As some of you may know, Orange has been a growing-ly popular series that recently have had a movie adaptation. And although there was a pause in the serialization due to certain problems with the author's mental health, it came back even more stronger than ever. And finally, we have an animation adaptation.
I've re-read the series a couple of times: a few times in English and once in Japanese, and I've also watched the movie, so you can say that I have many expectations and already have many assumptions for this work.
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The story first starts out with a "future" scene of the group of friends, digging up the time capsule they had made during their high school days. Then moving forward, we have the scene where Naho receives a letter from her future self.
All these follow closely to the manga's story line.
And they introduced Kakeru into the anime. At this point I was already feeling that there was just something a lot different about this as compared to the manga.
For one, I feel that the scene right before Kakeru was being introduced, was a little bit too unnatural. There have been many 'introducing the new student' scene in many different anime, so there are some 'standards' that frequent anime watchers expect.
In most of the shows, the introducing scenes is either fast forwarded and simply just showing the teacher writing down the student's name on the black board while the new student introduce him/herself. However, because this scene is an important scene, and contributes greatly to the main plot line itself, there is no way they would use this method.
The other 'method' would start from the very beginning where the teacher would introduce that there would be a transfer student, and the students would start buzzing and saying things like "I wonder if it's a girl or boy", or "I hope he is handsome", etc. Which was no different from this scene. However, the little mistake was that they actually took a close up shot of one of the mob characters. So instead of a buzzing effect, it would seem like this mob character have some sort of importance to this scene - but in actual fact, we all know, that he doesn't have any importance at all. And in overall, it just makes this scene, in overall, a lot more dull than it should have been.
If they were going for a bit of that sharf animation's "abstract" type of animation, it would be a lot better if they had many chattering at the back with a selected few lines to emphasis on, while flashing a few mob characters which said those lines. To lower the emphasis on the mob character and the up the tension in the class, they could also just show parts of the mob character instead of their faces, like: their mouth, or them turning to talk to their friends about it.
Another one of the reason, was that I felt that they should have used an OST here. Especially with Naho reading her letter, I felt that it should have a mystery and melody-like OST, or just a tune to pique the watcher's interest and show the importance of the letter when the letter and what Naho was experiencing in reality matched.
After which, it was a scene where Kakeru was told where he would be sitting. I felt that instead of just showing the two main character's faces, they should have dragging the scene from Kakeru's point of view to show where Naho was sitting. Because here, we can't really get a view of where the 2 of them would be sitting. It would also be a good chance to see the layout of the classroom, especially since many scenes would be happening in the classroom.
After which Kakeru walked over to sit, I felt like they spend a little too much time showing Kakeru walking over. But the biggest problem I felt was that; in this scene, Naho was supposed to feel a little shocked, confused and shy (seeing as how her personality is). However, in this scene, she was pretty much emotionless, and it kind of made this whole scene defeat it's purpose. Because in this scene, they were suppose to show that Naho was taking an interest in Kakeru - be it because of what's being said on the letter or be it because she just felt like that the first time she saw him.
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So fast forward time, and it's after school. The group of friends invites Kakeru to hang out with them after school. But we can see that Kakeru was a bit troubled.
I actually really liked how they emphasized on Kakeru's actions, because this scene is a huge key that leads to whatever happens in the rest of the anime. We have him saying stuff like "No... today is kinda..." when Suwa tried to invite him out, and then also "Just let me send one e-mail first" when they kept persisting. This line wasn't in the manga, so I was kinda pleased that they decided to add this in for more emphasis.
And in the next scene, they were doing self introductions, which led to a little joke corner. Honestly, I couldn't really get this scene when I was reading the manga, but I could sort of get that they were just trying to show that Kakeru could mix well with the people around him even though he may not be able to relate to them much when it comes to certain jokes about the city or town itself, because he is from Tokyo.
But in this scene, I didn't get that feeling at all, and it was overall a very weird and strange scene for me (or maybe it's just cause I don't get the jokes?) Either way, what brothers me the most was probably the angle of the camera. Because of the way Azusa said her question (which, to me, sounded kind of serious), and the way Kakeru answered it, it just made the whole scene really weird. In the scene where Kakeru answered "the Azusa limited express", the camera only showed Kakeru's mouth area - and usually this is done only when the character is in an emotionally negative scene, which in this case, shouldn't be happening. So I wasn't really sure what they were trying to do with this scene.
Next scene, when Azusa brought her family's bread for them, they actually made a name and a mascot for her bakery, while in the manga there wasn't much mentioned about any of it (probably because it wasn't the main purpose of this scene). It makes it a lot more memorable, and I felt was a wonderful touch to the story.
While they were handing out the bread, and deciding who takes what, the breads were given out to the rest of them first before Suwa asked Naho which ones she wanted. Naho actually wanted the curry bread, but said she didn't mind whichever she got, so she ended up with all the sweet breads.
