Black Wings Kaminari

The logo for Black Wings Kaminari

A poster for Black Wings Kaminari

Black Wings Kaminari, sometimes erroneously stylized as Black Wings, Kaminari, is a fictional manga and anime series created by Chiaki Koizumi and a sequel to Birth of the Lilim. Rain is a big fan of the series, as is Chanel and Maria.

Setting

The world of Black Wings Kaminari is based on the "Other World" where Chiaki spent some time during the events of My Impossible Soulmate.

Plot

This section contains copyrighted content by Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick.

The following text was mostly taken directly from Rain: 619: Black Wings Kaminari (marked with italics), with some more information sprinkled in between from various pages.

The manga’s story begins in a kingdom called Toria that floats high above the rest of the world. The people of this land are born with wings however, making their distance from the surface below hardly a problem.

Now typically, the people of this kingdom are born with white wings, but on a rare occasion, they might have black wings instead. Once very long ago, a single man with black wings nearly overturned the kingdom, which led to a very longstanding superstition that black wings represented evil. Superstitious as it was, the idea was taken very seriously — so much so that any baby born with black wings were simply cast from kingdom before they had the chance to do any damage… and before they could fly. It was barbaric, no one ever contested it. The people feared and hated the black wings and what it represented, and were unwilling to ever allow one with them to exist again.

(The "single man with black wings" was the Fallen Hero Genten. The truth was that he was an advisor to the king, but the king was mad with power. Genten attempted to stop the evil king, but unfortunately failed. The king called him a traitor to protect his own reputation, and put a call to slaughter all black-winged children.)

Then Princess Kaminari was born; a child of the royal family bearing black wings. Unwilling to sacrifice their daughter but too ashamed to show her to their people, the king and queen told their people that she was stillborn. Instead, they locked her away in the castle basement in a place completely cut off from the outside world. For fifteen years, Kaminari only knew her mother and father and one single room. She was still given nice clothes, and good food, and books to read and was very much comforted by her parents, but as far as Kaminari knew, they were the only three in the world.

It happened to be on her sixteenth birthday that Kaminari heard a great deal of commotion from outside. Unfamiliar voices were causing an uproar. She managed to escape the castle, and took her first steps outside... just in time to witness a black-winged newborn's "banishment ritual".

Without thinking, Kaminari ran past the crowd — who all backed away from her, having no idea where she’d come from — and leapt after the baby, straight off the edge of the kingdom. Life in a single room had left her wings largely useless, however. Although she caught the newborn, she couldn't actually fly; the best she could do was slow their fall. The landing was still harsh and painful, but she managed to survive.

She landed in a small farming village. The people were familiar with her kingdom's ritual, and took responsibility for burying the "banished" — but they were shocked to see someone as old as Kaminari with black wings. They told her all about the ritual, and showed her the cemetery where hundreds of black-winged children rested. They told her they didn’t know who she was, but that she must have been important to have survived up there as long as she had.

Kaminari felt horrible! She couldn't understand how she could possibly be so much more important than hundreds of other just like her. The way she saw it, they died for her. Being the gentle soul that she was, Kaminari swore that she would save someone in honor of each grave present, and someday make her way back to her homeland and put a stop to this awful practice. One family, moved by her resolve, offered to care for the winged infant she saved. This way she could more reasonable attain her goal.

With that, she left the village on a journey to find and help those in need, even though she was the only one on the surface world with wings — black or otherwise — and her only knowledge came from books.

From there, Kaminari eventually meets up with three companions: First, there's Hokori, an extremely skilled swordsman traveling the world to become stronger after failing to protect someone important to him. Although he becomes a loyal ally as the story progresses, he actually starts out as an enemy. Hokori almost betrays her very early on thinking he could use her to get into Toria where one of the legendary blades is said to be located. (He ends up falling in love with her)

Then there's Aneko, who was born into high society. Although wealthy, she never felt comfortable at home. Her family expected her to be a lot of things that didn't come naturally to her. All Aneko really wanted was the freedom to live her own life. She started sword training right under her family's noses, practicing until she was skilled enough to leave home without a word. She's living on her own as a formidable mercenary when she meets Kaminari. They become fast friends, with Aneko taking an interest in Kaminari's quest and her freedom to go wherever.

And finally, there's Rei, a young wizard boy. At first, he seems like comic relief, since he's hyper and never takes things seriously, but it turns out he's pretty tragic. Despite being warned by everyone close to him, he opened a magic book he was forbidden from going near. It unleashed a terrible curse on his entire village, leaving it in ruin. Rei wanders for a while, hiding his woes behind a smile and quick jokes, but follows Kaminari after watching her help another village. He wonders if maybe she could save his too.

All of Kaminari's companions are different, but they share both her knowledge of what it's like to feel different and outcast, as well as her interest in doing what's right for people. So the story takes off in this open-ended adventure with the crew traveling around to different plaecs, getting caught up in different siutation and helping wherever they can.

(Princess Kaminari later discovers the truth about Genten, and eventually finds herself where Genten once stood challenging her own father, the current king. She fortunately succeeds and puts a stop to the superstition, fighting very hard to ensure it never happens again.)

Anime

Black Wings Kaminari is currently being made into an anime. It will begin airing the summer after Rain graduates (i.e. next summer in Rain-world).

The anime will be simulcast (broadcasted over two or more forms of media, in this case TV and the Internet) in Japanese with English subtitles.

The anime's plot will possibly differ from the manga's, presumably because the manga is still ongoing.

Kaminari's love interest at the end of the anime differed from that of the manga.

Trivia

• "Toria" was originally named "Tori" and the village under the kingdom was named "Chikyu" in the initial post that Black Wings, Kaminari's cover was revealed, but Toria has since been renamed since Jocelyn was concerned that it sounded too much like a person's name.
• "Chikyu", the name of the village under the kingdom, means "Earth" in Japanese.
• Lynn added Black Wings Kaminari to Rain to make up for the genre switch from fantasy to slice-of-life and to act as foreshadowing for major events in the comic.^{[Citation needed]}
• The title was commonly stylized as Black Wings, Kaminari in older comic pages and depictions, but is currently written as Black Wings Kaminari. Jocelyn intended it to be three words without a comma, but prior material included one due to her tendency to add a comma between the descriptor and subject.