The Song of Rainfall is a short story collection. The manga opens with a fun little metaphor of a story about how lucky a person feels in love. It’s called “The Man Wearing One Sock.” This was my favorite story in the collection, which is probably why I ended up feeling over all dissatisfied, as I felt it peaked early.
SPOILERS
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“The Man Wearing One Sock” is a cute, little one shot about how lucky it feels to be in love. The story follows the hapless Irou, a guy who just can not seem to get it together. Until one day, when Aoi moves in next door. Aoi is a cheerful, helpful sort who always just seems to be in the right place at the right time to help out Irou. For instance, Aoi discovers that Irou’s missing socks are being stolen by the neighborhood cat and is able to return them to Irou. Life is just better with Aoi in it. Apparently, this is enough for Irou to be like, so maybe also sex?? Which, I mean there have likely been dumber reasons to hook-up?
The second story is the titular “The Song of Rainfall.” This story also is the bulk of the collection, coming, as it does, in several parts. This is one of those that I wanted to love … and then incest gets introduced. In this case we have a morose, heart sore professor, Amamiya, who both pines and feels guilty of lusting after his step-brother. Along comes Naruse, a dead ringer for the step-brother. Naruse is caught out in the rain and, classically, Amamiya invites this handsome stranger in to dry off. I don’t know, it kind of just gets weird from there because Naruse is also maybe looking for a father figure? They sort of work it out over time, but I am not convinced it’s healthy.
The third story is called “In First Love’s Midst,” and follows two brothers Shin and Take that the translator insists in their notes are “step-brothers.” I mean, sure, but it’s not like we haven’t seen straight-up incest before. Take is the older brother who is always there for Shin, until it’s time to move out. Shin seems to like girls, but likes Take better, so they conspire to live together in the future. If you find this sort of devotion romantic, it’s nice enough.
As discussed here before, I find the step/brother stuff to be a bit off-putting, but I understand that it comes from a Japanese ideal of “those who know you best.” The whole thing would work so much better for me if the new lover just looked like an ex, but what can you do? I was surprised to discover that this collection isn’t all that old, having come out in 2010. I always think of these incest kink stories as belonging to the previous century, but 2010 is 16 years ago, so close enough I guess.
The art in this one is also somewhat… funky. It’s a little on the crude side. So, maybe with all of these strikes against it, it will be a miss for you. I only stumbled across it because I am still working through the free manga on Comics Plus, though my library subscription. As always, if you are okay reading the pirate version (or want to try before you buy) it is linked above. (Actually the above link only has the first of the short stories, sorry. This one is hard to find online.)
