Melancholic but Sweet: 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 her story of love and dealing with her feelings over track.

The Good

When reading the premise, it doesn’t seem the most ideal given that a story about a romance between two people with a large age gap may end in more than a few weird scenes. However, one should not be fooled by this as the romance is but a layer to the entire story. The center of this series lies in Akira and Kondo rediscovering themselves and going through an emotional journey. While the chemistry and romance that occurred between them was sweet in many ways, it was in the moments that Kondo is alone along with other characters that scenes with more depth rise up with lovely imagery to match with it.

Next to the emotional work of the series, the art also helps a great deal in conveying different moments without dialogue or in simply bringing out different tones. Admittedly however, there are moments that the scenes just don’t work, but they are few and somewhat far between. Just the background art such as the flowers and bubbles make certain moments sweeter. Overall, it’s just clever imagery mixed with some lovely music.

The Bad

The only real bad thing that can be said against the series is that he focus may go a little off point at times. While there was some solid character exploration, not just on the main character but others as well, it just added to the story. However, this resulted in less character exploration on Akira’s part other than her going through her troubles of wanting to go back to track and her emotions for Kondo. When looking at the bigger picture however, outside of the emotional exploration of the characters, the plot didn’t do all that much. Any other issues to be found in the series is minor at most.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a series that’s more on the characters and their emotions with the relationship at the backburner, this is the series. While plot at its entirety is rather safe with a few spikes, the character exploration was done great. Added with the art, animation and music there were a lot of moments that gave depth to the series overall. It’s a simple love story that gives more than what it says in its premise, it goes deep but at the same time it leaves a positive note and a beautiful look at Akira and Kondo’s relationship.

Rating: 7.5/10