Sara Talks Anime

Funnily enough, despite writing my writeup for episode 7 of Food for the Soul in the previous anime season, I think it works incredibly well with this episode of With You and the Rain.

That’s it. That’s the entire before review paragraph.

This episode begins with the set up to explain why the episode is set up the way it is: Fuji experiences writer’s block, and while doing various activities to try and kick her brain into gear, the critter finds her notebook, which has ideas that Fuji has noted down if she ever runs into writer’s block, and decides to look through it.

Something that you’ll have to get used to in this episode is the page turn transition that is used to go between various unnamed vignettes in this episode. The first usage of it is when the transition is done from the cold open to the opening, which I felt was actually a nice way to introduce the usage of the transition for this episode.

These vignettes follow various parts of Fuji’s day, from needing to buy new supplies for the critter to do written communication to meeting up with Kii in the park. Ultimately, these stories are moreso in the heavy slice of life category, but since they’re framed as Fuji trying to get ideas for a story, you kind of already have your conflict: Fuji trying to get past writer’s block.

I think that the message of this episode regarding writer’s block (unless I’ve completely misunderstood the room) is that you can’t force yourself past it. Instead, let it pass naturally, and then devote your effort to make what you just came up with shine.

I think the framing of this episode worked quite well for me, due to me being a bit of a writer myself, as I do have some stories that I’ve been writing. As for whether or not I’ve published them in any capacity…haha…let’s not talk about that on my anime blog.

Following the previous episodes definitely being focused more on one central story instead of a series of vignettes, this episode was a nice change of pace. I don’t know if this is the format that With You and the Rain will stick with for the remainder of the season, but I don’t think the change hurt this episode at all.

ADDITIONAL POSTS ABOUT WITH YOU AND THE RAIN:

• With You and the Rain Episode 6 – “The Cat and Pumpkins”
• With You and the Rain Episode 8 – “The Cry”