This is definitely one of those posts where I stare at the screen and the keyboard in turn for a while, wondering where the hell to start. How do you sum up an emotional roller-coaster ride like that in a few paragraphs, for goodness sake? Should you even try? There are times when I think the answer is no, that I’ve said everything I had to say about a series by this point and it’s time to just say a few words and let it go. But invariably I look up at the end and I’ve got something the size of a Tolstoy novel staring back at me.
The first thing I’d note, I suppose, is that I was marveling at how much Hamasaki Hiroshi and his team had managed to fit into 22 minutes – this seemed like the densest episode ever. Then I read after the fact that the final broadcast had been an hour long, including cast interviews at the end – and I realized that the final episode itself had been 37 minutes. Well, duh. But what a great thing for a series like Orange to be able to have that extra time to get every detail of the ending right – what a luxury, and one almost no anime ever have. And I don’t think Hamasaki wasted a moment of it.
It’s tough for me to read the fan reactions to this series, because the criticism it receives stings my heart. Not because Orange is perfect (it’s not, by any means) but because – and you’ll have to forgive me for being so blunt – I believe so much of it misses the point. I knew the manga was somewhat divisive, but the anime has been even more so – and that’s due in no small measure to the fact that anime fans are less tolerant towards series that break with accepted formula than manga readers. Emotional openness is generally scorned in anime, and Orange is as emotionally open as it gets. But you know, I think that’s the fucking point.
When I see Orange dismissed as manipulative and melodramatic (the latter especially being a much-loved buzzword anime viewers who think much of their own hipness use to trash anything that dares to trade cynicism and irony for straightforward human drama) it drives home just what a square peg this show is. How many slice of-life/romance/shoujo-seinen hybrids are out there? And when I see a frankly shocking avalanche of bile spat upon Kakeru’s character, I think one can see a pretty sharp divide between those who’ve experienced depression and suicide in their close circle and those who haven’t. Like Watamote, Orange rings true as the work of someone who’s walked the walk (and I say that based on my own experience and not anything second-hand).
Frankly, I think some people try and read too much into Orange – that, and try and judge by the framework of anime constructs it has no interest in adhering to. Ultimately this is very simply a love story – nothing more than that. Not so much a romantic love story, though that’s certainly an element, but more a tale about the power of love and what it can do, both for good and for ill. It’s the love Kakeru’s five friends feel for him that drives everything that happens in Orange. It’s their love that refuses to allow them to forget their friend, or to forgive themselves for losing him. And ultimately, it’s their love that saves him.
I think the concept of love is very important here, especially as it plays into the whole parallel worlds idea. It may sound contradictory, but in Buddhism love has a negative connotation as well as a positive, because it’s a form of material attachment. Romantic and even parental love for another person has a selfish element to it, in that it ties us to the material world when what we’re meant to be doing is growing beyond our material desires and embracing our Buddha nature. A Buddhist priest will never tell you loving your spouse or children is a bad thing, but they will caution you that it can be an anchor – and that there’s another, purer form of love that should be aspired to.
The Greeks coined the term “agape love”. Originally it literally meant “the love of God for man and man for God”, but over time it’s come to take on a broader meaning as selfless and charitable love. If we look at the actions of Naho, Suwa, Hagita, Azusa and Takako, the meaning of this becomes clear in the final episode (this is due, once again, to Hagita spelling things out more adroitly than anyone else). They want to help Kakeru because they loved him, and regret that they couldn’t save him. Yes, there’s a selfishness to that desire in that they feel a sense of guilt over what happened, but the key moment comes when Hagita lays out the truth – even if they could in theory save Kakeru, they would have no way of knowing if they were successful because the only way it could happen is if parallel worlds existed.
