The title was a little misleading. Definitely not “rainbow days.” Maybe it’s just me, but from the description and title, I thought this would be LGBTQIA+. It is not.

Perfect book for when you are in the mood for something light and cute. Also, when in the mood for friendship based and funny mangas, this is now my go to! I enjoyed this volume and am looking forward to the next installment!

While this manga wasn't really for me, I do think readers who enjoy slice of life, high school shenanigans will enjoy it. It has a similar vibe to Horimiya. Unfortunately, I didn't really like most of the characters. However, Natsuki and his crush are super cute together! The story itself is pretty typical - holiday themed stories, obsessing over crushes, studying, etc. There are two short stories at the end, as well.

I wanted to like this one but just couldn't get into it. The characters were all unique but it just felt like their personalities were missing something.

*Provided an ARC by NetGalley for an honest review*

Okay... maybe the plot was lacking a little in places, but how could you not love these four boys and their dynamics!

- 1 The Softy Empath paired with the mysterious Santa girl
- 2 The Playboy paired with the Tsun-Tsun Girl
- 3 The Concerning Tastes (Sadist) Boy
- 4 The Barely Existing Otaku Boy paired with the talkative stubborn girl

Honestly these matches are made in heaven and completely hilarious. Still confused on when we'll see a love interest for S-Boy, but maybe in the next volume?

The story follows the boys as they fall out of crushes and into true love. Their personalities are fun and bounce off of each other in such a way that you can't help but feel like they're your own friends. Overall, I found it to be humorous and highly enjoyable from the characters to the art style. I highly suggest checking this book out!

Thanks NetGalley for let me read an ARC of the English version. I’d give this 3.5 stars. I thought the story was really cute. I loved the friendship between the four boys. It was realistic to how boys act, where they tease one another but are also supportive of one another, no matter their tastes.

Not a lot happens in the first issue. It’s more establishing the friendship between the four and Natchan’s crush. I’m intrigued to see how Natchan and Kobayakawa’s relationship progresses!

This series is starting off with a lot of fun and humor!

This series follows 4 teenage boys as they find their way through romances in high school. Our main hero, Natsuki is a romantic at heart. Each of the boys is very different, and Natsuki is truly a little oblivious to how things work. When he's dumped by his golddigger girlfriend, he offers a stranger who looks cold a scarf. She takes the scarf, and starts wearing it constantly. When Natsuki sees her at school, he believes it's fate!

Pick up this volume to see how he and his 4 friends handle what is thrown at them in the series!

The art in Rainbow Days was pretty good. The rest of it runs like a trope shenanigans parade. I'm not the target audience for this, and it almost feels like the author may not either. (I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.)

Rainbow Days Volume One focuses on four high school boys: dreamer Natsuki Hashiba, self-centered playboy Tomoya Matsunaga, winsome guy Keiichi Katakura, and awkward nerd Tsuyoshi Naoe.

Rainbow Days Volume One
Written by: Minami Mizuno
Publisher: Shueisha Inc.
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: December 6, 2022

This is a slice-of-life shojo manga featuring four high school boys going through their time at school. A lot of the focus is on Natsuki, who has just gotten his first girlfriend. The prologue takes place right around Christmas, with Natsuki, Tomoya, and Keiichi getting ready for dates on Christmas Eve. But poor Natsuki… after finding what he thinks is the perfect gift, his girlfriend turns her nose up at it. She only went out with him thinking he had money because of a fancy watch he was wearing (which was just a hand-me-down from one of his siblings). After being dumped, Natsuki encounters a girl handing out tissues in front of a karaoke place. He notices she’s cold and gives her the scarf that his now ex-girlfriend refused to take. This one action sets the stage for what happens to Natsuki going forward in the volume.

In the first chapter, Natsuki discovers that the girl he gave the scarf to is a student at his high school, and he finds himself falling for her… but he’s too shy to approach her. However, they have an unexpected encounter at the karaoke place where she works. When Anna (the girl) finally approaches him to return the scarf, things get awkward when her man-hating best friend Mari butts into what appears to be a blossoming interest between Natsuki and Anna. This volume seems to be depicting that Mari is a lesbian who is attracted to Anna and is jealous of her getting closer with Natsuki. It doesn’t help that playboy Tomoya kisses Mari out of the blue at one point, flustering her and causing him to wonder why he did that in the first place. If there’s an “antagonist” in this series, that title would have to go to Mari.

Right at first, Tsuyoshi doesn’t seem to be an important character. However, after it’s revealed he has a girlfriend who is a cosplayer, he becomes more integral to the stories that appear in this volume. It’s because of him and his girlfriend’s desire to do “reverse chocolates” for Valentine’s Day (guys giving them to girls instead of girls giving them to guys) that we get a story of the guys learning how to make truffles from Tomoya. It’s kind of amusing if you think about it, that the playboy is the one who knows how to make sweets, especially since he comes across as a guy who wants girls to make food for him.

I haven’t talked about Keiichi yet, because to be honest, there isn’t a lot to say about him. He’s depicted as being into S&M and domination, and he’s shown with a whip on a rather regular basis. I haven’t seen too much more to his character outside of this, and I find myself wondering why he’s even included in this series. I’m hoping that maybe he’ll becomes more of a character in future volumes and become more important to the overall series.

