At first glance, one would think that this is a yaoi anime, but even without the "shounen-ai" tag, it's not. It's one of those rare romance anime where the main characters are the same gender, but the romance is heterosexual. When I first saw this anime, I thought probably the same thing as anyone else who was unfamiliar with this anime before it aired, "This is going to be another borderline-yaoi anime, is it?" Then, I read the description, and my curiosity was piqued. For that reason, I ended up watching it when it premiered, and I must say that it was a fun anime to watch.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is my review of "Nijiiro Days".

Nijiiro Days follows four high school boys, Natsuki Hashiba, Tomoya Matsunaga, Keiichi Katakura, and Tsuyoshi Naoe, as they go through their high school lives. One Christmas Eve, Natsuki gets dumped by his girlfriend, and as he is crying about it, he is handed some tissues by a girl wearing a Santa outfit; at that moment, he falls for that girl. He later runs into the girl, Anna Kobayakawa, at school, and he tries to get closer to her while his friends try to meddle in their relationship. Every once in a while, the focus shifts from Natsuki to one of the other three boys as they deal with their own love-related problems; Mari Tsutsui is Anna's man-hating best friend who Tomoya ends up liking, Nozomi Matsunaga is Tomoya's younger sister who has feelings for Keiichi (while Tomoya does not approve), and Yukiko Asai is Tsuyoshi's cosplaying girlfriend.

It's a rather easygoing story with comedic moments sprinkled in here and there. It's really a breath of fresh air, though; after all, all of the main characters are male, but since all of their love interests are female, there is no way one can consider this a "borderline-yaoi" anime at all. Luckily, these heterosexual relationships are, for the most part, believable. The one exception may be the one between Tomoya and Mari; I honestly felt more "hate" than "love" in their relationship, but at the very least, it was given a bit of development. I really liked Natsuki and Anna's relationship, though; it was fun to watch as their relationship grew. However, I really would have liked some more development on the relationships between Keiichi and Nozomi and Tsuyoshi and Yukirin; however, I guess what we get is what we have. (Hopefully, there is more development to those two relationships in the manga....)

The animation, done by Production Reed, wasn't anything too groundbreaking, but for an anime as simple as this one, it's more than acceptable. It definitely had bright colors, and with a title that translates to "Rainbow Days", I think that fits quite well. As for the voice acting, the voice actors did a great job with their respective characters. The music was also great, too; I liked every single one of the opening and ending themes. The best one, however, was the third ending theme, "'I Wanna Be Your Knight" by Takuya Eguchi, Tomoya's voice actor; it just sounds so cool with an amazing singer to boot!

Overall, Nijiiro Days was a good anime. If you're in the mood for an easygoing slice-of-life anime with romance sprinkled in, this is the anime for you. These rainbow-colored days cannot be forgotten about!