This is the essence of it: ultimately, those five want to see their friend again, to be able to talk to him and apologize to him and tell him they love him. But they’ll never have a chance to do so – even if they somehow do defy time and save him, it’s only in the parallel world where it will happen. So they do what they do knowing they have no personal gain at stake – just as the Suwa of the parallel world acts to bring Naho and Kakeru together knowing full well he’s doing so at the expense of his own happiness. This, for me, is the ultimate point of Orange – that when we act of out love knowing we’re doing so purely to help someone else, miracles really are possible. It’s the ultimate triumph of love that it can tip the scales in the unending war between regret and possibility towards possibility – but only when we love for the sake of others, and not ourselves. That may be an unacceptably romantic (in the larger sense of the word) notion for the bulk of today’s anime audience, but it’s a powerful and quite straightforward message.
I think in that context – among others – Orange got the final denouement of Kakeru’s story just right. Kakeru literally hiding from Naho is powerful symbolism, because his actions – up to an including suicide – are a case of his fears winning out over his hopes. “I won’t date anyone” is his way of saying he’s not good enough to date anyone – that he’s incapable of not hurting those he allows himself to get close to. Of course Kakeru wants to be with Naho, and of course he wants to be happy. But he knows what happens to those who love him, and feels that happiness is too good for someone like him. Even after Naho finally manages to poke her head out of her burrow long enough to admit that she wants to actually be a couple, and even after Kakeru admits that he wants that too, the doubts just won’t go away.
If you put yourself in Kakeru’s shoes (which I admit isn’t the easiest thing for everyone to do) the timing of finding his mother’s cell phone could hardly have been more telling. Just when he’d broken down and admitted that he wanted to move on, it’s as if she reached out from beyond the grave to remind him of his crimes. For the others, knowing what happened on that date the first time around, there are no easy answers. Short of admitting the truth about the letters they can’t prevent Kakeru from living his life, even knowing what happened that night. So they do the only thing they think they can (though one of them does a bit more) and wait at the scene of the tragedy, hoping to prevent it from repeating itself.
The crucial detail the finale got right is this: it had to be Kakeru who acted to save himself in the end. Yes, Hiroto could have arrived in the nick of time and pulled Kakeru out of the path of that truck – but what would have been the point? Someone in Kakeru’s shoes has to want to save themselves in order to be saved – that’s a crucial thing one must understand about depression. One could argue that Saku trashing his bike saved Kakeru (oh, what a clever boy you turned out to be), but I would counter that Kakeru would have done the same thing either way – stopped himself at the last moment. Why? Because the love of his friends – relentless and tireless and fierce – finally broke him down. Yes, Kakeru wanted to live and have fun and be with Naho, as anyone in his shoes would. But he stopped himself because he thought of what it would do to his friends if he didn’t, because their love for him had changed him in a profound way. Saving himself was an act of selfless love, just as their saving him was. And if that’s not a powerful message I don’t know what is.
And so, once more, I sit here staring at “War and Peace” on my monitor – but you know, I’m OK with that. Orange has inspired me not just to feel deeply but to think long and hard about what it says about life and fate. A story like this surely isn’t going to please everyone, and it’s just as surely going to be a weaker one if it tries to. I appreciate Takano Ichigo’s commitment to telling it in all its raw honesty, and to Hamasaki-sensei and the anime staff for adapting it so faithfully and brilliantly despite obvious budget issues. There is more Orange to come – Mirai, a film premiering this November that adapts part of Takano’s Suwa-centric spinoff manga “Orange -Suwa Hiroto-” – and I’ll be looking forward to it. But the main story feels complete, bittersweet and exhausting as life itself.
witchhuntress
September 25, 2016 at 2:41 pmI read the manga first, so I already knew what was coming. However, the seiyuu still delivered the emotions very well. Despite the constraints on the budget affecting the animation, I still enjoyed the anime, and cherished the additions they did for each episode.
