First impression: After the Rain

Synopsis

High school student Akira Tachibana is a soft-spoken girl who was once an ace of the track team but after an injury, could no longer run as fast and decided to leave the club. Now she works part-time at a family restaurant where on one rainy day, she met and fell in love with it’s manager, a middle-aged man divorcee with a son. This is the story of Akira and her story of love and dealing with her feelings over track.

The Good

For a lot of people, having a crush can make some people pretty irrational and this rings quite true throughout the episode. What’s more it’s not only with the main character that we see this concept but also with an extra character who adds just a hint of comedy to the episode. With Akira, the way that way that the episode portrays her crush on the manager is rather cute to say the least with the way that the little background tones and the work on her facial expressions. Just the little notes in art and animation gives more expression to the scene.

That’s one of the other plus points of the episode, the way that the episode plays on its background tones and camera work such as the flashback and the panning of the characters. The thing that really makes the background tone and just general art and animation work for the episode though is how it works scenes involving the rain or sun. Really, just the way that the episode overall deals with its background details rather commendable.

Other than the emotional portrayal of the characters and the solid use of background art, the episode overall gave a solid introduction into its general concept and the characters without revealing too much on them.

The Bad

The one thing to note about the episode is that there are times that the art ends up somewhat inconsistent. For one thing, when Akira is first introduced and Yoshizawa tries to interact with her, their features comes off as just a little two sharp and then when she enters the cafe restaurant, you clearly see that her features have been rounded out. It just seems that the features of the characters shift from one scene to the other.

The other issue for the episode, well, rather the entire series really, is the general concept itself. There have been stories of couples where one is older than the other, but the stretch that this series is taking with a near thirty year gap may be a bit much for some viewers. Sure, it may be on the surface rather cute and the way that the episode handled it is not to off. So, if the series doesn’t try to force the concept too much then it’s got a steady flow going for it.

Conclusion

Background, tone and character work style, the episode did a pretty solid job. There were some slight misses with the art and certain scenes could have been done better with some extra dialogue or maybe a different setting but so far it’s set up a pretty good introduction with the way it works its rain scenes and melancholic theme. The concept may not appeal to everyone, but the series looks like it will be able to handle things if it continues on with the tone and foundation that its on.

Rating: 7.5/10