Orange continued to chart its steady course this week, although we did finally get to see the show somewhat engaging with its own time-travel conceit. I don’t have much interest in this show’s thoughts on time travel, but that interlude fortunately didn’t take up too much time, and the rest of this week was pure “oh my god Naho what are you doing oh no Naho don’t do that yes Naho more of that please NOOooo” goodness. This girl is going to kill me.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!
Naho expressing herself more in her desire to be with Kakeru has now lead to a new past where her friends intentionally try to support her in seeking a relationship
SYMBOLISM BALLOON STRIKES BACK
Kakeru gets Naho a hairpin and asks her on a date
Kakeru is nice in that he’s a pretty normal teenage boy – if a girl asks him out, he’ll go out with her because he’s cute, but he actively pursues the girl he really likes, as well
Another weird flourish of direction – the zoom on each of their test scores in turn
Actually talking about time machines and how the letter might have been sent
Even engaging with the question of changing the past changing the future, and how parallel worlds are the way to account for it
So yep, they acknowledge she can’t erase future Naho’s regrets
They actually handled this about as gracefully as they could
“Even if I couldn’t change the past, it might make my burden lighter”
Naho actually asks him out to the fireworks. A major step for her, something she couldn’t have done before. Her “changing the past” is actually changing herself
Kakeru can tell Suwa likes Naho, and actually talks to him about it
Suwa is too nice for his own good. The drama stays wonderfully sedate here
The festival is presented as bedlam by contrasting the Cinderella play against the rock concert going on outside
And Suwa actually ends up helping too
“Wearing the hairpin feels wasted on me”
This episode’s pacing seems stilted even for this show
“Suwa is the dear person who saved my heart”
I appreciate that this show naturally fights back against the concept of destined love or soulmates
“oh my god Naho what are you doing oh no Naho don’t do that yes Naho more of that please NOOooo”
You DO realize that sounds like a line from a hentain doujinshi, yes XD?
The exposition in this episode does feel kind of out of place with the tone of the rest of the series, but I really like the kind of emotions Orange evokes through the parallel world stuff–the idea of future Naho sending a letter to her past self so that somehow, somewhere else in the universe, there exists a reality where Kakeru is alive is all kinds of beautiful and hopeful and sad. There’s probably a better way to do it than this–maybe you don’t have to explicitly say it–but the sentiment is good.
I had hoped so intenselly that they would simply leave all this stuff unsaid, even if only for the poetry in that. Not that they weren’t graceful in its exposition but, you know. Oh well.