Have you ever been inspired by anime? I don’t mean the hotblooded passion that makes you want to punch a dinosaur in the face, though that’s great, too. I mean when anime makes you want to be a better person, or have better personal relationships. There’s probably a specific cocktail of various story elements unique to each of us required to induce such a personal effect, but Rainbow is one of the few anime which gives me those feelings.
On the face of it, this frame doesn't quite scream “inspiring," does it? In spite of that, anyone who’s watched Rainbow knows the precise moment this scene takes place.
We constantly see the theme of “passionate optimism” in even the most basic anime. The series
Naruto, for example, preaches the value of serving a community you believe in, enflamed with an appetite for action (it’s also about how cool Sasuke is supposed to be, but I’m trying to make a point here!) Anime is full of Existential Superheroes: characters who define what is most important for themselves, and go after it with a high-minded optimism that is rarely, if ever, breached. When anime does this, it does it in the extreme. The character may be likable, but whatever dramatic tension he experiences is constantly dialed up to eleven, not true to life at all. Think about anime like Gurren Lagann, where the characters are so ridiculous and over-the-top it almost feels like an indulgence to enjoy them, and you’d never refer to them as “interesting.”
So, it’s hard to have a realistic, human character also embody the principles we find in the Existential Superhero. You’d be lucky to have one of these characters in any given anime, but Rainbow’s core cast consists of seven such people.
Early in the series’ broadcast I remember comparisons being drawn to The Shawshank Redemption. The 1994 film, which featured heartwarming prisoners fighting for their humanity, is not only the highest user-ranked movie on IMDB.com, it is immensely melodramatic. We have it in us to love these sorts of stories, but to work they must be presented without the neurotic self-consciousness that infects nearly every pop culture product coming out today. A good melodrama needs to be honest, have heart, and be true to the human experience.
“True to the human experience.” Anime tends to waver on that last point. Rainbow does not.
Rainbow is an anime about the lives of six Japanese delinquents trying to survive in the 1950s, transformed by their friendship with a fellow delinquent they come to know as An-chan, or “bro.”
Seven main characters in a 26-episode show? It works. The characters are rich enough, though two of them in particular aren’t as well-developed as they were in the manga. I’ll admit the characters don’t stand out as the most original archetypes known to man, but saying they’re cliché and leaving it at that would be a mistake. The effective combination of plotting and characterization reminds me of something novelist Umberto Eco once said:
When all the archetypes burst in shamelessly, we reach Homeric depths. Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred clichés move us.
He was talking about Casablanca, but this is the same reason why Rainbow works. The character personalities may seem familiar to you, but they are presented genuinely and consistently, in part thanks to very solid plotting and characterization, and in part thanks to the terrific voice acting done by the entire cast.
In Rainbow, ideas aren’t obfuscated in obscure religious references or pop psychology. Character motivations aren’t unrealistic, or even worse, inexplicable. The drama is literal and up-front. In a lesser anime this would reveal its absurdity; Rainbow is more effectively human for it.
THEN WHY DIDN’T ANYONE WATCH IT?
The only other people I’ve encountered online that appear to echo some of my sentiments are Chris Beveridge of mania.com and Joseph Luster of otakuusaamagazine.com. The show has been simulcast for free, but there is relatively little talk (positive or negative) among anime bloggers and review sites. What’s the deal?
Rainbow is a show that doesn’t feed otaku appetites of any sort. No loli, no moe, no robots, no ecchi. Even though it has some boxing in it, it’s not enough of a sports anime to draw in that tiny American crowd.
Does that make it for “general audiences?” It’s based on a seinen manga, but it doesn’t really fit into what is licensed and promoted in the US as seinen, either. Rainbow might be notable to general audiences in that it goes to some dark psychological places for a cartoon, but otaku are already keenly aware of the much darker (often terrible) anime and manga out there.
This disclaimer appears before every episode. It's an appropriate warning for most people, but otaku won’t be shocked by the intensity of this show at all.
There are many otaku who can appreciate wackiness and excess, but an unsettling majority I’ve met transform into “tvtropes academics” whenever they encounter anime that eschews the zany and is unapologetically dramatic. You’ll know these people when you meet them because they call story elements they don’t like plot holes, think categorizing something is the same thing as understanding it, and are generally dismissive without being substantive.
In addition, this is a show about brotherhood and friendship. It explores these themes in a masculine way, though not excessively so. I fear some of the more thoughtful anime fans out there who might have appreciated the show’s subtleties will have an urge to write it off as being for dudes only.
And finally, the series vilifies pedophilia early on, so anime fans who spend all day on 4chan might be offended by that. I’m partly joking and partly not: 4chan is a haven for actual child pornography, even if the mainstream media never covers that when they talk about the site. Pedophilia as a crime, not fetish material, is a very rare domain for otaku. What I found immensely refreshing, others might find judgmental.
In closing, Rainbow is an anime that offers something unique. And in our current anime climate, that alone would say a lot. The fact it’s so well executed is sublime icing on the cake.