When it comes to the art in Rainbow Days, our four protagonists all have a bishonen look to them. Mizuno knows who her target market is for this series, and it shows through the character designs. While the girls who appear in this volume look decent, you can tell that Mizuno went to a lot more effort in the design of the male leads. The use of screentone in this volume also makes it clear that this is a shojo series.

Rainbow Days is a shojo slice-of-life series, which means that its tension comes more from misunderstandings and emotions than anything else… which is typical for this kind of a series. However, from what I’ve seen, it appears this series ran for 15 volumes, and to be honest, I’m not sure that the series’ premise and execution can continue to be as strong as it is here. While it’s an enjoyable enough story, I’m just afraid that it’s going to wear itself into the ground before reaching that final volume. It’s interesting to note that this manga began serializing Japan about a decade ago, and that the last tankobon volume was released in 2017, so I’m wondering why it took VIZ Media so long to license this title for an English release.

However, if you enjoy shojo manga with high school boys experiencing their school days, then Rainbow Days might appeal to you.

This manga was funny and entertaining, but since it's the 1st volume of the series it lacks a little bit of the solid story that I'm sure it gets to as this is the intro to it all. I did enjoy the relationship between the characters.

This one missed me, and I'm not sure if it was the pace or some of the translation choices. It had excellent art and some charming moments, but the introduction feels like a midseries moment instead of a lead into the setting. I would not be opposed to every reading more, but I can't say I'll be jumping at the next one. 2.5 stars, rounded up.

This manga made me laugh out loud multiple times, which is hard to do. The story and characters are ridiculous, but funny once in a while. This book made me feel like a lot of time had gone by - but in a good sense. Like we as readers are getting a good look at the characters from many scenarios in time. It was quite cool.

This had the potential to be a cute high school friendship centered manga, but fell short with some of the character's questionable behavior. Natsuki and Katakura's arc was cute for the most part and if the story had mainly been about them, it might have been better. Or if it had just been about the friends trying to look out for Natsuki, that also would have been better. Matsunaga's character in particular was unpleasant and inappropriate, with mentions of cheating and with the scene where he essentially disregards Mari's confession of liking her friend and instead kisses her without consent.

I am reasonably certain that I reviewed the anime version of this title and that it didn't leave much of an impression on me, so I'm delighted to say that the manga is much more fun. Why could simply boil down to the book being better than the adaptation, but whatever the reason, <i>Rainbow Days</i>' first volume is a goofy little confection about four guy friends with their own little quirks that may or may not work out for them. There's enthusiastic sadist Kei, hapless Natchan, playboy Matsun, and otaku Tsuyopon, and together they're a mismatched bunch. As the volume goes on, Natchan falls hard for Anna, who is guarded fiercely by her misandrist friend Mari, and I really don't like how Matsun acts around her, but that's the only major fly in the ointment. Mostly this is just fluff and fun, and while it isn't likely to knock your socks off, it is a pretty fun time.

This was just all over the place. I couldn't keep track of the story or who was who, which made it impossible to conenct to any of the characters.

This is a really sweet manga about 4 guys with different personalities being themselves and trying to find love during high school. They struggle with their grades and with finding girlfriends who aren't just trying to use them based on their perceived financial status.

I think that I actually kind of like how each boy expresses their affection differently. Especially Natsuki and Katakura. I think I can guess where Matsunaga's storyline is going to go, and that's perfectly fine with me! There's a difference between a poly relationship and plain ol' cheating and I'd rather have Matsunaga's character go through a predictable plotline than be a proud cheater. Tsuyoshi was a little harder to get a bead on, especially since he wasn't present for the first chapter. I'd be interested to learn more about him as the series goes on.

Anyways, this volume is a fluffy start to a hopefully very fluffy shojo manga series!

This was a fun and sweet little slice of life. I'm always up for more "cute boys doing cute things" kind of series. Don't get me wrong, I like the cute girls, too, but it's nice to see more series mix it up, and this title seems to be trying to do exactly that in little ways, from the group of male friends actually looking out for their more naïve member when he's on a bad date, to one of the female characters possibly crushing on another girl. It's those small differences that help it stand out. It's not the greatest slice of life story, but it works well within its chosen genre. If you like breezy, silly reads with fairly low-stakes, by all means, give this one a look!

Thank you to Netgalley and Viz for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Four high school boys are close in friendship, but their personalities couldn't be more different! We meet Hashiba, Matsunaga, Katakura, and Naoe- all who have a very different take on being in love.

Through various romantic circumstances, we see this group handle such holidays as Christmas, Valentines Day, and even final exams! The boys have very interesting personalities- all mixing and creating a fun story with humor, love, and friendship.

Overall I enjoyed the comedy and banter the characters brought to light, but occasionally I found myself not being able to keep up with the dialogue. Sometimes it was hard to follow who was taking, especially when there were 5 characters in the same scene. The art was decent, but lacked the heavy detail I usually enjoy. Overall a solid 3 star read.

This is the perfect type of manga if you are in the mood for a cute story about friendship. Slice of life about a quirky group of high school kids. This bunch don't seem like they would have much in common, or even be friends at all, but sometimes that makes for the most interesting stories. I would be interested in reading more of these.

#RainbowDaysVol1 #NetGalley

This series follows four high school best friends as they navigate school, friendship and romance. I am so excited this is getting published because I’m a huge fan of the manga and anime! The comedy and romance are perfectly balanced and the series has such great character development. At first glance, this series seems like it’s just a light hearted slice of life rom-com, but it has so much depth and you become so invested in all of the characters.