I reread a bit of the manga every new ep for the first few weeks it aired, so my memory got a bit refreshed. But in these last weeks, I didn’t. Still the sequence of events of the manga was embedded in my mind, and consequently my heart. Just like other people, I do want some realism in my anime, but unrealistic things doesn’t make me cringe watching any anime as a whole—this is just after all a way to escape reality. That bit about the black hole might be laughable and downright stupid to some, but it didn’t bother me as others did. I wasn’t expecting such a grand explanation as Steins;Gate (and even that anime was debatably grand in explanation). In fact, though it might have been a “black hole” here, who knows if that’s how it really went. Even Takano-sensei didn’t elaborate further, and rather than calling it lazy writing, I think it’s just a way to tell us that how the letters arrived into the past wasn’t the most important. What’s important is that THEY ARRIVED.
Much of the debate in the anime discussions have usually revolved around the justification of saving a friend while forsaking one’s future child. In this case, I think everyone is selfishly selfless, even Kakeru. But everyone has a different lens. In psychotherapy or counseling, one quality the therapist or counselor must have is empathy, and I think some people lack empathy not because they are born that way but because of differing experiences, circumstances, and views in life. (This does not mean some are superior in feeling—we just feel and think differently.) To me, I think Kakeru is very relatable because there was a time I thought the same as him. I think people who synchronized with Kakeru’s thoughts while reading or watching also recognized and remembered the hurt these thoughts stem from.
Orange is a shoujo, slice-of-life, romance manga, but I didn’t read it for the romance itself because the structure of it isn’t that much different from other shoujo romances. However, the slice-of-life aspects, the raw feels were what kept me going to read it. That time when the manga just stopped updating after chapter 9 (Takano-sensei went on a hiatus for 2 years I believe), I was so saddened and worried! I wanted to know more about these characters, and the manga’s storytelling felt genuine, simple, but full of heart even just with a few chapters. I think what makes Orange great in the end is the agape love and Kakeru’s will to live. These were the aspects that the characters themselves have to strengthen, and in the end, I could say for a fact that there was character development.
In other lenses, Orange may be a load of bull, but I think the story is beautiful and pure. People caring for each other and not wanting anyone to get hurt is beautiful and pure. The consequences might be totally different, and perhaps that’s scary and stupid because society would want us or trained us to be invulnerable, to not be arrogant as to think we can save someone, anyone. But these characters, these children, have followed their own rules wherein invulnerability doesn’t matter or carry much weight in life. These characters still have something more to develop as they grow older in the new world, and that’s ok. The end is open, but it is full of hope. So I think it’s still one of the best endings for me. Orange might be the color of sunset sometimes, but it is the color of sunrise as well, of a brand new day and path for these characters.
Guardian Enzo
September 25, 2016 at 2:55 pmThank you for that. Beautifully stated.
Orin
September 25, 2016 at 2:47 pmI couldn’t agree more with what you said here. I might be biaised, but as someone who had to deal with depression and suicide of close friends several times in my life, Orange is an anime that I really connected with emotionally. Yes, Orange is not a perfect by any means, but I feel like a lot of people stopped at those defaults and missed the point of the series. Anyway thanks for your coverage on this series Enzo, great reviews as always.
leongsh
September 25, 2016 at 3:28 pmCertain early episodes of orange hit close to home and this episode too. It reminded me of having to help and support friends who had depression. Fortunate that none had taken that last step of suicide. Those who have not suffered or helped to deal with depression don’t have a clue. As much unconditional love and care you can give, it comes down to the person who is suffering depression to find the meaning in their life to walk away from suicidal thoughts. Having empathy for the depressed is important to give the support needed.
gedata
September 25, 2016 at 4:33 pmWhilst this ending was pretty predicatable, it still was pretty good fit in theory. My problem with it though was the fact that despite all the time meddling and emotional climaxes that weren’t present in the timeline where Kakeru died, the dude still tried to off himself, and on the same day no less. I just find that rather hard to buy honestly. Sure there’s been overlap between present and the future the letters came from yes, but all the changes said letters created all had the express purpose of stopping that tragedy. It worked yes but it probably shouldn’t have come to where it did.
I’d be more understanding had this been a lot shorter (like, a movie or something) but with the mission statement of the characters throughout these 13 episodes being “make Kakeru happy”, it’s a wee bit hard to buy, considering how many times they did just that. If this all happened after say, episode 7 (before the constant will-they-won’t they-ing of the 2nd half) it would make more sense to me.
