Rainy Day Serenade manga gets a spinoff in November
Haruka Kawachi’s Rainy Day Serenade returns with a Kikunoshin-led side story in Kodansha’s Kiss magazine on November 25.
Rainy Day Serenade is getting a new manga spinoff, with the first chapter scheduled for November 25 in Kodansha’s Kiss magazine. The side story is titled Namidaame to Serenade: Gaiden (Rainy Day Serenade Side Story) in Japanese (涙雨とセレナーデ 外伝), and will follow Kikunoshin after he encounters an unexpected commotion at the Fuji Sakura cafe.1
What is happening
The announcement appeared in the December issue of Kiss, with the next issue carrying the opening chapter on November 25. That makes this a continuation of the world around Haruka Kawachi’s time-travel romance rather than a new edition of the original serial.1
Kawachi launched Rainy Day Serenade (涙雨とセレナーデ) in Kiss in 2014 and concluded the main manga in November 2025. Kodansha published its 14th and final collected volume in February, while Kodansha USA is releasing the English edition in two-in-one omnibus volumes.1
Why it matters
The spinoff gives readers another story from a manga that already has a second life ahead of it. Rainy Day Serenade follows Hina, a woman whose rainy-day dreams lead her into a mysterious encounter with Takaaki in 1907 Japan. The property is also inspiring a television anime for 2027, announced with an official visual showing the central characters in a garden.2
That anime announcement means the franchise is not simply revisiting a completed manga. The new side story arrives while interest in Kawachi’s work is building again, and it could offer a useful return point for readers who discover the series through the adaptation.
The bigger picture
Kawachi’s catalogue has continued to move between formats. Her Musashino Rondo manga inspired a live-action series in 2025, while Natsuyuki Rendezvous previously received an anime adaptation. Those projects help explain why a short return to the Rainy Day Serenade setting is newsworthy even though the original manga has ended.1
The available announcement does not yet detail the spinoff’s length, publication schedule beyond its launch issue, or whether it will receive a separate collected volume. Those details should become clearer when the November issue of Kiss arrives.
Our opinion
A spinoff is a much better fit for Rainy Day Serenade than an artificial attempt to reopen its finished main plot. The cafe setting and Kikunoshin’s story promise a smaller, more focused detour, while the planned anime gives the franchise a timely reason to keep its world visible. The sensible expectation is a companion story with its own hook, not a replacement for Hina and Takaaki’s central romance.
For now, the important date is November 25: that is when Namidaame to Serenade: Gaiden begins, assuming the issue arrives as announced.