For the first time orange manages to do something different narratively. The first half of this week’s episode tells the original timeline in Kakeru’s point of view, and with that we can understand more clearly about his emotional progress, at the same time gives us much more details about his Mom. In the original timeline, Kakeru hides those negative feelings from his friends, because he both doesn’t want them to be bothered so much about his own personal affairs, and moreover he doesn’t want to get hurt again. After all, what happen if after he tells them about his suicide thoughts, they just laugh it off? Or they just avoid being friend with him like a plague? So he decides to keep everything for himself and unbeknown to him creating a wall between him and his friends. When his emotions become unstable, others (Naho especially) just can’t break down that wall because frankly they have no clue to help him. That wall becomes too thick to break that he’s getting many conflicted ideas going on simultaneously: on the one hand he just wants to embrace Naho, talks to her and tells her that he needs her; but on the other hand; he acts obliviously, cutting off Naho and basically behaves like he has nothing to do with her. It’s getting painful (in both good and bad ways) to watch from time to time.

Prior to this episode, no matter how you think about it, it’s just plain cruel the way his Mom commits suicide to make Kakeru feel bad for ditching her. No one in her right mind would do that; well except Mother Gothel that is. This week brings her whole actions into light and it was much more poignant, consider how things would end up badly in the end. Although whatever she did (getting divorce, moving house, ditching his soccer bag and cleat) seems selfish at first, she actually did all that to protect Kakeru from getting hurt again. Her final message to Kakeru before she commits suicide indicates that she believed herself had become a burden to Kakeru, thus she ends her life so that she doesn’t get in his way ever again. Her thoughts of committing suicide are of course very flawed, but there’s no denying that those thoughts come from a relatable sentiment.

But as far as this Kakeru’s perspective has to offer, one thing that keeps bugging me is the lack of Ueda’s appearance. I know she’s never an important character but I get the feeling that orange itself doesn’t have high opinion of her. I was always curious to see how the relationship between Kakeru and Ueda would end up in the original timeline, but they just conveniently shrug that relationship off like nothing ever happened. At least now we know that Kakeru doesn’t technically commit suicide (he just ride a bike while his gaze was up the sky), but still his very thought that “living another day is a struggle” pretty much qualified that action as suicide attempt anyway.

While I really like the adult’s segment of orange, this time though when they discuss about the technicality of time travel again they completely lost me. I never really care about how these letters go back through time because it was right there in the premise. My logic had already been suspended upon reading that premise, so why bring it up again? To make it worse, the adult actually “figure out” how they going to send those letters back: by sending them to the sea (with the 16-year old address and hope that these letters will find their respective receivers at their precise time in their precise house, dry and clean. How did you guys even find the black holes anyway? This is just laughable underwritten, which makes me wonder why they bother to include it at all.

Our poor Naho after being dished by Kakeru last new year eve event, continues to take a role a normal guy would do; which mean to apologize even though she did nothing wrong, tries to talk to him again but the guy just basically plays hard to get at this time. She even expresses herself to walk home with him and he just walks away? Be a man, Kakeru. Behaving like a man. Now you really get on my nerve Kakeru. Now, she even confesses to him to wait until Valentine, so the long-awaited Valentine might happen after all. Now with only one episode left, how will Kakeru, Naho and the group end up after the Valentine Day? Can they really save Kakeru this time? I really hope orange can manage to pull a satisfied ending here.

Well, this episode is one the most emotionally wrenching orange has put up so far and for me at least this dramatic turn of event is what this show does best. Kakeru’s issue is a fundamental one. So far, the group succeeds in helping him to open up more and enjoying himself bit by bit, but they don’t actually change his very perceive that he’s responsible for his mother’s death. That and the thought that he might lose another person closed to him depresses the hell out of him and he comes full circle after the whole series of trying to get better. When he eventually gets into that self-loathing mood, everything just snap. That of course is frustrated. It doesn’t help either that Naho is incapable of sharing the feeling with him. She has known that they eventually got into arguments that day, but when it happened, his problem proves to be too big for her to handle and she just froze at that crucial moments. After that, she chose the worst possible way when dealing with someone’s outburst: chasing right after them. It’s much wiser to just give them some time alone to calm themselves (at least Kakeru would save his phone that way). But really, what would you expect from a 16-year-old girl to do? I can completely understand his outburst, but still that is not how you treat a girl, Kakeru. Ever. This guy needs a professional help and clearly he isn’t ready to have a healthy relationship with anyone anyway. Which come to a shortcoming from the group’s effort to save Kakeru: Does the group putting Kakeru and Naho together really is the best way to save Kakeru?