Simone
September 26, 2016 at 6:36 amYeah, that bothered me too but basically it was needed to create dramatic tension, or there would have not been a clear-cut deadline to determine whether they succeeded or not (which is a pretty idiotic conceit in its own right in this case, but I suppose I can give it a pass as a “symbolic” touchstone). I guess that’s where most of my problems with this show come out of – the portrayal of Kakeru’s depression seems actually pretty on point, it’s all the plot about saving him that often makes no sense (and by contiguity robs Kakeru’s plea of part of its impact). Especially all the serious talking about time travel and parallel universes and such. I see this story as very much like what Future!Naho & co. would *dream* would have happened – as it basically is still mostly what they experienced, just with key events changed. In other words, I think this would have largely benefited from being a story within a different frame. The time travel angle just didn’t work every time it was brought up. It’s not like it was really vital anyway – it wasn’t explored at all if not as a “cheat” that helps the kids figure out Kakeru’s issues.
I also have to say, having read the manga, that I had a much better impression of that, even if the story was pretty much identical. I think that pacing and execution somehow dragged down the anime as well, making its flaws more glaring.
pir
September 26, 2016 at 8:40 pmWell, that’s part of the “gedanken experiment” underneath the story — in how far could your different actions actually affect real changes? And would they be good changes or bad ones? What if the state of mind of the person for whom you’re changing them does not automatically change with the change in external circumstances? I thought that was extremely well handled. At first it looked like, sure, just change the moments of regret, but soon it became obvious that that wasn’t enough, since the main event causing Kakeru to go off the rails — that’s the one they didn’t change. And even if they had — his mother was clearly at her limit as well, maybe she’d have killed herself the day after. Or the next week. Every change was only working to allow Kakeru to see glimpses of being loved, but it didn’t change anything about how he felt about himself. It might have, eventually, with a lot more time passing, but then he found the phone message from his mother, and that basically reset his guilt back to max. That this happened on the exact same day was needed for dramatic tension and to make it believable that his friends were all there. If he had found the message a week later, nobody would have been there.
Anyone who has personal experience with depression and suicidal ideation knows exactly how little other people matter in the moments when you are certain you don’t deserve to live, when every day is so painful just to get through and pretend at some semblance of normalcy. Other people loving you isn’t necessarily a deterrent for suicide, especially if you feel you are a burden to them. I can’t quite express how much I love that they did not persist in “romance will cure your depression”, which for a couple of episodes it looked like they might go for. Because, no, it won’t. Which is horrible for the survivors, but there it is. The will to live has to ultimately come from within.
Simone
September 27, 2016 at 8:22 amThe thing is I understand perfectly that it would probably be hard to change the substance – the person’s will to die. But the series also made it a point that the *details* wouldn’t change either – they are in fact key to several developments, or the letters would have been useless from the very beginning – and that’s a bit harder to swallow. Some times even just delaying an action of a few minutes will snowball into a series of consequences that you can easily guess wouldn’t have happened otherwise. These guys achieved some major changes – like the victory at the relay – yet the story keeps going back on its own trails, to the point that after almost one year of meddling with the timeline Kakeru STILL decides to kill himself on the same exact day, at the same exact time, would have done it in the same exact way too if he had the possibility to use his bike and only stopped instants before being struck by, probably, the same exact truck. It’s a bit contrived. I mean, for all we know he could have committed suicide EARLIER, in this reality. He could have succeeded the first time he tried, by sheer butterfly effect. He could have done nothing on February the 15th and then killed himself unexpectedly on March 3rd. I think it would have had more sense for the letters to just communicate the general sense of the situation and leave out the specific details. That would also have given more chances to the cast to develop their emotional intelligence and perception. In a way the show wasn’t sci-fi by any means, but still leaned too heavily on its only sci-fi-ish element without knowing well what to do with it.
