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. This was one of the greatest mangas I have ever read.
Rainbow days also known as 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.

Main Characters
Natsuki hashiba :Nicknamed Natcchan, he is a hopeless romantic who immerses into his delusions of love. n Christmas, he was dumped by his girlfriend. While crying alone in the street, he saw a girl handing out tissues in a Santa Claus outfit. In return, he gave her a scarf that was to be for his girlfriend and immediately fell in love with her. The girl turned out to be one of his schoolmates from another class, Anna. He tends to get bullied and teased a lot by his friends, but they still care for him and support him in pursuing Anna. . He later becomes Anna's boyfriend after confessing his feelings for her during the school festival and they attend the same university together after graduation.

Tomoya Matsunaga : Nicknamed Mattsun . He is a playboy who is popular with the ladies. Confident and a bit of a narcissist. he usually spats with Mari from time to time, until he realizes that he has feelings for her. Mari doesn't take him seriously the first few times he confessed to her, but his patience and understanding of her personal issues eventually won her over. Not one to shy away from grand gestures of love, Tomoya then becomes a doting boyfriend, much to Mari's embarrassment and distaste. He has a younger sister named Nozomi, whom he is very protective of. Tomoya is good at singing, has a knack for baking, and plays the guitar as a casual hobby. He later attends the same university as Natsuki, Keiichi and Anna. Much like his sister, it is hinted that he maybe a masochist.

Keiichi Katakura : Nicknamed Kei-chan. While Keiichi appears as cheerful, he actually harbors sadistic fetishes. In fact, he constantly carries around a whip in case anyone provokes him. He also is very athletic, excelling in every sport. He likes basketball and tends to help out with the basketball team. His older brother, Yuji is a teacher at the school. He has an interest in older women and also once had a crush on the school nurse, Satomi. He confesses his feelings to her only to find out that she herself is also a sadist. He immediately gives up on her after that. He later falls in love and dates Tomoya's sister Nozomi, after she continued pursuing him even after discovering his sadistic side. After graduating from high school, he attends the same university as Natsuki, Tomoya and Anna.

Tsuyoshi Naoe : Nicknamed Tsuyopon (つよぽん). He is an otaku and not one to read the atmosphere. He is usually seen reading mangas or playing video games. He is the smart one of the group, since he gets high scores on exams and is good at English.He often tutors his friends . He also likes to create dōjinshi. He has a girlfriend, Yukiko, who likes to cosplay and they both have similar interests. He doesn't like to display affection in public, saving them for later when he is alone with his girlfriend. He later attends a university in Tokyo and continues a long distance relationship with his girlfriend.

When his girlfriend unceremoniously dumps him on Christmas Eve, Natsuki breaks down in tears in the middle of the street and is offered tissues by a girl in a Santa Claus suit. He instantly falls in love with this girl, Anna Kobayakawa, who fortunately attends the same school as him. Natsuki's pursuit of Anna should have been simple and uneventful; however, much to his dismay, his nosy friends constantly meddle in his relationship, as they strive to succeed in their own endeavors of love. Not only natuski but his friends also find the true meaning of love during this journey. All the four love stories are unique on their own.

I love this manga so much, it is just so relaxing and nothing too serious happens and since this manga is about school life it makes it relatable. I feel like enjoying with my friends whenever I start reading.

Nijiiro days is a completely ordinary manga. But the amazing chemistry among characters and great art style makes this manga absolutely perfect for you to read. This is actually one of the only rom-coms that's actually funny. The only sad part is it ended too soon .

This has to be one of the best mangas I've ever read.

Hope this review is helpful.
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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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