Who Wrote Rainbow Manga And What Inspired It?

I got hooked on 'Rainbow: Nisha Rokubō no Shichinin' years ago while rifling through a cramped secondhand bookshop, and the name that stuck with me was George Abe — he wrote it, with the stark, striking art by Masasumi Kakizaki bringing the story to life. The manga is usually shortened to 'Rainbow' in conversation, but its full title hints at the bleak-yet-hopeful tone: it follows seven young men trapped in a reform school in postwar Japan. George Abe provided the raw backbone of the story — his voice is the one that injects brutal realism and a hard-earned empathy into the plot, and Kakizaki’s visuals carve that emotion into faces and environments that never let you look away.

What really inspired 'Rainbow' is the mixture of George Abe’s own life experiences and his interest in the darker margins of society. Abe had firsthand knowledge of life on the fringes — he’d been involved in delinquent life and had time in juvenile facilities — and he drew on those memories and the stories of others to shape the characters’ suffering and stubborn dignity. The postwar backdrop is not just a setting; it’s a catalyst. The manga digs into the social breakdowns, shame, and scarce opportunities that press down on the characters, and Abe channels real-world cruelty alongside small, stubborn acts of kindness. That combination gives the story authenticity: it’s not melodrama for its own sake, it’s human beings reacting to a harsh system. Kakizaki’s art amplifies that inspiration — the heavy shadows, the meticulous period details, the body language — all of it makes Abe’s experiences feel immediate.

Reading 'Rainbow' felt like eavesdropping on confessions and seeing history’s bruises up close. The inspiration is layered: personal history, interviews and stories from ex-convicts or fellow delinquents, and a broader interest in postwar social issues and how systems can grind people down. Abe wanted to expose cruelty but also to insist on the characters’ dignity; that tension is the heart of the manga. If you haven’t read it, expect something that’s raw and occasionally painful but also quietly redemptive in ways that stick with you. I ended up re-reading key chapters late at night with a cup of bad coffee, marveling at how few authors can make injustice feel both specific to a time and universally familiar — and honestly, it’s the kind of story that keeps nudging me to recommend it to friends who think manga can’t be devastatingly human.