Guardian Enzo
September 27, 2016 at 8:34 amI actually think the implication is that Kakeru decided not to kill himself either way – the bike thing was a misdirection. Yes, the others wouldn’t have made it there in time if Kakeru had been on the bike – but he didn’t know they were there when he didn’t step in front of the truck anyway.
Simone
September 27, 2016 at 10:47 amAh, yeah, I got that too, though had he been on a bike the split second might not have been enough to brake, so it was at least functionally convenient. My point was just how he would have gone the same exact way up until the very final moment had it not been for the sabotage, which is somehow unlikely because one would imagine small changes to the timeline would snowball into big differences in HOW things unfold even when the personal motivations and thoughts stay pretty much the same.
Dop
September 25, 2016 at 5:09 pmAs something of a science fiction fan, I did like the way they dealt with the time travel angle, and directly addressed the Big Time Travel Paradox – i.e. if Kakeru is saved, they don’t send the letters to save Kakeru, and that the timeline where Kakeru lives is a different parallel world to the one where he died and they sent the letters.
So the future where Suwa and Naho marry and have a child isn’t invalidated, as that’s just that future. Maybe there’s a parallel world where they didn’t, but that’s just one other universe.
I think the way the author dealt with that was well done.
On the whole a good series, and a well thought out one which made good sense. I really liked it.
15FAN
September 25, 2016 at 6:45 pmAs always a well written review that most can’t come close to ! Thanks for being a profesional and also conveying your thoughts.
I mostly agree with you. The EP started out slow but picked up quickly . If anything you are probally right about most anime fans disliking played out drama ! Naho may be clueless / or more so actually shy. I have more of a problem with Kakeru being distance after New Years than anything else. And if anybody is a SCI Fi fanatic it’s probally me but their explanation of how or why the letters were sent and the Time Paradox is accepted by me. After all they weren’t sure themselves.
But I am happy it turned out alright because I thought it was going to be over for Kakeru.
BTW the Funimation Dubble talk crrew were talking thdt Oramge / 91 Days /and Mob Psycho will probbaly be the first dubs they do from Crunchyroll and speak highly of the 3 mentioned.
A disclaimer I am not the biiggest drama fan and it is not in my TOP 10 ( it was for awhile ) but was never close to being uninteresting or bad to me.
And looks like Suwa gets his time in the upcoming movie.
JD
September 25, 2016 at 6:46 pmThis is a wonderful palate cleanser after watching the finale of “Battery”. While neither that nor this anime is perfect, “Orange” was able to execute a well-rounded story while highlighting what I think is an important issue in society, i.e., depression.
I actually kind of cheated since I read the manga after episode 11, but that just goes to show how smitten I was by this anime.
Flower
September 25, 2016 at 10:08 pmOnce again a qualification that I generally dislike the use of time travel and parallel worlds and all that as a plot device, and it kinda irks me in this story too, but personal ‘druthers aside….
Yes! Totally yes! You “get it”!
I am so glad you got it about this series … your musings about the selfish element so oft intertwined and “naturally present” with romantic love (as contrasted with “agape”) on the one hand and the simple fact that a person has to want to “save himself” when so chained by despondency and grief and pain at a very deep level, and unless that is there all the support and help in the world will be of no avail.
Also … I admit, I had to chuckle at your description of how some folks “…trash anything that dares to trade cynicism and irony for straightforward human drama.” I would agree. ^^
Thanks for blogging and reviewing this series!
elianthos
September 26, 2016 at 5:10 amAh, Orange. Where to start. I was a manga reader. And when they announced the anime I had decided that I would not revisit this story again at first. Honestly I can see and agree with some of the criticism when it comes to the romance, the triangle (both the romance and the Bermuda one) or Naho. And unlike on paper I can’t really tweak the pace to skim over the parts that didn’t work for me without breaking the flow. I tuned back in last week to reflect on the ending again, if my perception and the way it affected me would change seeing it animated. As someone who walked the walk and stood on the edge of the cliff (well, a window) Kakeru’s journey and the agape and friendship angle were very well done and very well conveyed in both media. Well I’ll just leave it at that. I think both your post and the other commentors have highlighted it better and in detail.
