Protocol: Rain – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Cold Reboot

Episode 1 of Protocol: Rain begins inside an FPS multiplayer game with the players introducing themselves during pre-match time. As soon as the match starts, Mio hops on Shun, bothering her to let her play, causing him to lose focus and getting him eliminated.

The timeline shifts to the current time, with Shun working at the cybercafé preparing food with Nozomi. She takes over food from the customer and gets invited to play with Akito and the others. She resists a lot, but they persuade her to play with them. She informs Shun to get four Omurice dishes.

They get started with the game and lose players quickly. A few of the players go down quickly, but Nozomi manages to plant the explosives and defend them from the opponents, resulting in victory. Just then, Shun arrives with the Omurice. The guys ask her to write and draw on their Omurice. She reluctantly agrees.

After her match, Akito then begins to persuade Shun to play with them. Just then, they see Team Fox and Nozomi’s dad enter the café and begin discussing eSports. Shun feels tempted and takes out his graphic card to begin playing the game, but instantly shuts it down out of fear.

The next morning, Nozomi wakes him up and he heads home.  The family sits down to dine and Shun’s mother has a conversation about his future plans, encouraging him to join a college of his choice. They appreciate his efforts. The scene switches to Nozomi’s dad on the phone with Jonathan, trying to convince him about something.

Back at school, Shun, Nosomi, and Akito discuss their career plans. Akito expresses his desire to become a professional eSports player and practice with players like Explosion. Shun states that he wants to study well, get a scholarship, join a university without much financial burden, and then get a job to take care of Mio.

Akito injects himself in, claiming he will have her and take care of her after becoming successful, but Shun declines. On the way home, they see Jonathan walk out of the cybercafe followed by Nosomi’s dad trying to convince him to stay. The kids confront him and get to know the cyber cafe is on the verge of closing.

He begs Shun and Akito to join his team and participate in the upcoming competition. Shun declines the offer, but Akito sees that his heart desires it and drags Shun by the hand, making him start playing. Explosion is surprised to see Shun online after years, and after a warm-up match, Shun manages to shake off the rust, play well, and pull off a win.

Explosion requests that he play again, and the scene cuts to Yu turning off the game.

The Episode Review

The first episode of Protocol: Rain opens by introducing a few important characters as well as the premise of the anime. The story essentially revolves around a young lad named Shun, who finds himself at a crossroads, having to make a decision to either follow his passion or study further and secure a stable job.

The animations of the anime strike a different chord with gamers who have played FPS games released before the early 2000’s. The graphics represent most old FPS games with their graphics and rigid player movements.

The wall bang feature was a great inclusion and we can expect more fun practices like frag grenades, flashbangs, smokes, wall peeks, and some others like camping and tea bagging as well. The anime has tremendous potential to appeal to the niche bring back nostalgic memories and add an interesting story to it.