I liked Orange for providing a much-needed glimpse into a taboo topic. Unfortunately its a good message wrapped in a lackluster cover.

I truly feel like the manga had a lot of potential but killed it off to deliver a very simple story of regret, friendship and love. It had an incredible premise - time-travelling letters! - but fails to do anything with the concept. The whole of the story reads like this: Kakeru is hung up over an incident and constantly pushes people away, while his friends try again and again to reach him. Rinse and repeat. The conflict - saving Kakeru - is introduced as early as Chapter 1, and while this isn't a bad thing, this conflict never changes and everything plays out as predicted. Some may say the journey is more important than the destination, but I disagree -- the journey was a massive buildup to a ending that meant nothing.

Characters seem to have depth but lack development. For example, I think the mangaka tried really hard to flesh Naho out, and it worked - at least for the start. Seeing her break free of her shell and take the leap was gratifying and inspiring, because she was so relatable for many of us, yet any character development petered off the moment the mangaka decided to turn this into a shoujo manga. There is a time for teenage love drama and there is a time for emotional storytelling. Orange took the high school crush route. It created unnecessary drama in this case, mainly a one-sided love and a petty love rival.

I would like to emphasise Orange is a short manga consisting of 22 chapters. It needs to be quick and clean, considering that it never goes beyond what's advertised on the synopsis. At times I feel Orange is a overly complicated drama that could be simplified (the movie adaptation should be good). It's at the sweet spot of being not too short to be read in one setting, but not long enough to get to know the characters. If I treat it as a short story I can excuse the less stellar plot and characters, but I have invested my time into it and have received this crap payoff. I do recommend you read it though, because its not bad, just that it could be better.

P.S. Spoilers ahead. This manga covers suicide and regrets, reminding that simply being here for someone can ignite their will to live. At the end of the manga, the mangaka reminds us to look out for people like Kakeru and reach out to them. After reading this manga, I'm sure I'll do so.