The Series (3/5)

After being dumped by his girlfriend on Christmas day, Natsuki Hashiba is depressed and not ready to face love again. But in a stroke of bizarre luck, he bumps into a beautiful woman named Anna, who just happens to be dressed like Santa Claus. Completely smitten by her, he is now completely fallen in love. When he returns from break, he joins his three best friends and asks their advice on not only how to win Anna over, but to survive the school year without failing classes.

The other guys in the group are Tomoya, the playboy and cool one, Keiichi, the lighthearted one with a cheerful obsession with bondage, and Tsuyoshi, the smart one. Together the four of them get into wacky adventures as they try to stay afloat in school and love.

Normally I’m not a fan of high school romances, and especially their anime counter parts. But somehow RAINBOW DAYS hit me in the right spot at the right time. While as I grow older I tend to find Japanese styled comedies, or any international comedies for that matter, fascinating, there has always been something off putting about high school romances. There are too many stereotypes about nerdy guys having millions of women willing to give themselves up for him, or “oh no an alien girl is in love with me” etc. Which admittedly set me up to dislike this series.

But RD is refreshingly just simple. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel. The plot is silly, the guys are cartoonish, and the setting is your average Japanese city high school. But what the series does is keep this averageness and add slight bizarre ticks. Such as one of the main characters being obsessed with Bondage and carrying a whip around the campus 24/7. And another odd bit involving Anna’s best friend who hates men so much that she chants the word creep anytime our main characters walk into the room. But what the show happily lacks is the hack writing of some of the sleazier series. RAINBOW DAYS is one of the cleanest inoffensive series I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s almost like I’m watching just to see when the show would go dark or jump the shark. But it doesn’t it just stays the same.

As a piece of animation, the character designs are clean and cute. The women are treated like people, which for a lot of modern anime, seems unheard of. And the best part is the natural comedic timing.

In a weird turn of events, this series connected with me for being so normal. Refreshingly normal in fact.

Audio/Video (3.5/5)

The picture and sound mix suffer from a few weak spots. The Japanese 2.0 Dolby True HD audio is an average sound mix with no noticeable issues or hiss. But it does suffer from a few moments of audio drop offs and just hollow sounds in spots. English Subtitles are included.

The 1080p HD picture is another beauty from Funimation. The colors pop out and the black levels are smooth, but the overall hyper gloss of the series comes off as too bright. There is no motion blur or other digital hiccups. So not a bad transfer. Just a run of the mill one.

Extras (1/5)

Extras are limited to a trailer gallery.

Overall (3/5)

While not essential viewing by any means, RAINBOW DAYS is a surprising little show because of it’s low key animation and style. Hilarious in a lot of ways and refreshingly normal in other ways. It’s just such a pleasant series to watch. Recommended for Anime fans looking for something on a nice lazy afternoon.