand out is the male cast in a setting that feels like it belongs in a classic shoujo. You don’t see that too often. Each of the guys has a unique vibe—Natsuki’s your hopeless romantic, Tomoya’s the playboy, Keiichi’s a little unhinged in a funny way, and Tsuyoshi’s the quiet otaku with a good head on his shoulders. Their friendship is the real core of the story, and it’s honestly wholesome as hell. It is one of those manga that’s just really easy to sink into. It’s a light romcom that doesn’t try too hard to be deep or dramatic, and that honestly works in its favor. And yeah, sometimes the pacing can drag. There are points where it feels like things could be moving faster, or a subplot could use more attention. But honestly, the characters are charming enough that I didn’t really mind. I just liked spending time with them, even when nothing huge was happening.

Overall, Rainbow Days isn’t trying to be the next big emotional rollercoaster. It’s just a cozy read about friendship and love, and it’s honestly kind of underrated for that. And I love it for exactly what it is—soft, light, and very slice-of-life. If you’re into shoujo-ish stories but want a bit of a different perspective (aka dudes being bros and falling in love), give it a shot.
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Ikarou
45/100
Slice of life romance that ends up being more cringe than heartwarming
Imagine if some woefully bored and talented artist decided to saute an assortment of toxic shoujo tropes, plated the dish within the mold of a wholesome slice of life series, and served it with a touch of store-bought romance on the side. However, Nijiro Days ends up being a lot closer to fast food than being a main course served in any restaurant. It scratches the itch for romance and high school slice of life vibes for the genre with its accessibility and convenience, but I'd look elsewhere if you were looking for a fulfilling meal.

The curtains rise with the story hitting the ground running, showing our hopeless romantic main character Natsuki Hashiba getting dumped on Christmas by some faceless girl and immediately falling head over heels for our female lead for having a pulse and offering him some promotional tissues as part of her part-time job. He responds to her minimum-wage inspired generosity by re-gifting a scarf that was originally intended for his now ex-girlfriend and walks away being already smitten by this nameless girl whom he knows literally nothing about. How fucking romantic.

We then cutaway to our pal Natsuki recounting all of this to his group of homies at school who don't hesitate in the slightest to roast him and offer their respective perspectives on what he should do, and we begin to learn their main qualities and traits immediately as they're introduced. We meet the horny-on-main "what's consent?" playboy Matsunaga, the stoic quirky weeb Tsuyoshi, and the bubbly BDSM-enthusiast Keiichi. The manga does a great job of making each character in the group feel distinct from each other in both design and personality, which certainly adds flavor and texture to their group dynamics. However, the humor and comic relief can rely way too hard on some of these wacky character gimmicks to the point of caricaturing its own cast to sometimes obnoxious degrees, such as Keiichi brandishing a whip at school and threatening to "punish" anyone who irks him. Fortunately, the series moves away from these low-hanging gags and punchlines in later chapters as the characters are developed more, but it can make the earlier chapters feel hard for some to trudge through.

We learn that the girl he met on Christmas, Kobayakawa Anna, goes to the same high school. Man, what are the odds! She's joined by her overly protective helicopter friend Mari whose personality is out here collecting toxic personality traits like they're goddamn Pokemon cards, and thus we have our core cast. The series then weaves the budding romance of our two leads within the slice of life flow of the story, occasionally developing other character threads in tandem of each other with some incremental payoff and reward.

A lot of my frustration with reading this series is rooted in the cesspool of cringe that it tries to pass off as lighthearted at best and quirky at worst. Within the opening chapters, we've already been exposed to grooming, a non-consensual kiss, unhealthy possessiveness, and a dude who was close to breaking up with his girlfriend because she dyed her hair a different color. This display spans across pettiness to literal assault, and we didn't even reach chapter 5 yet.

The pair of characters that encapsulate the absolute worst in this series are Matsunaga and Mari. Mari's possessiveness towards Anna manifests in her obsessively territorial bullshit that antagonizes anyone that remotely looks in their direction, and she's quickly pigeonholed as being the fun little wrench to sabotage our hopeless romantic MC's rose-tinted goals without any room for redeemability. Her obsession with Anna stems from the fact that she was the only person who wasn't immediately turned-off by her shit abrasive personality, and we soon learn that her desire to monopolize every waking second of Anna's attention is rooted in her unrequited crush towards her. Enter Matsunaga, who being aware of this unrequited crush, begins to fall for her and decides to take the reasonable route byproceeding to force himself on her in a multitude of figurative and literal ways in every moment they share together. The story attempts to develop their connection in earnest as some genuine romantic thread, but fails miserably at accomplishing anything more than making me wince with every passing line of dialogue exchanged between the two.

These two not only encapsulate the worst tropes this series had to offer, but their dynamic is reflective of the absence of any substantial character development. Most tension and drama in the series highlighted character shortcomings, but the resolutions failed to inspire tangible growth among its cast. Instead of fostering positive change, we just see the characters insulated in their toxic traits as the story just sweeps them under the rug without meaningfully challenging them. This uninspired character writing seeps into the romance, which presents itself as vibrant and tantalizing as skim milk with textbook milestones such as hanging out one-on-one and riding together on a Ferris wheel taking the place of any remotely substantial personal interaction.

The story's biggest strength in the nucleus of the main guy characters riffing off each other was a double-edged sword that took focus and time away from developing the main love interest, our lovely Anna herself. As a result, she has the personality of single-ply toilet paper whose only point of tension in the entire series manifests as not knowing what it means to be in love. This fed into the lackluster romance of the two characters, with low-hanging dopamine hits serving as breadcrumbs and marks of progress.

All in all, Nijiro Days tries to be a fun and wholesome romantic slice of life series, but gets too lost in the sauce with trying to maintain its lighthearted tone that it forgoes meaningfully challenging any of the characters on their problematic shortcomings, and instead challenging its readers' threshold for unsavory tropes and uninspired romance. It's yet another mediocre entry that scratches the itch for fans of the genre on a surface level at best.
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