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Forum - View topicREVIEW: Orange Limited Edition BD/DVD
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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From what I remember of Orange, I'd have liked it more without the magic time letter stuff. Partly because at times the story relies on it like a crutch, as though the characters are referring to the script whenever they're not sure what the next line/scene is (even after the timelines start diverting). But mostly because future Naho is just the worst, a moping moe-wraith who apparently has spent her entire future relationship with "nicest nice guy in the world" Suwa (great characterisation there) pining for a dead guy she knew for a few months, but also apparently knew her younger self was so open to emotional manipulation that receiving a letter that goes into excruciating detail about how to save a guy she's never met from a death that it's implied is her fault (since it's her asking him to hang out with them instead of seeing his mum that's the instigating event of his downward spiral) would be enough to make her slavishly go along with it.
Oh & the whole half arsed attempt to "explain" how time traveling letters work was unnecessary, not least because if your going down the route of multiverses that the show takes, sending the letter is pointless anyway beyond giving the characters smug sense of satisfaction that they "did something" (ten years too late) since in a world of infinite possibilities there are infinite scenarios where Kakeru didn't die anyway. Indeed I got the sense that the other adult characters were just humoring Naho because they're just so nice. Had it been a story about a group of kids gradually coming to understand their new friends mental illness & troubled home life & (hopefully) helping them through it, I'd have been all on board. But the time travel aspect that just won't go away means it's really a story about a group of adults who f'ked up & want an easy way to feel better about it, for an author/audience who want to fantasize that it would be just that simple. & the production issues didn't help, either. Was like watching a slow moving slideshow at points. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4442 |
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I'm still not sure how I feel about the time travel aspect of the show. spoiler[The multiverse idea is the one I generally prefer, but here it came off as a bit of a cop-out. Adult Naho blames herself for Kakeru's death, but she is married to someone who clearly loves her, and they have a child. For a while, it seemed compelling to see what she would decide to do, but creating another timeline let her have it both ways. Outside of that, though, the show was a pretty interesting look at depression and how it affects others.]
Last edited by Greed1914 on Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:07 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 976 Location: Kansas |
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It's weird, when I read/watched Orange 2 years ago, I wasn't really that broken up over the idea of Naho changing the future where she's married to Suwa. I guess because all of the characters act like that's totally okay and worth it to save Kakeru.
Now that I'm engaged myself, I don't feel like I can understand Suwa's feelings at all, especially since they have a child. Suwa, personal happiness aside, are you really okay with creating a timeline where your child doesn't exist? Not to mention, you gotta figure that Suwa and Naho have a pretty strong relationship in order to get married, would her and Kakeru be able to have that kind of relationship long term? The only reasonable explanation I could see is that if Suwa believed that he and Naho's relationship was strong enough that they would get together in the end anyway, but that's clearly not what his thoughts are. Instead, it seems like he's allowing an alternate timeline where Kakeru "get's his turn" with Naho instead, which makes it seem kind of icky. I can sort of understand the cognitive dissonance there ("It doesn't affect me living in this timeline so whatever") except that conflicts with the entire message of them trying so hard to create a future where Kakeru is still alive, even if they can't ever see him again. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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Suwa is that most Japanese of literary characters, the guy (though usually it's a girl) who devotes themselves entirely to ensuring the happiness of the person they love, no matter the emotional or physical cost to themselves, in the hope that one day said person will reciprocate, or at least acknowledge, their feelings. Of course the problem here is that he's not some classmate or assistant, but her husband/fiance & father of their kid e.g. he's just so nice, he'd go so far as to give her the facsimile of the happy family she wanted with Kakeru. Then again, I wouldn't be that surprised if the author didn't consider that Suwa & Naho would have to, among other things, have had sex to get to that point (At least they didn't try to suggest that the baby was somehow Kakeru's). Naho & Kakeru are the only characters of consequence in Orange. The rest are just there to ensure they get together, even if they have to break physics to do it. |
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Gemnist
Posts: 1758 |
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Error in article: Jamie Marchi wrote the dub, not directed. Jerry Jewell was the director.
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Parsifal24
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This was actually the first Limited Edition of a Anime Box Set I ever bought the series was one of my best Sumner 2016 when it came out on streaming. I've always felt the emotional truth shares makes up for the flaws in writing or odd plot elements.
