ORANGE starts off incredibly shallow. The characters are not much more than a single personality trait. I could only remember Naho, Suwa, and Kakeru’s names for the first half. The writing is a equally terrible. While dialogue is supposed to move a narrative along, Orange's dialogue does this too literally. Everything is spelled out for the reader, and everything that happens to the cast seems like a contrived convenience. Couple this with generic high school manga situations, and I was left bored and disappointed with Orange. I would have dropped it earlier on if I hadn’t purchased the complete series at once. I’m glad I finished it, because it does get better. Perhaps Ichigo Takano just needed the hiatus she went on.

During the first half, I was asking myself a bunch of questions about the logistics behind character motives. Why would five teenagers devote their entire existence to helping some new kid they barely know? Why would Suwa just give up the girl of his dreams to the new kid who doesn’t even come to school half the time? These questions are answered in the second half of the series, and a lot of my problems with the series were resolved. Unfortunately, it ends just as it gets good. I thought I had a whole extra volume in my omnibus before I ran smack into a two-shot Seven Seas added to the book (without mentioning it anywhere!). I would have loved to have seen Orange continue on. The ideas of regret, depression, and suicide are important topics to be discussed, and Takano gives some decent insight.

Although Orange grew on me, I can not give it too positive of a review. The first half of it is unbearable, and the second half average. It’s a good idea, but I don’t care for the execution. I hope Ichigo Takano learned a lot from this series, and creates something really good in the future.