After the Rain

Episode 3

Three weeks in and we're already seeing some substantial developments in this season's most exquisitely awkward romance. Following yet another confession, Kondo has at last realized that Akira was serious in declaring her intentions, and a good chunk of this episode concerns him figuring out how to respond. In the end, he can't find it in him to straight up reject her, so our middle-aged middle-manager is dragged into a supremely uncomfortable situation that is – let's be real – not entirely undesired by him. After the Rain is moving quickly through its central premise, to both my excitement and trepidation as a reviewer.

So yeah, this is escalating quickly. I thought that the show was going lean into its nonstandard love interest playing dumb about Akira's affections for a little longer, but that willful misunderstanding was cleared up posthaste by the girl's rainstorm confession in this episode. We certainly can't accuse the show of wasting time. This means that I'll have to raise the subject of “is this problematic?” a little sooner than I expected, but I'll preface that discussion by saying that I still think the show is doing fine on that front. It's sensitive material, but After the Rain is still on the right side of the big fuzzy line that that represents my comfort level with a work of art broaching this type of relationship. In these situations, it's worth going into exactly how the story succeeds in much the same way that I'd dissect its failures were it to perform badly.

But first, let's just run down what all happens in this episode. It looks like I was right on the money in terms of Akira's obsession with Kondo stemming from her lost love of track. She's been making thing worse for herself by resenting the team members who can still run and rejecting their earnest attempts to keep her in the loop. Akira is acting childishly, but in a very relatable and understandable way. The danger of this kind of withdrawal is that it will settle too deeply into her personality, leading her to miss out on some high school joys that she'll later regret. So it makes sense that she finds herself pining after Kondo – a man whose disillusionment with life reflects hers, but facing the opposite direction.

On Kondo's side of things, I'm not sure how interested he is in Akira as a person. They still know very little about each other, so what exists of their mutual attraction is rooted in superficial ideas and preconceptions they have. He mostly seems flattered by her interest in him while being too much of a pushover to give her a flat “no.” There's a noticeable degree of paternal concern to his behavior that pushes him to consider Akira as an individual, rather than as a balm for the pain of his lost youth. As I'd guessed before, Kondo's attraction to Akira seems rooted in nostalgia. The way he describes himself suggests that he isn't entirely happy with how his life ended up, and that he had other ambitions as a younger man. Akira's confession is making him remember when he had dreams, which is funny considering that she's been prematurely abandoning her own. Hopefully this will end in him teaching her not to give up on life so easily, not them nursing each other's wounds in an ill-considered marriage or something.

Honestly, the most concerning thing about Kondo's conduct is that he seems enamored of his ability to influence a young woman. If abuse were to appear in this dynamic, it would probably stem from a power imbalance that starts with little steps like these. At this point, however, I don't feel that Kondo's crossed any lines irresponsibly. He's in an unexpected awkward situation, and he's responding awkwardly, but that's about it so far. It should go without saying that the best thing for him to do would be to turn her down flat, but this story (like many others) wouldn't last very long if its characters made purely ethical decisions. I still like Kondo a lot, so I'm willing to follow along with the choices he makes going forward. However, if the possibility of this material turning sour perturbs you, I can totally understand sitting this one out.

So now it's time to talk about sex. It's to Kondo's credit that he's yet to look at Akira in an overtly sexual way. The show overall isn't particularly gazey, especially from Kondo's POV, which deliberately avoids the details of Akira's body beyond her face. The two exceptions to this from last week's episode are a little more complicated; they were Akira's POV of how she saw Kondo looking at her. While some salacious intent is certainly possible on his part, Kondo is mostly an emotional cipher in how he sees Akira sexually. The focus has predominantly been on Akira's experience and that overly self-conscious semi-pleasurable vulnerability that comes with being seen by your crush. Naturally, the body parts that we see emphasized are the ones that most represent her emotional vulnerabilities – her feet. So far, I take this as Akira reading some of her own heightened feelings into Kondo looking at her, and these scenes exemplify the show's greatest strength: its ability to wordlessly communicate complex emotions.

That's not to say that the show is lacking in sexual overtones, but they're sublimated into a more general atmosphere of sensuality, which serves as a prelude to a more specific kind of eroticism built on emotion. While blunt horny-ness is more typical of anime framing, the portrayal of sensuality has a long history in art. Sensuality refers to a more expansive gratification of all the senses, with the implication that activating these faculties of pleasure together can express a deeper kind of libidinal drive. In terms of High Art examples, there's The Tale of Genji, Pride and Prejudice, Eugene Onegin, and lots of other books that you probably haven't read. But anime-wise, a focus on sensuality over sexiness can also be seen in Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, Spice and Wolf, and some of Makoto Shinkai's films.

Sensuality can serve as a safer way to convey sexuality in art. After all, if you manage to describe a landscape in a way that gets people hot, it's harder for anyone to get mad at you because hey, all you did was write about some trees. That's not porn! This also isn't to say that sensuality only has value as a representation of sex when sex is otherwise straightforwardly inexpressible. Sensuality has its own ethos and aesthetic outside of sexual arousal, and there are dimensions to life that only the sensual aesthetic is capable of conveying. At its best, it results in the sort of art that makes you really believe that love can be like the feeling you get “After the Rain.” And I like that!

While it's possible for this more artistic kind of sensuality to be as exploitative as overt sexuality, I'm more tolerant of it in portraying these sorts of “problematic” scenarios. After the Rain's eroticism is conveyed through its dedication to atmosphere: lush landscapes, the precision with which it portrays interpersonal tension, and so on. To me, this sensuality is the show's real main appeal. At this point, Akira and Kondo are still two people closed off in their own emotional worlds. By circumstance, their orbits have intersected, unleashing a cornucopia of sensations upon them that we now get to experience as well. Akira is currently living off the high of her newfound feelings and relying on them as a distraction from her recent trauma. Kondo is similarly sensitive but more experienced, so he feels trepidation at the situation but has still allowed himself to be drawn in by the nostalgic pleasure of a young woman's affections. It's also interesting that he uses literature to process the situation – while mulling over what he's going through, he recites what sound like poetic quotations. (In my ignorance of the Japanese language, I cannot even begin to identify them.) I still hope that this doesn't lead to a literal consummation, but I can see this burgeoning connection turning into a worthwhile (or even formative for Akira) experience in both of their lives. Even if it doesn't, I can still see some value in the way it's being expressed.

At the end of all this, Akira has coaxed Kondo into a date. This is certain to be supremely awkward, and I'm both excited and anxious to see how it goes. By virtue of its command over atmosphere alone, After the Rain is a great show, with each new episode delivering a splendorous visual feast. For as much as I've written about the show already, I realize that I haven't mentioned the comedy, which is consistently solid. Maybe I'll get to that if next week doesn't require me to write another thousand words of disclaimers and rabbit trails, which it probably will. I promise that I do enjoy this show, I just feel the need to perform an extensive background check on its dream daddy as the story goes on. It's a dangerous world out there for sad and horny teenage girls. We must work to make it a safer place for them to pine over Captain Goto from Patlabor.



Seriously, it's uncanny.

Grade: A

After the Rain is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.