Category: Orange

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!

Unfortunately for us, this is not a good orange episode. Hell, I could say this is one of its worst episode. orange has always relied on the regrets of the main cast, and the foreshadowing suicide of Kakeru as their main emotional impacts. When they steer away from those, this episode just loose its punch. While the character’s interactions are still there and those moments are one of the only high points of this week’s viewing, there is an issue with it as well. You see, there is no damn fun when everything goes entirely according to plan, when all the moments are just too perfect. I have no problem if this was about making Kakeru talk honestly about his suicide thoughts couple of weeks ago, but creating every moment with Kakeru too flawlessly (like the umbrella incidents this week, the “good morning” exchanges) make the whole situation feels rather forced, and to make it worse I feel Kakeru was manipulated by the group here, even if the intention comes from a good place.

But my biggest problems with this episode lie in its pacing. Last week we dedicated half of its episode for joining up team for the upcoming relay events, and this week the episode strangely drops any of the preparation phase, instead focuses on the revelation that all the cast has their own letters, worries about Azusa’s birthday, cares so much about the weather, and concerns about whether or not Naho and Kakeru should hold hands. Then they jump STRAIGHT to the events. The inconsistency of plotline occurred before in one of the episode when Naho pushed Kakeru to talk about his mother for the first time. After that Kakeru and Naho had a rather uneasy tension until it was revealed that Suwa had received the letters himself, then suddenly Naho and Kakeru again talked to each other normally like nothing happened. Well, I understand that they have to jam in many plot details to both heighten the relationship and carry the emotional weight, but I am not quite fond of letting the story just moving on its own like that.

As I mentioned in my last episode, orange is a weird shoujo production, and I will say in more details this time. For a shoujo romance-drama anime such as orange, they have an unusually high quality director and an equally unusual below-the-standard budget. So what we have here is a show that stands out in its artistic merits, as many of the director’s choices shine through this week. For example, the sequence from Asuza’s point of view is nicely displayed, as the characters are more colorful, childlike and whimsical than Naho’s point of view. In another case, the director displays Kakeru’s feeling of detachment from the rest of the events by showing him standing awkwardly among a disappearing crowd, with the wash-out color background and a slightly disorientated sound designs. Those are great moments because we really know more about these characters just by experiencing the same thing they do. The art designs of other background characters though, are just too rough and inconsistent. As a result, what we have in the end is the episode that glorious at certain important scenes, but meh and below quality in general. The sport events haven’t concluded yet, as we still have that relay to look for. Here’s hoping for a rewarding relay (and episode) ahead.

This week, Naho and Suwa face a dilemma of whether or not they should follow what written in the letters. The relay is coming and Kakeru is appointed to be an anchor. They have been followed the letters very closely, but the original reality becomes too different from this reality that the content is not really relevant anymore. Should they follow the letters because clearly the older-selves have all the answers, or should they rely on themselves to act according to Kakeru’s happiness? Naho and Suwa at first decided to ask him not to join the relay team, since the relay could affect badly to Kakeru. But Kakeru, being himself, feels insecure that he might let the team down so he’s agree to pull out, but he’s clearly not too happy about either decision. Kakeru has been afraid to make a choice. He doesn’t want to repeat the same problems and have more regrets, even to the point where he confesses his feeling towards Naho, but too afraid to date her. Naho and Suwa realize they have been way over-protective to Kakeru, because really without taking a step forward, how could Kakeru move on to his next stage? The rest of the group pick up on that as well, and they together make an awesome decision: let the group run for the relay, so that Kakeru can run and moreover they can run together. Now I understand the running part in the Opening Credit. Yes, it has its purpose and this is not some cliché opening credit where everyone runs for no reason from all over directions, right? RIGHT?

But as I mentioned in previous posts, some of the incidents can’t change and those lead directly to the sad outcomes. Because the group invited Kakeru on the first day, his mother commit suicide. Because Naho couldn’t bring herself to talk directly to Kakeru, he dated Ueda. This time they ignore the letters, but could it be the reason the letters don’t want Kakeru to join the relay is because of his health? Earlier in the episode he passes out and with the stress he’s currently building up, his physical gotten weaker and weaker. I’m not imply he’s in some kind of terminal disease and I really hope the show won’t go that way, but it’s possible that they might not be able to ‘save’ Kakeru the way they want to.

This is now confirmed that the rest of the cast also receive the letters from their 26-year-old selves. All they want is to support Naho and Suwa to save Kakeru, and all Naho and Suwa have to do is to share it with them. Now this lead to a fundamental issue of the show: all the developments emphasis on the same united purpose: saving Kakeru. For that I say they’re trying a bit too hard for the sake of Kakeru (really? 5 adult people sent letters to their younger selves so that they can do their best effort to save him?), and other aspects of friendship will be ignored. Now, every time Suwa and Naho talking to each other, it’ll be about Kakeru. They grow through their interaction with Kakeru, not wuth themselves. I kind of miss the interaction between the group in the first episode where I can see more angle about their friendships, see how they bound off each other in a natural way.

But really, the more I see orange the more I think this is a kind of weird production. The director Hiroshi Hamasaki is not well-verse in shoujo drama, the budget is tight and that hurts. The rough quality and still-frames are more prominent now than ever. It’s a shame because orange works best if the production values can express those emotions, but the level shown in orange simply couldn’t match it.