It's also interesting seeing Hamasaki, Hiroshi direct this being that one of the works he is most known for is Death Frenzy. Still I thought the story handled well along with use of visual symbolism. I also have to say the dub ended up being good and while I worried the English Dub may sapped some of the emotional gravitas from Kakeru Micah Solusod did a good job. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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So what's the difference between Script (Jamie Marchi) and Head Writer (John Burgmeier)? |
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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Well, it definitely features one of the more creative ways to resolve a love triangle?
When i first read the manga, it hit really close to home because i actually experienced a very similar situation in high school (sans romance and time travel...), so to me this was always a story about a group of friends trying to deal with their feelings of loss and guilt and the inevitable "what if...?" that people who are left behind have to live with. But since it's shoujo there apparently had to be a love triangle and that's what most of the discussions seemed to revolve around which i found pretty frustrating. So yes, i think the "time travel love triangle" needlessly distracted from the actual "message" which was to heighten people's awareness of depression and to show what it does to both, the people who suffer from it and those around them. But in spite of it's flaws, it's still a series that's very dear to me and one of the few (shoujo) manga/anime which actually tries to deal with this sensitive subject. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18212 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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As I understand it, the head writer does the overall scheme, while the script writer writes the actual lines. It's similar to the split between Series Composition and Scenario writers. |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2450 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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I’d be interested to know where you saw the live-action Orange movie. I noticed Delta was streaming it in-flight for most of last year; I watched the trailer but never committed to actually watching the whole movie.
TBH, I wish more of these anime/manga-based J-dramas were legally available in the US, but I think Crunchyroll has scaled way back on J-drama (have they just dropped it altogether?), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lot of recognizable names when I’ve checked places like DramaFever or Viewster. Viki maybe? |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18212 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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It was on a Delta flight (to Japan, actually). I had 11+ hours and knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep on the plane, so I had no reason not to check it out in full. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15487 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I personally had problems with it, from characters not reading the whole letter straight away, that one would be willing to give up that happy future they had for some guy they kind of knew 1 years earlier, and that things like the threat of suicide just felt like selfishness. Is he going to eventually find out that she had instructions from a future self not to do something, and did it any way which led to his mother killing herself? But really in general he did not seem like such the nice guy as the show seems to think that he is.
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Punch Drunk Marc
Posts: 1743 |
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Head writer also does the final edits and things I believe. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4089 |
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I've been putting off watching Orange what feels like years now but I have finally gotten around to watching episode one thanks to this review and now I have a pretty good idea why I was able to put it off for so long: It's a show that I won't regret skipping.
Because it's about regrets. No grand feelings of "We got to save him" from the future Naho, just "If you do this/don't do this, you'll regret it. I know. Trust me." and present Naho buys it. Amusingly, this doesn't tick off my scientific side but rather my philosophical one. You're going to have regrets either way but are you really willing to cave in and let your future self decide which regrets they should be? It's a straight dramatic version of that Duckman episode where the outcome of every action become known instantly with the end result of the subject becoming a motionless blob of inactivity. But that was no holds takedown on dithering over consequences and Orange is just the dithering. My thought on it when Naho read that she was going to fall in look with Takeru was to burn the letter now because she was letting her present actions be dictated by a future version of herself.... but future Nano is not her and may not even be connected to her. Give me a time travel story where some dude tries to change things for the better or worse at their own whims any day of the week over the idea that it's sensible to allow your present decisions to be controlled by a stranger even if that stranger is your possible future self. That's just wrong. To paraphrase Servant x Service: "You're going to have regrets no matter what you choose to do. That's just how life is." I don't whether to call teen Nano naïve, gullible or just kind of dumb but I know what o call future Nano, evil. |
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Nadare Xizos
 Posts: 115 Location: The Heero Hole |
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You had the same complaints I did, so thanks for saving me some time. I watched the whole series, but couldn't really understand why Naho and crew had pinned all their regrets on one person they barely knew. Suwa was the unsung hero of the story for me considering everything his present and past self had to deal with. I will praise the anime for handling sensitive issues like depression and suicide well if nothing else. |
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