Ah… this post features some of your better writing to date even as it tends to happen for matters and series you feel strongly about. Good job Enzo. And a hug. The aniblogosphere and beyond is lucky to have you.
Abs
September 28, 2016 at 12:07 amI just felt there was something wrong about feeling your child and partner are not good enough to make you happy, as Naho basically does?
I understand some people may feel like that and fair enough but just like I didn’t watch madmen because I couldn’t stand the main character, I can’t watch Orange because of Naho
Guardian Enzo
September 28, 2016 at 7:30 amI don’t think she feels that at all. The whole point is that it’s not about what makes her (or the rest of them) happy – it’s about saving someone they loved who they all felt died needlessly.
Gyo-chan
January 6, 2017 at 6:51 amIsn’t like Naho was rejecting completely its own life and family, it’s more like because of their child her regrets where triggered one more time, and even deeper because of the love she feels towards her own child. She confronted both views one more time, “How can I, as a mother, help my child to grown up so even if something (as it will uninevitably happen in life since… it’s life!) terrible where to happen, not just to me, just, anything horrible and so much important and crucial that will put him in the dilemma about life & death, meanings, etc.; How can I help him grow while I’m still with him, so that he can be able to love, himself, life, etc. good enough to have a bit strength to have a will to keep on living any and every single time terrible things where to happen?” Isn’t like Kakeru’s mother never had that worry in her head, she, and every single mother and person has ALWAYS that worry, so, that’s why she recalled her regrets again, ’cause she needed to, she will always keep on growing, and she neeeded to grow, and this, in order to be able to support her own child and herself in what awaits them in life.
That was as a mother…. but now as a child, “will his child feel that way some day in the future?, how can she help him? how can she help him grow in a way she could try to avoid that if were to ever happen?, what if his child feels like Kakeru one day? ANYTHING can be a trigger? and so? how will she help him? (here comes the past and regrets attacking her again) she failed and couldn’t did it once (when she “supposedely could understand him since they were the same age” [I put it like this since even if they’re the same ages means nothing and can’t help you to understand others ’cause it doesn’t depend just of that]) … what if she fails again?, so scary, so damn painful and scary, moreover since its her child, not a friend, not a lover, your own half of gene pool. How can she relate to him when she couldn’t once and the regrets chained her still so much that maybe can provoke a dangerous midstep again from her?” She needs to try again to understand Kakeru a bit, not just for regret, but to try to find a way to be able to help her child when he will need her, so, this confrontation is in order to advance, that’s what regrets and memories are useful for in life, not just to be delighted by recalling our good moments, but to learn of both our mistakes and wins, as adults, we still have not the solution despite we have more experiences and knowledge but we keep on remembering them to find more than one way, and not just that, but tons of strategys and solutions that can maybe be of use to confront a variety of things in life, and yeah I said: “maybe”, ’cause there isn’t anything absolute, there are more than one way and consequences, life isn’t that simple and sometimes it is, but we can’t always know, and despite that, despite knowing that, and having our own couple of little regrets, doubts and fears, we use them, as much as we can (yeah, our own fears, regrets and doubts) so we will be able to move forward because inside us there’s still love and hope that guides us to try to obtain happiness alongside with our objectives, to try and live despite all ’cause it’s worth the try and that’s one of the many things life is about, that’s what she’s doing, she isn’t just chained to the past, she’s trying to live because of their child and herself. She’s living, that’s it. Oh, and also, she’s human, she isn’t perfect, is normal that your regrets come to haunt you from time to time and to fall sometimes for them, but it’s normal, it’s a human thing to do to fall sometimes, that’s how life and humanity are.
My apologies for the big sentimentalist essay and for my bad english. I know I wasn’t able to say it in a better and more summarized way, but I hope that at least part of what I tried to convey reachs you.
Good day and greetings to everybody.