I didn't quite like how they changed the sequence of things here. Because this scene was suppose to place more importance about Naho's personality of 'not wanting to bother others because of herself'.
In the original scene, Suwa first asked Naho which bread she wanted, after which she got the 2 sweet types of breads, and while seeing the rest fight for the curry bread (1 was given to Kakeru), Naho was relieved she didn't picked the curry one. But in the anime, none of that was mentioned.
So I felt like the meaning of this scene changed a little.
After the breads were all sorted out, Naho met Kakeru's eyes when Kakeru was observing her (because he noticed about her 'lie'). In this scene, similar to the classroom scene, they just showed each other's faces individually.
I felt that it would have been a lot better if it was shown from either Naho's perspective or Kakeru's perspective, and not a 3rd person's perspective. That way, it would have a lot more emotions and sense of noticing that 'something', instead of having a random staring competition with each other.
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The next week, Kakeru didn't come to school at all. And when he came back, the first scene was him and Suwa playing soccer together.
When they asked Kakeru what happened, he just said that he skipped while putting on a smile. In this scene Kakeru was trying to act strong (for those who read the manga, would know why), and despite showing a smiley face - I don't really know if it was intentional - but I liked how they drew more obvious bags under his eyes at a hint that something was wrong.
The next scene shows Naho and Kakeru talking to each other, and also about how Naho's foot hurts because of her shoe. I felt like this scene really lacked emotion, especially because this scene was supposed to be a huge development between the 2 which led to Naho falling for Kakeru. I felt that there was a total lack of emotion from the voice actor.
Kakeru is being voice acted by Yamashita Seiichirou; one of the newer voice actors, whom I don't actually know, and have yet to really take notice of his voice.
Kakeru, to me, is an emotional teenager who is facing a lot of negative emotions during his time in high school, but he tries to cover it by acting that he is happy. But other than that, he is actually a really normal teenager.
So for me Kakeru's voice is that of a teenager - a very rowdy and cheerful person. But because he is trying to cover up his 'sadness', sometimes I feel he goes over the top to pretend to be all right, so in most scenes, his voice should be more exaggerated when it comes to all the happier emotions, to show that he is actually trying to force himself. But of course there are also other scenes where he truly feels happy, so they would actually have to differentiate the scenes.
However, for the whole show, I felt that they were pretty much labeling Kakeru as an 'emo' character, and I barely felt any emotions from him from the beginning of the anime.
In this scene, I really felt that he was really lifeless, and even when he asked Naho about her shoe, it just felt like he was asking for the sake of asking. I felt like there should be more emotions like curiosity and worry within.
And also the part where he was complaining about Hagita being really bad at soccer, it should have sounded a lot more like a complain than a statement (especially because of how much Kakeru likes soccer), and also a lot more like a teasing statement, like how guys always joke around with their friends.
The next huge scene that I thought needed improvement was the last scene where Kakeru went to help Naho with her injured foot.
Somehow in this whole scene, Kakeru just sounded like it was his 'duty' to help her. But I feel that this scene was one of the scenes where Kakeru was doing it because he took an interest to Naho, and he should sound more gentle, kind and also a little playful (because of his personality). It was one of the scene where Kakeru actually put his whole heart into noticing Naho instead of his mother.
Overall, I thought that Yamashita needs a little more improvement with his emotion inputs into Kakeru. Because Kakeru isn't an 'emo' kid, but someone who is actually a cheerful one if it wasn't for what happened. I'll be looking forward to see how he develops and grows Kakeru.
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Suwa is being voiced by Furukawa Makoto, to whom most of you know as the person who voiced Saitama from One Punch Man.
Suwa is the mood maker of the group (and obviously, this anime itself), he acts really playful and cheerful, but he has his kind and manly sides.
Honestly, I was really looking forward to how he would portray Suwa, because I felt that his normal personality is pretty similar to Suna, and that he wouldn't have much problems. But what I found out when I first started watching was that, there just wasn't enough emotions put into his character. It was overall a very dull and unmemorable moment. Suwa is supposed to be the guy who leaves a very deep impression in you despite not having many scenes (at least for the first episode he doesn't have many scenes). But it didn't feel anything like that.
I hope that as his character develops, it will improve overtime.
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The rest of the characters were pretty ok. I especially liked Naho, Hagita and Takako's voices, I felt like they were a match.
When I first heard that Hanazawa Kana was playing Naho, I just couldn't help but think that she was perfect for the role.
As for Takako (voiced by Kinugawa Rika), I was pretty surprised, because it is her first main role, and she actually did a pretty good job.
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As for the art of this anime, it does follows the manga art style to a certain extend, however, it's just not as pretty. I feel that they made it look a little bit to much of a realistic style, and the manga was a lot better.
However, the lighting and the backgrounds were all really pretty, and I really liked it. It really gave off the feeling that the cover page of the manga gave (I don't really know how to describe this feeling...)
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All in all this anime is worth the watch, for this season, and many are already taking a liking to this anime.
Release Date (for eng subs): Every Sunday
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