# Rainbow (2010)

> Seven juvenile offenders sent to a Japanese reform school a decade after the war must confront the atrocities they carried out and endured.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/57814

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 26
- Episode runtime: 22 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: animation, drama, crime
- Created by: Kôjina Hiroshi, Masasumi Kakizaki
- Network: Nippon TV
- Cast: Koji Ishii, Romi Park, Tatsuya Hasome, Megumi Hayashibara, Shun Oguri, Takaya Hashi, Takaya Kuroda, Rikiya Koyama
- TMDB rating: 8.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1610860/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: graphic
- Tone: bleak, suspenseful, somber, intense

## What critics say

Audiences rate this adaptation of the manga as an acclaimed, emotionally intense prison drama with a strong bond among its young inmates.

## Synopsis

Rainbow (2010) is a Japanese animated crime drama series created by Kôjina Hiroshi and Masasumi Kakizaki for Nippon TV, produced by Madhouse and adapted from a manga. Set about a decade after the Second World War, it follows a group of juvenile offenders sent to the Shounan Special Reform School, a harsh juvenile detention center where the boys must reckon with the atrocities and injustices they experienced and committed during the war. Narration by Megumi Hayashibara frames the story, while voice performances by Romi Park as Noboru Maeda, Tatsuya Hasome as Jô Yokosuka, Shun Oguri as Mario Minakami and Keiji Fujiwara as Ryuuji Nomoto anchor a tight ensemble of confined young men. The engine of the story is survival inside a brutal institution, where shifting alliances, suspicion and fragile friendship pull against the institution's control and the boys' buried guilt. Each episode builds suspense around fights, interrogations and quiet acts of defiance, so the season moves as one continuing arc rather than standalone cases. The result is a single 26-episode season that is grim, emotionally raw and tonally somber, with moments of hard-won warmth between the boys. Its mood and postwar setting invite comparison with Grave of the Fireflies for its bleak wartime aftermath and Prison Break for its confinement-based survival drama. Fans of serious seinen anime and dark coming-of-age stories will find resonance here.

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