A pleasure to share this series and some thoughts about it with you
Guardian Enzo
January 6, 2017 at 7:36 amThank you for that very thoughtful and well-spoken observation. You got your point across very well, and I agree with a lot of it. Orange is about so much, and so little of it really “romance”, that it makes me very sad how much anime fans seem to miss the point of it.
proper1420
September 28, 2016 at 4:33 amI can’t agree with this agape love interpretation. For one thing, it doesn’t apply to all five friends in the future. Given the opportunity to save a friend in the past, Takako, Azusa, and Hagita write some letters. That’s nice of them, but it doesn’t rise to the level of divine. As for future Naho, who knows what’s going on in her head, but it seems most likely she has conflicting erotic loves. Only in Suwa do I see a sign of what might be called agape love. And while past Suwa’s self-sacrifice enables the saving of Kakeru by keeping him from getting between Kakeru and Naho, it’s clear that the primary thing that saves Kakeru is Naho’s erotic love: in the montage of shots after Kakeru dodges the truck, the lingering shot is of Naho giving Kakeru the box of chocolates. Others try to manipulate events, but it’s all in the service of shipping Kakeru and Naho. So the story I’m left with is of a troubled boy saved by a girl’s erotic love. I find that not only unsatisfying but also troubling.
Earthlingzing
October 1, 2016 at 8:51 amThe way I see it is that the five friends in the future are writing the letter to give themselves some closure. They aren’t the protagonists that you’re supposed to admire and relate to in this story, those are present Naho and friends, but they offer an explanation and a nice parallel for the things that happened in the present timeline.
anne
September 28, 2016 at 7:53 amtotally agree with you! series was a blast however some many of us “fans” think that romantic love is the only love there is; friendship and family type love doesn’t exist anymore to us. I read a tumblr post once about Serena from sailor moon being bisexual and I just shook my head at it. apparently these people have never heard of admiration and that a person can admire another person of the same sex without liking them romantically. sound euphonium is another example often people scream “yuri!” at kumiko and reina’s relationship just because they’re close when I think in the first season kumiko never put much stock in her instrument it was just something she had but seeing reina so passionate about improving her skills as a trumpet player kumiko finally had something to strive for and that improvement has been shown throughout the first season. not to mention that reina outright stated she has a crush on the teacher taki-sensei who is a guy but some many people keep twisting that into something else entirely just to keep the yuri hope alive.
Future Imp
September 29, 2016 at 12:22 amI felt when it came to sustained emotional impact in terms of rewriting the past and wading through regrets, Boku Dake was able to do so for a bit longer and more organically than Orange. It’s one of those mileage things. I’m an easy hook for time travel when it comes to editing memory, probably because it’s about an impossible, natural human tendency. Plenty of novelists and filmmakers seem to be cataloguers of time, and memory as identity, from Wong Kar Wai to Jennifer Egan, so the barrier to entry is pretty high. I don’t think any anime as this point has been able to reach that height yet IMO.
Zilla
November 15, 2016 at 10:36 amThe trailer is available for the upcoming movie. It looks like it expands on the older “without Kakeru” group, and perhaps retells the story from Suwa’s perspective. It’s not the sequel story I was hoping for. Hopefully it won’t eff-up the things that I enjoyed.
The trailer can be seen at http://movie.orange-anime.com/ (Hopefully posting a link to it is allowed)
Yann
October 29, 2018 at 7:48 amBeing sick… Stuck at home, I binge watched this series 2 years after it came out 🙂
Very nice review! All I can say is, as a teen, I had similar feelings as kakeru… I didn’t know about “depression” back then. But it’s pretty obvious the mangaka had first (second?) hand experience with depression. It’s right on the money. It reminded me so much of how I used to feel that it kinda got me kinda depressed… I could totally relate.
I had no idea this series was controversial going in… And I still don’t quite get why it would be.
Pretty depressing, but beautiful show… I wish I had a group of friends like that!
Guardian Enzo
October 29, 2018 at 10:09 amI still think about Orange quite a bit, even now. Whatever quibbles I had with the execution, I think it nailed the major emotional themes.