With You and the Rain

Episode 11

Every week, With You and the Rain gets at least one thing very right. This week? The allure of reading about bees. No, really – it sounds very random, but if you pick up a book about bees, be it The Beekeeper's Bible, The Lives of Bees, or OMFG, BEES!, those little suckers are fascinating. I don't keep bees or aspire to, and neither, I think, do Fuji or Mimi, but the rapidity with which Mimi recognizes the allure of a bee book comes straight from real life. I don't understand it, but I also can't deny it.

Why is Mimi reading nonfiction about bees? Because Fuji's doing some spring cleaning, and as every bibliophile knows, that rarely means “selling used books” or “donating to Goodwill (or similar organization);” it means “foisting books you enjoyed but not enough to keep on your friends.” Friends are the Little Free Libraries of social interactions, even if, like Mimi and Ren, they don't always appreciate your book collection. Fuji may talk a good game about cleaning out her books since e-books are a thing now, but it's always more comfortable to give that print media to a good home. While Ren is busy with Fuji's old clothes, Mimi is the target of her bibliomania. Some books are thrown at Mimi because Fuji genuinely believes she'll be interested in them, but others, like the bee book, seem to join the stack just because Fuji can't really bear to get rid of them.

It's just one more piece in the jigsaw puzzle that makes up Fuji. One of the major strengths of this series is how her character grows, as I've mentioned before, and this episode presents two very different views of her. In the first half, she goes to the test viewing of the animated film she wrote for, and the director notices that she's ducked out before the reception. As the screenwriter, she's certainly expected to attend, but as her other friend points out, that's not comfortable for Fuji. She's not a large gathering person, and she's not keen on the press, either. While some authors and screenwriters thrive on it, many of us would rather pretend that we're sending out works into the void; it can be amazingly uncomfortable to have someone notice you as “the writer.”

Fuji touches on this in her conversation with Mimi afterwards, and the difference between how she behaves with Mimi and Ren (and Kimi!) is night and day. The small scene of her looking around after taking her seat at the screening shows her not entirely at ease in her surroundings; she's similarly a little stiff at the grocery store and the park. But when we see her back in her apartment, shoving books into Mimi's arms, she's wholly comfortable. Her shoulders and back are relaxed, and she's talking more. It's very well done.

Kimi may not have much of a role to play in this episode (although I think he's right about spring being for dango), but he's still important. Whether he's carefully putting his scent all over Fuji's clothes after she left him with Mimi or running off with a shirt, he's a key part of Fuji's life. He even gets her to attempt handicrafts again, despite a checkered past with a needle and thread. How much of her comfort level depends on her “dog?” I'm not sure, but it feels more important that she has him in her life at all.

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With You and the Rain is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.