Before we begin:
The first manga and the first romance story I've finished! I found the romance aspect a little jarring at the start, but how will it ultimately turn out to be?!
Orange's characters are... peculiar. I think in the grand scheme of things they were alright, but I didn't exactly feel compelled for any of them outside of the 'action' or whatnot. If they weren't in the middle of the hyjinx of the current arc, they might as well just be background characters. Whenever a character does actually try to do something meaningful in the thick of the story I usually go, "Oh I forgot they were still around," and in these situations they'll always blabber on about how they can also exist in the story. There are times where other characters apart from the main three get involved, but I feel like they try their best to be the one and true "supporting cast", they'll help out a little bit but they hardly ever get the chance to shine -- despite securing what seems to be a fairly important part of it all. There's an attempted feeling of importance, but they only really get any nice character development right at the end. This isn't something that super urks me, but I do wish the characters outside of the main three got some more details to them, they tempt you every now and then but don't really feel fulfilled.
I should begin by stating I didn't feel even a smidge of a tear for the entire thing (apart from where I was devastated from jealousy at how they got snow in March), I really really tried to be able to soak and relate heavily to the characters but when it came to the crying scenes I was sheerly still. Aside from that though, I did like the way the character's feelings were expressed or whatnot; since the main character is such a timid soul, it gives you a lot of insight into how she feels and how the fellows around her feel through trying to help her. I also thought the romance was very sweet and I really liked the more dramatic moments of it, the ones where you go, "Oh shoot how is this gonna go next," were really my favorite -- I think the moments of sheer desperation for the cause were where Orange shines for me.
I like the letter system -- don't get me wrong; but I didn't like any explanation for how the time travel works nor how some characters reacted to said meddling of time. For example: there are multiple instances where the time meddling fool says, "Oh, don't do that," and gives some rubbish explanation or no explanation at all as to why. Along with the other characters supporting the romance, this resulted in lots of dialog feeling painfully forced. The forcement was definitely intentional, but ahhh it was so awkward to go through with characters demanding actions with some unapparent mysterious motive that seems totally random -- it was even worse when the character(s) receiving the miserable explanation actually go with it for some odd reason!! Not all of the time meddling was so miserable, but there was around a two-volume period where a quarter or more of the dialog felt painfully forced. However, I should state there are some great character moments that do come from the time travel, I'm not saying the time travel was a mistake at all; I'm just saying I didn't like the moments where it didn't feel so natural on either side.
At a certain point, the chapters stopped saying "To be continued" and started saying "End" even though there was plenty of chapters left. The issue with this is that the first time this change occured was at the ending point of a rather influential arc, so I was lead to believe that somehow the manga had ended right there even though there was so much more to see... now, if it had just gotten right back on track it'd be fine, but for some odd reason it goes into a lengthy 'flashback' of events that nobody will ever actually know. The flashback gave some insights into some events I might find important, but personally I was rather grumpy with how it came right after such an influential arc -- it made me feel like this is what the manga is now and I don't get to see what that arc's influences ended up tolling out to be. After what felt like a large portion of the manga it did finally get back on track and go on to finish in a proper way, but I was rather upset by that horrific placement. Another key factor into the misleading was that just before the flashback there was a flashforward into what probably would be a glimpse of the actual ending, which made me feel like the author was going, "Well, that's the end of that, lets go over into some lore," even though I really wanted to see what happens after that darn arc -- specifically how the characters experience it all. >:(
I mean it was alright, the style of ending just kind of doesn't suit me.
In total I think Orange was fairly good, but once the Misleading Ending portion comes around it skips down to only being fairly decent -- which is pretty unfortunate since that part is nearly a third of the entire thing -- which heavily impacts my final impression, making it harder for me personally to recommend it. I do still think it's worth a go regardless, at least if it seems like your thing; I'm sure my poor impression from the misleading ending is impacted by my general intolerance to those kinds of flashbacks as well, so I wouldn't be shocked to find someone else not finding it as critical as I did -- although still poorly placed.
It's a bit misleading to leave it on a negative note, so just pretend like I have something good and worthwhile to say here!
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