Change in the Midnight Rain

CW: dubcon, anti-SW sentiments

Change in the Midnight Rain follows Ameya, a bunny who's tired of his life in rural Japan but whose world turns upside down when Haru, a samurai's daughter, moves to his town. Lovestruck at first sight, there are mainly two things standing in his way to get together with the fair wolfess. First, the unfortunate situations in which they first met. Second and most important, the fact that he was raised in a male brothel. Set during the early years of the Meiji era, aka the start of modern Japan and shortly after the feudal era, the setting mostly focuses on the latter part of that description than the former, which ties in with its themes of how we get affected by the past, growing up, and “found” families.

An interesting premise, for sure, and while Kageichi Kagi does deliver in some parts (and the illustrations by Jiroh Kinoshita are a nice addition), the devil lies in the details; and this adult historical slice-of-life/romance has many details to talk about.

The main point of contention is likely the characters, which is unsurprising given how this is first and foremost a character-driven story. When it comes to the main cast, (Ameya, Haru, Haru's father, etc.), I'd say the author did a great job by giving us fleshed up characters, with understandable motivations, and conflicts that mostly make sense given what we know of them.

The supporting cast on the other hand, however, suffers not so much from a lack of characterization but rather from underutilization. The most glaring example of this being Fujin and Raijin, the two security members of the establishment where Ameya was raised, and who not only do not interact with any members of the main cast or even other members of the supporting one, but they also do not ever get involved in any of the action scenes of the book (leaving it all to one of the SWs or the owner himself). In fact, even when they go into detail of their tragic past, they do so while they're together in a room by themselves, which brings into question why they're in the story at all. And while this could be ignored if it was the only case, around 3/4ths of the supporting cast have a similar case.

In addition, there are quite a few things that did not affect my reading experience as much, but that I could see being the opposite case for other people such as: too much telling, slow pacing (further compounded by the excessive use of flashbacks), a passive protagonist, everyone and their mother having a tragic backstory, having a straight relationships at the forefront when 99% of the cast is gay, or the changes in tone and characterization that come out of nowhere in the second half.

All in all, I enjoyed my time reading Change in the Midnight Rain, and I'm looking forward to reading something else by the author to see how they improve with time. However, the many issues in this book stop me from rating it any higher.