Takaaki Hongou

Rainy Day Serenade, known in Japan as Namidaame to Serenade, started as a josei manga. Josei means a story made for adult women. Haruka Kawachi wrote and drew it for Kodansha's magazine Kiss. It ran from November 2014 to November 2025 and was collected in 14 books. The last book came out in February 2026. Kodansha USA has licensed it for English readers, and a first omnibus book is planned for January 2027. A TV anime was announced in February 2026. Reports say it will premiere in April 2027. Tezuka Productions is making it, and Takashi Kamei is the director. Yoko Yonaiyama handles the series composition, and Nobuteru Yuki designs the characters. Yume Miyamoto voices Hina, and Takeo Otsuka voices Takaaki. The story begins with Hina Katagiri. When it rains, she often dreams that she is playing with a small boy in a garden. She does not know the place. Then, by chance, she finds that very garden in real life. There she meets a young man named Takaaki Hongo. He believes she is his fiancee, a woman named Hinako, and he takes her home with him. Soon Hina learns something surprising. Hinako looks exactly like her, and the Japan around her is not the one she knew. She has traveled from modern Tokyo back to the year 1907, in the Meiji era. That was a time when Japan was changing fast, mixing old customs with new ideas from other countries. The series mixes romance, comedy and a touch of the supernatural. Its central questions are simple and human. Why does Hina look like Hinako? What do her dreams of the garden mean? And what will she feel as she gets to know Takaaki? Because the mystery is part of the fun, it is best to enjoy the answers as they come. The manga was recommended by manga artist Kana Ozawa and critic Mei Chan. This page uses only confirmed facts, and the details of the anime's story may be shown in more detail closer to its release.