The Moon On a Rainy Night Volume 1 Manga Review (Spoiler‑Free)

“The moon on a rainy night” is a Japanese idiom referring to something that cannot be seen, despite being present. In the first volume of the manga The Moon on a Rainy Night by Kuzushiro, the mangaka uses this motif to emphasize showing and not telling to slowly build their characters in this first volume.

Unseen but still present feelings

The story opens on Kanon and Saki’s first encounter. Saki trips and falls outside on the way to her piano lesson. Kanon helps her up and gives her a bandaid. When Saki tries to say thank you and start a conversation, Kanon walks away. What Saki doesn’t realize is that Kanon is hard of hearing, a fact which is present, but unseen by Saki.

Immediately after that, Saki discovers her piano teacher is quitting to get married and have a baby, which devastates her. Kuzushiro doesn’t have to say that Saki had a crush on her piano teacher, but makes that immediately clear with the expressions Saki makes at the news, and how she tells her mother about it at dinner that day. Saki’s reaction to her piano teacher telling her to continue with another instructor implies that Saki only played piano for so long because of her attachment to her teacher, without spelling it out for the reader. The final callback to that at the end of the volume drives the point home further.

Slow slow burn

In the first volume of The Moon on A Rainy Night, Saki’s attraction to women is depicted as something she’s aware of and trying to keep hidden. Her first thought when she sees Kanon is “she’s so pretty,” and she’s fascinated by Kanon’s cool demeanor. Though their relationship progresses slowly in this first volume, their interactions are set up as having romantic meaning to Saki from the moment they meet. Compared to the Boys’ Love manga I Hear the Sunspot, which also has a central character with hearing loss, The Moon on A Rainy Night is romantically oriented from the start. While Saki is aware her feelings for Kanon are more than friendship, Kanon sees Saki as a good friend. The final chapter of this volume makes that tension explicit. Kanon has never even thought about possibly being attracted to women, while Saki knows she likes Kanon.

Heard it all before

Kanon, meanwhile, has other things to worry about: starting high school while being hard of hearing, falling out with her old friend and not getting along with her classmates. When Saki decides she wants to help Kanon with these things, not because a teacher told her to but because she wants to get to know Kanon better and be her friend, Kanon is suspicious. Her past experience has convinced her that Saki’s going to get fed up with taking care of her eventually. Kanon’s hearing loss appeared suddenly after she suffered a fever in elementary school, leaving her with the ability to speak clearly and still hear a little, but also with the full knowledge of how much she’s lost. Before her fever, she was a piano prodigy, working with her piano teacher mother. Though future volumes will delve deeper into the complicated feelings Kanon has about losing her ability to play piano, this first volume lays the groundwork by making Kanon’s mother Saki’s new piano instructor.

The art on a rainy night

Kuzushiro uses a variety of careful, specific expressions for Saki and Kanon to communicate their feelings without needing to state them. Though there were a few panels I thought could be redrawn from a clearer angle, Kuzushiro is generally skilled at using the medium of a comic to tell a story. What’s especially crucial in a story about hearing loss is the ability to depict sound. Kuzushiro does this by filling speech balloons with static and gray tones when Kanon is unable to clearly hear what’s being said around her. This is fairly effective, if not groundbreaking. Kuzushiro also has a swishy, elegant way of rendering characters that reminds me of Nio Nakatani’s work on Bloom Into You. 

Verdict

The first volume of The Moon on A Rainy Night introduces a likeable pair of characters while exploring deeper themes of visibility and hearing. The slowburn setup means there is little forward progression in this first volume alone, but the characters are built up effectively and give the reader a lot to think about. Appealing and effective visual storytelling make this manga a must-read for any romance manga fan. With the anime adaptation on the horizon, now’s a perfect time to catch up!

If you liked The Moon on a Rainy Night, you may like…

• I Hear the Sunspot
• A Sign of Affection
• Bloom Into You

Credits:

Story & Art by Kuzushiro
Translation by Kevin Steinbach
Cover Design by Phil Balsman
Editing by Andres Oliver
Lettering by Jamil Stewart
Published in English by Kodansha

Article Editor: Adam Wescott