The Moon on a Rainy Night Volumes 2 and 3 Review
Kanon is hard of hearing, having lost her hearing gradually since middle school, and now in high school, she’s withdrawn from others and wishes to be left alone. Enter Saki, fellow classmate who wants to befriend Kanon regardless. Eventually the pair become fast friends, Kanon opening up to friendship for the first time in years, and Saki slowly developing romantic feelings for her. But Saki is determined for Kanon never to find out, but with the pair having their first sleepover, and getting to know each other’s families, can she keep her feelings bottled up for long?
The ending of the first volume of this yuri series ended with a cool reveal of Saki’s orientation in a unique and heartfelt way, but that was just the first hurdle for poor Saki, who is determined to never act on it. Why? The answered isn’t fully revealed in these volumes, but the few hints we do get make it clear that she was either bullied or outed before she was comfortable doing so. This is semi-paralleled with the sparse information we get about Kanon’s backstory too, being bullied for her disability and acting differently now as a reaction to that. For example, Kanon mentions that her hearing aid makes it easier to pick up deeper sounds, so she tended to hear male voices at school, rather than females’. This meant that the girls of the school made up rumours of her being into the guys only and threw awful names at her like ‘slut’ and ‘skank’, so she now attends an all-girls school to avoid the conflict of voices. The attention to detail about Kanon’s disability, and the struggles it can present outside of not just being able to hear correctly, is well thought-out and makes Kanon feel like a real person, rather than just a token disabled character. Saki’s struggles with her identity are different from Kanon’s but relatable too; the way the panels darken as her anxiety of being ‘outed’ really paint her struggles clearly on page. Plus, her inner monologue, repetitive wording of ‘can’t let her find out’, really makes you want to grab Saki through the page and give the poor girl a hug. The pair have a lot of emotional baggage to work through, but their friendship is slowly helping them heal and (hopefully) develop into love, so the pair can be emotionally stable and happy together in the future.
The romance itself is continually slow burning, so far there’s little to suggest feelings on Kanon’s end, but the constant need for her to be near Saki (to read her lips, or struggle to be on her own in busy places) gives Saki a lot of situations to blush about. Plus, with Saki’s push and pull of not wanting to act on her feelings but also wanting more time with Kanon is nicely done, and for Kanon to be completely oblivious to it is both funny and heart-breaking in places. Their friendship develops nicely too; there’s times where Saki puts her foot in her mouth accidently with queries that make Kanon uncomfortable, but Kanon thankfully knows that Saki doesn’t mean any harm by her questions. Saki in turn helps Kanon make friends outside of just the two of them and starts to open up more about her past too (at least what little she’s comfortable talking about) so the slow burn is still satisfying to read despite the lack of two-way romance happening at this point in the story.
Outside the pair, we also get an expansion of cast of the series, mostly via Kanon’s family and school staff, and not only are they a welcome addition but serve greatly to make Kanon’s everyday world more fleshed-out too. We first have Miura-sensei, a teacher who’s seemingly introduced as a jerk, but it turns out he’s just a bit oblivious when it comes to his teaching style. He talks while he’s facing the chalkboard, and of course, Kanon can’t read his lips with his back turned away from her, and so struggles to follow the lesson! When Miura realises this, he becomes more self-aware and ends up giving Kanon good advice later too, which is really nice to see. Then there’s Kanon’s family: her little sister Rinne, and her mum and dad. Through Rinne we learn she’s the ‘well child’ (the sibling who does not have disabilities) who has unique struggles of her own, overprotective of her sister as well as not being able to act out when she wants to, due to not wanting to distress their parents, as they have their hands full with Kanon already.
We also get a small development at the end of Volume 3 for Kanon’s former friend Ayano. When she made a brief appearance in Volume 1, it was to say mean things to Kanon and leave just as quickly to cause drama, so her re-introduction was a surprise, especially as we learn new sides to her. She’s an older sister to multiple younger siblings, father gone and mum working full time, so Ayane was basically in the ‘parentification’ role when she met Kanon, and it’s hinted that the stress of looking after Kanon on top of that led to their eventual falling out. The manga didn’t have to do this, Kuzushiro could’ve just had her as a generic bully character, but this backstory adds texture to not only the character but creating a very relatable situation that makes the manga’s world feel lived-in and complex. No one person is just ‘bad’ or ‘good’, we all have shades of each, even Kanon herself says she’s far from perfect, blaming herself for Ayane’s leaving. Right or wrong, we are all complicated human beings, living in a complicated world that’s sadly not built for everyone – disabled people especially.
Kuzushiro’s art continues to be excellent, the shading, the level of detail and more, it’s also quite brave to give one of the main character’s a new hair cut just three volumes into the story (it’s part of the story but still!) Kevin Steinback continues to do an exceptional translation job too, providing context to disabled-related terminology, as well as translation notes at the end.
The Moon on a Rainy Night is an excellent series, from the complex characters to the textured world to the wonderful, detailed ways in which disabilities can affect someone’s everyday life. Will Volume 4 be the tipping point for their relationship? We’ll find out in March!
Our review copy from Kodansha was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
