tl;dr - A lot of words to say I fell in love with The Moon on a Rainy Night

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There is just one series I wanted to talk about this week. To start out, I want to provide a little peek behind the curtain. I typically will draft this post through the week. If I come across a series or moment I enjoy and want to talk about, I will write a blurb and keep on with my week. Once I hit 3-4 blurbs, I will call the post good enough and then just post it on either late Sunday night (if I’m still awake) or Monday morning my time. However, this week, I kept trying to sit down and write about one particular series and the words just weren’t coming.

The series is one that I mentioned last week; The Moon on a Rainy Night. One of the key characters, and the primary love interest of the protagonist, is mostly deaf, and a lot of the story revolves around that. Last week, I had just started this series, getting up to chapter 10 or so. This week, I am fully caught up with the official translations (up through chapter 20) and then the chapters available on Mangadex beyond that.

I mentioned last week that this series is a bit more serious than others focusing on disabilities I have read. As this series has gone on, that has only become more true. In particular, I have really appreciated how the story is told only from Saki’s point of view (who is not deaf). A major part of the story is Saki wanting to support Kanon (the deaf girl) as much as she can. I feel like it would be all too easy to stop there. Plenty of drama, comedy, misunderstandings, etc. are there for the taking to build a series. However, the series goes deeper and depicts the emotions that come from supporting somebody like Kanon. To help explain my point, I am going to talk a bit about my life.

A major reason I have liked Saki’s character so much is that I can relate to her. My wife and I have been together for 18 years, but a couple years back, she has had to start dealing with some chronic health issues. The result of which has led to our lives dramatically and irreversibly changing. She was unable to continue her career, we had to move after losing her income, she isn’t allowed to drive, doctor’s appointments are an increasingly regular part of our lives, and our daily routine has changed dramatically over the years.

In all of that, my life is, to a very large degree, defined by the needs and concerns of somebody else. This is something that Saki (and others) actually discuss and wrestle with in this series. I can relate with Saki on a visceral level when she is pondering the triviality of her daily issues compared to what Kanon must face every day. When the most important person in your life is dealing with something as serious as a disability, it is impossible to not feel guilt when you complain about everyday trivialities. Something like complaining about stubbing a toe feels so unimportant when the person you are talking to is currently bedridden. However, everybody needs some kind of support network. So, many people in my or Saki’s situation end up asking themselves:

This series captures that feeling so incredibly accurately that I would be surprised if the author has not had to support somebody with disabilities themselves. At the end of each official volume, there is a page with books that the author consulted, often about living with disabilities and supporting those with disabilities. I can attest that they have done their homework because the emotions they capture in this feel so real because they are my daily life. Several times this past week I have gotten to a panel or finished a chapter and just had to set it down and walk away for a bit.

Look, I am not about to claim that this is the best series out there or that it will impact anybody else the way it did me. All I can do is try to provide my experience with this series and try to explain what I have found so impactful about it. I might be pretty verbose compared to many people, but this post is pretty long, even for me. So, thanks for sticking through all that.