【After the Rain】— An encounter that set my frozen time in motion
A story about Akira, a 17-year-old high school girl, who falls in love with her 45-year-old family restaurant manager.
…When you hear that, you might think it's a bit of a quirky romance,
but in reality, it was a very quiet, delicate, and gentle work.
I loved how poetic the title of each episode was.
Rainy days have, how should I put it,
a damp, poetic feel to them, so I don't dislike them.
Of course, I don't like heavy downpours, though lol
Besides, the moment after the rain clears is so refreshing 🌞
After getting injured in track and field,
Akira felt as if her heart had come to a standstill.
At that moment,
the manager spoke to her so kindly.
“It will surely stop soon.”
When you're feeling down,
if someone is that kind to you,
I can understand why you'd fall for them.
Akira might look cool,
but when she falls in love, she's incredibly straightforward.
She gets happy over the manager's little words and gestures, and her heart races just by getting closer to him.
The feeling of having your mind completely filled with that one person when you're in love is depicted so carefully,
that even I, as a viewer, start to feel a bittersweet sensation.
Episode 3.
Kondo feels Akira's youthful passion and imagines himself being young again, but when asked about his children by Akira,
he returns to his 45-year-old self.
Akira is very happy to see a side of Kondo that is different from his usual self.
This kind of direction that expresses subtle emotions is really good, and it's the charm of this work.
Love is something that eventually ends.
That's why love is precious,
painful,
sometimes cruel,
and very wonderful.
Watching this work,
makes those wonderful and irreplaceable moments of love
feel nostalgic and dear.
The wavering feelings of a girl in love are depicted very carefully,
and her feelings are expressed through Akira's gestures and expressions as she experiences joy and sorrow over Kondo's casual actions and words.
Like the desire to know more about the person you love.
Also, in episode 10,
the story about the swallow that couldn't fly felt like it overlapped with their feelings,
and it really touched my heart.
This work,
isn't just a romance; it's a story about time that had stopped starting to move again.
Feeling Akira's very straightforward and passionate emotions, Kondo's buried passion for literature welled up within him.
Feeling Kondo's passion for literature and his refusal to give up, Akira also remembered her passion for running and her desire to run.
That sense of both of them gradually looking forward was nice.
I also like the opening theme.
It starts quietly, and the way it suddenly brightens up in the chorus like the sky after the rain suits the work perfectly.
The ending theme and the background music are also mellow, leaving a lingering impression after you finish watching.
I think the ending was fine the way it was.
For the two of them,
I imagine that time must have been truly irreplaceable.
I would recommend this work to those who enjoy pure romance stories (excluding those who are uncomfortable with age-gap relationships).