I know I said it before but I don’t really like the way the show’s main focus on the second half squarely on “saving Kakeru”. That aspect just overwhelms others relationship between the cast, since most of the time the topic they talk to each other is how to make Kakeru happy. This week proves to be a nice change as we see more perspective from the rest of the group towards Suwa’s feeling for Naho. Moreover, when the rest of the group calls Suwa, they all actually raise some valid points to the table. Yes, saving Kakeru doesn’t mean that Kakeru and Naho need to be together. Well, at least they like each other, but still it doesn’t mean that Suwa would just sacrifice himself for the sake of those two. At least give yourself a chance. Hagita in turns points out (accurately, but at the same time somehow inappropriately) that changing Kakeru’s future will eventually indirectly changing the future of those around him, and it might not be a good idea to change things so much in this timeline. Azusa argument is the most direct response; she wants him to express his feeling to Naho because she knows that he could make her happy; something I’m starting to doubt that Kakeru could offer Naho. Well, knowing all that, in addition that he knows how his old-self in original timeline would end up (he’s the only one out of the group who seen the pictures of his kid and the old group, talking about “overpowered”), he still decides to support Naho and Kakeru till the end. He might eventually become the awesome dude that no one deserves to have.

Last episode I predicted that the story might end on a Valentine Day, but given that this episode still wanders around Christmas and New Year (one of the saddest New Year Eve in anime I would say), we might have a Valentine that will never come. Instead, I think the story could pretty much end in another event that was hinted many times before: the day the group writes their notes to their 10-year-older self. Judging from that, things might not end as melodramatic as one would think. At least, this episode restores my hope that orange might actually pull off a satisfy ending.

Orange has a much better episode this week compare to the shipwreck last week, mainly because it has a much more solid material to dance around with this time, and the animation is actually good enough to carry the emotion abroad. I have mentioned last week that I’m no fond of the way the group forced Kakeru to feel happy. Even if those actions come from good intention, it doesn’t mean that he himself feels happy, because he doesn’t actually do any damn thing to earn it. Indeed, in this first half Kakeru is rather melancholy, because his mother just passed away and he thinks that he’s here having fun is an irresponsible act to his mother. In a sense, this is a valid thought. Kakeru is an insecure kid, he has always feel responsible for his mother’s death, blames himself for what happened and is unable to talk about his problems to his friends. Kakeru can only get better if he can be able to talk about it with his friends and let his regrets all out…

Well, if you have followed my orange’s weekly posts, you’d realize the last sentence was originally from my previous episode 7 post, which brings me to my main point: While that scene itself is satisfying, they basically repeat the same notes over again. We have already seen the group pushing Kakeru to lay bare about his inner feeling before with a greater emotional impact, in a sequence when Suwan and Naho directly confronted him about his suicide thoughts. In addition, it doesn’t help either that the metaphor they try to convey becomes as obvious as it gets. Here in the middle of the festival run, Kakeru and Naho have to do an errand by carrying the mattress. As they themselves realize that it’s a hard task for just two people, the group appear to help them carrying the burden, both literally and figuratively. This is as in your face as you can get, thus making the final result much less impactful.

Finally, the moment we had been waiting for the last few episodes arrives: the relay, which not-so-coincidently the final, decisive game in the festival. I originally worried about the relay, considering how the animation quality dropped drastically for the last few episodes. But I’m happy to say that the sequence is very solid. Kudos again to the director’s decision of focusing on the emotional impact of the group rather than the race itself. The relay is a perfect set-up for the group to explore their chemistry because they have to reach to each other, again both literally and figuratively. The metaphor again is too on-the-nose, as each member of the group tries to send their heartbeat message to Kakeru: “Don’t lose. Promise me. We’ll always be together. Even ten years from now. We’ll be waiting”. This is a whole other level of subtlety! Again, I don’t hate the relay sequence and I think it does its job, but I will put it simply: the more obvious the feeling they try to convey, the lesser the impact.

The sports event seems to be the end of this middle arc and we head off to the final chapter with its 3 remaining episodes. It is clear from those 10 episodes we have seen that the story has stretched a bit too thin for a full cour season. We spend nearly 2 episodes for the sports festival for example and I could easily cut 2-episode material to make the story tighter. Yet 3 episodes remain and we still have the Valentine day, and the day after that when Kakeru in the original timeline has committed suicide to cover. As for the theme I can see that Kakeru has gotten much better than himself of the original timeline, so I don’t know how he’s going to end up in this timeline. At the same time, I feel that the current development is too good and light-hearted to be true. Well, at least that is something I’m still looking forward to see in next couple of weeks. Surprise me orange!