The anime which had the potential to be a masterpiece of a shoujo anime in a short run, but instead tried to become too dragged out and everything just fell apart. Much like how Usain Bolt would start to slow down and stumble during such a long run.
|contains minor spoilers which are indicated beforehand|
|Story|
Orange could have been such a great story. It uses great story-telling mechanics to build up the story and give the characters the opportunity to evolve and grow. But instead of building off of the foundation it set for itself, it just walks away from it.
Right from the beginning, we see how cleverly the creators of Orange slowly unveil the mysteries regarding the "future" and the letter. Initially, they have a great pace, and everything looks perfect for a good anime. We have a great mystery, with decent starting characters and a clear end-goal.
Unfortunately, after the initial setup, the anime just slows down ridiculously and tries to drag out everything and this just totally wrecks almost every aspect of this anime as they try to waste time. Let's look at those in a little bit more in detail.
The romance line just gets shattered, as they try to find at first irrational reasons and later on just straight up illogical reasons to drag out the way to the romance of Kakeru and Naho. The whole plot/story would only need one event to really happen to finally progress/finish, but they just keep on delaying it. In order to do so, they use multiple cliches, unneeded drama and conflicts which just become too plain and cringe after awhile. (SPOILER: Naho being unable to do literally anything on multiple occasions and being just so incredibly slow to help the plot develop)
To say something really positive, the anime uses very clever techniques to create opportunists. For example, the use of letter is brilliant. The way they use it really gives a chance to evolve the characters.(SPOILER: in the beginning it gives specific orders, after awhile it only says the goal and leaves the execution to Naho). It has great plot twists and has multiple huge reveals that can be shocking to the viewer as well as giving a chance to the side characters to shine (SPOILER: for example the reveal of multiple letters, and the very end twist). Not to mention a great use of time perspective shifting which really could have helped the anime in terms of expanding the depth of characters (which Orange didn't really utilize in the end...)
If only the story could have been condensed more, avoiding the unnecessary time wasting, then the story could have been intriguing, with a great story telling and amazing twists.
Story - 5
|Characters|
Most characters are quite one layered and basic stereotypes at the beginning, but that's absolutely fine for starters. The problem is, that most of them never really evolve into something more deep. The only good character was Suwa. Throughout his relationship with Naho, he really becomes someone else than what he started with, sharing great thoughts throughout the anime.
On the other hand, main characters like Naho, were just handled terribly. This mostly comes down to the issue that the creators wanted to waste time. This totally wrecked Naho's character. To begin with, she was already one of the densest of the densest, not to mention that it would be an understatement that she is shy. The Plot techniques used set her up to really get a character development (SPOLER in the beginning she relies on the letter, but later on she tries to become herself and pave her own path instead of being a "puppet"), but because that would solve the main plot problem, they just find excuses and leave her (SPOLER: she then fails and goes back to the letter and remains a "puppet"). Not to mention that she literally cannot do anything on her own and always relied on her friends and that didn't change at all, not even once. The last straw was when she actually became worse than the initial character (SPOILER: When she tells Kakeru to stay with her and abandon his granny, which was literally her telling him that she doesn't care about his feelings. Way worse than what she said in the other world).
Character Score - 6
|Art|
The art style is quite different than most other animes. It's a lot more clearer and the lineart is more visible and sharp. It all comes down to preferences, but it was actually quite refreshing to see this type of art. The animation overall for fairly smooth and consistent.
Art Score - 8
|Sound|
The voice acting was very good. It felt realistic, and i could feel the characters behind them. Each individual had their own speaking style which was a nice touch.
Sound Score - 7
|Overall Package|
All in all, this anime really could have been great if it didn't sacrifice characters, cliches and good moments only to get to that 13 episode number. Although in it's current form it's not easy to recommend it, but if we discard those useless parts earlier described, then we get one of the best shoujo anime. If you like some good and tense drama that really gets you on the edge of your seat, then this is for you.
Overall Score - 6 (but could very easily be 9 if you put up with the frustrating parts)
|Subjective review (rant)| (SPOILERS)
I was so frustrated with how they handled the romance, dramas and the main couple. Because i saw so many textbook usages of conflicts (in the beginning) and symbols (the letters or the hairpin). You will be able to read up in more details about the story-telling techniques in Orange.
Subjective Score - Want to give it a 9 but have to settle with a 5
