clarissa.swaniawski - 2017-01-19 21:04:26

Best anime ever

bennie.bradtke - 2016-07-08 17:47:40

This anime is a masterpiece is great from every point you think.

eschumm - 2016-06-30 07:21:04

Realistic view on what life is during hardships. masterfully done and one cant help but to pray the characters get a happy ending

jprice - 2016-03-13 06:22:09

Leave everything you are doing and watch this anime its sooooo amazing its out of this world plus op blends so well

simonis.khalil - 2015-07-27 18:20:18

Friendship is anextremely common theme in anime (in any medium for that matter) but rarely isit portrayed in hell. Set in a crippled 1950's Japan, Rainbow thrusts its sevenprotagonists into a juvenile refinement center, which is essentially a youth prisonfilled with guards who are out for blood. They give each other nicknames,befriend each other over a smoke, and carve their dreams on a tree for whenthey're finally free, and agree to meet there once again in the future.

It is a very grippingstory and throughout the series you as the audience will be kept on your seatalmost constantly. The atmosphere is always extremely tense, and this isin-part due to the brilliant presentation.

During the first halfof the show, the colour palette is mostly grey, which really brings out thedreariness of the setting. Couple this with the vivid redness of the blood andyou yourself have a very grim experience. The boys are almost always in peril,and face very harsh consequences for their actions, some of which last alifetime. This brutal reality only makes the catharsis that much moresatisfying when the boys do succeed, creating a very exhilarating watch.

But as ruthless theshow is, it lacks all subtlety. Along with most of the show's antagonists,Ishihara, the guard in charge of our cast's cell, is drawn very grotesquely toaccentuate his sadism, and looks very unrealistic compared to the grittiness ofthe other characters. This is pretty unnecessary considering the extent ofIshihara's character is his sadism alone. Even the other antagonists, such asthe pedophilic doctor Sasaki, are all very one-dimensional, and merely serve asvillains for the sake of being villains. 

The protagonists arenot that complex either. The seven boys all have a few traits to make themstand out, and while they develop nicely throughout the show, they don’t havethat much to them. Soldier and Cabbage are completely expendable and existsolely to have muscle and comic relief respectively. Sakuragi, the eldest, is avery stoic man, but cares for his friends deeply, and while this makes himlikable, it doesn't make him all that memorable.

Rainbow is somewhatimbalanced in the way that it treats its characters. During the first half,most of the cast are given sad and depressing back-stories to make the audiencecare about them instead of actually developing them and their relationship. Inthis case, said victimization works, but it is still a cheap tactic. Theback-stories can be quite melodramatic, but given the setting, and the factthat many criminals have childhood trauma, they rarely feel implausible, or assome may say, edgy. I really wish that the characters had beenfleshed out more in the beginning as it would’ve made the audience’s care forthem that much more genuine.

It is only during thesecond half, which takes place outside the prison, in which the characterdynamics are fully explored. The show handles this switch from thriller toslice of life very well, which is quite difficult to pull off.

Albeit without some ofthe same intensity, the characters’ interpersonal problems are just asentertaining as the threats to their life in part one. Turtle and Uncovered areprobably the best characters of the bunch. Turtle's charisma and sly, con-mannature always steals the spotlight, while Uncovered is a flawed butgood-natured man which makes him very easy to relate to. Joe's dreams ofbecoming a singer are handled in a realistic manner as well, as he facesmany bumps in the road, and his story proves that becoming a superstar iscertainly no easy task. But no matter how tough it gets, Joe continues tofollow his dream against all odds, which displays a lot of growth in hischaracter, as in the beginning he was quite weak-willed.

In fact, all of thecharacters mature quite believable and subtly, which is something the showdeserves a lot of credit for. This passage of time is most evident in Mario. Hebegins as an irrational boy, and idolizes Sakuragi to the point of taking upboxing, something Sakuragi loves. Eventually he develops a strong relationshipwith Setsuko, which forces him to grow and become his own man rather than justmirror Sakuragi.

All of these elementscome together and create a very entertaining and down-to-earth story, althoughthere are many small narrative inconsistencies littered throughout the show.For example, there is a scene in which one character is walking around in anatomic bomb site moments after it was detonated, when he should clearly havedied due to radiation poisoning. Or another time when the cast managed to trackdown a woman across the country none of them knew the whereabouts to (or hadany prior connections to) within a matter of days. This is the 1950's; such atask would be nearly impossible in such a short amount of time. Alone, theseissues are fairly minor, but compounded they become very damaging to theimmersion of the series.

My biggest complaintis an extremely irrational and stupid decision made by Sakuragi around thehalfway point. His blatant ignorance regarding almost all of the characters inthe show almost cost his friends in prison their lives, if not for aconvenience in the plot. But at the end of the day, none of these gripesdestroy the experience completely, and the show still feels grounded enough todisplay its themes cohesively; and the main theme of Rainbow is friendship.

While I wish the showwould have spent more time developing their friendship throughout the earliersections of the show, (as they go from strangers to eternal companions in justtwo episodes) Rainbow nails its thematic execution regarding the importance ofcamaraderie. The way the characters act so genuinely selfless towards oneanother is truly inspiring, and while the dialogue can sometimes feel unnaturalor ham-fisted, the cast's actions speak far louder than their words. Everyonereally needs each other to survive, whether they’re inside the prison or out, andRainbow displays this while still firmly grounded in reality.

Not only are thesethemes gripping on their own, but the show’s musical score blends with itflawlessly. The tracks themselves aren’t particularly memorable on their own,but the strong usage of sombre guitar-based pieces reflects the cast’s longingto escape. However the opening and ending themesare thoroughly phenomenal songs even when unaccompanied by the show.

The opening highlightsthe prison's brutal conditions through intense power-metal while the endingcontrasts it with a cold, melancholic, yet hopeful tone. A lot of fantasticframing is utilized in the opening as well, such as a low-angle upwards-pan atthe walls to depict the hopelessness of escape. The expert angling also carriesover towards the show as there are some very nice shots in the series itself.

The cast is a mixedbag and the narrative can be very inconsistent but the brisk pacing and tenseatmosphere keep excitement high while the subtext is powerful enough to lingerin one’s mind for months. None of this is tainted by the show's conclusioneither, as it is very well handled. While it is not a complete adaptationit definitely feels like a complete experience. Rainbow isn’tsomething revolutionary, but it is a unique experience, so I can recommend itas something to be backlogged, and not necessarily watched right away. 

alexzander.keebler - 2015-05-22 05:37:03

Friendship, it's the one thing so many of us take for granted. Rainbow really shows us that through some of the toughest times of your life a real friend will do anything to see you succeed. I really enjoyed the first part of the series, I understand how it had to keep moving but I would have liked to have a few more episodes in the beginning to really feel the characters a bit more. Also I feel like the Soldier character was the only one who was really left out, he felt rushed and you couldn't really feel anything from him. Great soundtrack and OP. All-in-all really enjoyed the experience that these 26 ep gave.