With You and the Rain

Episode 9

At long last, an episode of With You and the Rain that will get my sister to shut up about how Kimi doesn't have visible eyes! Thanks to his little adventure under the vending machine (where apparently people have been dumping soot for weeks; is it a coal-fired vending machine?), we now have definitive proof that Fuji's tanuki pal does, in fact, have eyeballs. What a relief (that my sister won't bring it up again)!

More to the point, Kimi's adventure under the filthy machine is another spot-on pet moment, albeit one that mixes the behaviors of cats and dogs. At this point, we have to assume that the general takeaway is that tanuki are a combination of the two popular domestic animals. Kimi's burning desire to be underneath something is very feline, as is his unerring choice of the least-cleaned place. My fellow cat owners will doubtless be familiar with the sudden reappearance of a cat with a wad of dust that you could've sworn you got last time you cleaned. This comes after Kimi eats grass to the point of making himself sick, a canine special, although cats certainly do it too. (We're a bit infamous in my neighborhood for reminding the dog that he's not a cow and shouldn't eat grass.) Despite what Fuji's old childhood buddy thinks, the grass he's eating isn't inherently bad for Kimi in the sense that it's poisonous; it's just that overconsumption makes him barf. Although if my dog barfed flowers and sparkles, I might be as chill as Fuji is about Kimi's vomiting, too.

Kimi's antics, however, continue to be only part of the story. He's adorable and gives Fuji some much-needed comfortable companionship, but he's really only the gateway to the story. Through her interactions with Kimi, it becomes clear how he helps Fuji be more comfortable in the world. Fuji had friends before and a good relationship with her neighbors, Emma and Kii-chan, but Kimi adds a layer of safety to those interactions. He's a safe topic to talk about, an easy way to begin a conversation (even if that's “I'm the dumb dog's owner”), and generally provides a little something extra. He also gives Fuji an excuse to go for a walk to think over her latest novel – not that she needs one, but sometimes it's really nice to be able to say, “I'd better get the dog out” when you're staring down a blank screen or piece of paper and the words just aren't coming.

It makes a lot of sense that Fuji would be very private about her books. They do quite literally speak for themselves, so arguably she doesn't have to talk about them, and as she says to Ren, it's embarrassing to think about someone she knows reading her work. Being an author is a weird combination of being proud of yourself and your accomplishments and wanting to hide in your house so that no one can figure out that you were the person who wrote those words; while that's not true for everyone, most of my writing friends and acquaintances fall into that category. (Yes, self included.) When Kii-chan figures out what Fuji does for a living and desperately wants to know more about her work, Fuji has to really gear up to telling her, because it's weird and uncomfortable to talk about it. She's even awkward about her writing with Mimi and Ren, and she's known them forever; she quickly shuts down her elementary school pals when they try to talk about her writing, as well. Far safer to talk about these things with your dog, whose largest interaction with your work is likely to be an attempt to eat it or, if you have cats, the burning desire to walk across the keyboard while you're typaefn9uwnr9.

With You and the Rain as a title beautifully encapsulates so much about Fuji's story. The “you” is clearly Kimi himself, but the rain itself is a metaphor for interactions. She meets Kimi on a rainy day, but she also encounters Kii-chan during a shower, and more importantly, rain is a type of weather you can't avoid interacting with. Even with an umbrella or a raincoat, walking in the rain means getting at least a little bit wet. The longer Fuji spends with Kimi, the more social rain she experiences as a gentle drizzle falls into her life.

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With You and the Rain is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.