Did it?
In a way, yes.
~~ Story (8/10): ~~
As far as the story goes, it stays the same as the manga. Five high schoolers: Naho Takamiya, Hiroto Suwa, Azusa Murasaka, Takako Chino and Saku Hagita receive letters from addressed to them and it turns out that they come from themselves ten years in the future. They are told to save their new friend Kakeru Naruse who is, in fact, no longer with them in ten years time.
The anime followed the manga very closely and I saw hardly any original content which I can really appreciate when adaptations are made. If you like romance that's kind of similar to Ao Haru Ride then look no further, this one is for you. Orange also has supernatural elements to it, dealing with parallel universes and such. This kind of genre has been done to death so far in 2016, but it's a bit of a fresh perspective.
~~ Art (7/10): ~~
The quality of art and animation throughout all 13 episodes is quite consistent. In a few episodes, the detail can be quite poor due to the show's budget and whatnot, but apart from that, there's nothing too noticeable. The art is very nice to look at.
BUT.
Half-way through the series, there are one or two episodes that serve as comedy relief in a way. In these two episodes, there are facial expressions drawn onto the characters that you DO NOT see in the manga. These faces are the kind of over-exaggerated faces you'd see in a comedy anime or something. Orange is not a comedy, although there are comedic moments here and there (mostly involving Suwa and Hagita), the facial expressions made in these episodes can be very offputting. That is the only warning I can possibly give you.
~~ Sound (9/10): ~~
The voice acting is brilliant and there are some top-quality seiyuu's involved in this show. Kana Hanazawa voices Naho and does a brilliant job, Makoto Furukawa voices Suwa and consistently pulls off his masculine, upbeat voice and as for Kakeru, well, he sounded like your average male MC so I can't comment much. I'll cut his seiyuu some slack though as he hasn't been in the industry for very long. The soundtrack, composed by Hiroaki Tsutsumi, is beautiful. The sad tracks are a delight to listen to and all the other tracks are excellent too. He also worked on Ao Haru Ride, which is probably why I relate the two shows so much.
~~ Characters (6/10): ~~
If there's one thing the anime adaptation does wrong, it's the character development. In one group, all six characters shine in one way or another. However, if you separate them and make them individuals then they have no interesting qualities whatsoever. Kakeru is the bland male MC who has depression, Naho is dense, even more, bland female MC who has a crush on Kakeru but won't ever say anything about it, Azusa is a happy-go-lucky gal who goes as a double act with Takako. Takako? She gets no attention whatsoever. Hagita is the low-key otaku nerd of the group who is often teased about something. The only character I can give praise for is Suwa because of his undying dedication to the instructions in the letters, his genuine friendship towards the others and his general, all-around likeableness.
But yeah, this adaptation does a good job of making Naho even more romantically retarded than she is in the manga, and they take Kakeru's jerkiness a step too far.
~~ Enjoyment (7/10): ~~
I had fun watching this show. At times, the build-up of tension and feels works to more effect than the manga did, but most of the time it didn't. If you really want to enjoy the story for what it is then I highly recommend you go and read the manga, penned by Takano Ichigo. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, and I'll probably forget most of it in a year's time.
I'll never forget Suwa though.
#suwabestgrill #neverforgetti
~~ OVERALL (7/10) ~~
