Director: Yuri Kantake
Starring: Nozomi Sasaki, Shosuke Tanihara
Year Made: 2009
Language: Japanese (with Chinese/English subtitles)
Rating: NC-16 (Some Mature Content)




I was looking for some Taiwanese drama serial last week and I found this DVD by chance. Intrigued by the premise, I decided to buy it.

17-year-old Rio (starring Nozomi Sasaki) seems to have everything under her fingertips. She is beautiful and is popular in school and it is not a surprise most girls are envious of her. The truth is, she has a traumatic past and in order to forget the unhappiness and everything, she buried herself into making money and leading a luxurious life through her sugar daddy.

However, her life changes after her encounter with Kouki (Shosuke Tanihara), a lone history professor when she found out that their photos have been swapped by mistake since they shared the same family name. They agreed to meet to exchange their photos, and Rio is quickly attracted by his cool and calm demeanour.

Upon learning he is a history professor, Rio decides to ditch her glitzy life and vows to study hard under his supervision. On the other end, while Kuoki is slowly attracted by Rio's charm and her cheerful personality, the fact that he has brain tumour keeps him from getting closer to her. In fact, he is already counting down the days even before he had met her. So will their love beat the cruel state of reality, I suppose this is up to you to find out.

I have to confess there are several things crop up my mind after watching this show. First, I was quite concerned of the underlying message of teenage prostitution and suicide (the latter was told in a way that Rio's lesbian friend had jumped to her death after learning that Rio has chosen Kuoki over her) and it was to my dismay that these issues are not further explored. I understand that the main focus of this story is the romance part but here I am thinking that the young adult audience might take it the wrong way and think teenage prostitution and suicide are encouraged, and this is never meant to be.

Despite my above issue, still it is a good thing that Rio has changed to be more sensitive towards others and that she wanted to redeem herself after meeting Kuoki. In a nutshell, My Rainy Days is a sweet, poignant story that tells about love conquers everything despite anything. I also enjoyed the interactive between Rio and Kuoki as I could just feel their chemistry onscreen. Due to this, I will have to look out for Handsome Suit, as I understand both of them starred in this movie too.