First Impression Anime: Orange

It seems like this is the year for time travelling stories. There’s been Boku Machi, Re:zero, and there’s even going to be another adaptation of The Girl Who LeapsThrough Time (Toki Kake) TV Drama coming out this summer. So much time traveling shows to watch, so little time. However, the only thing I know about Orange is that it’s based on a bestselling manga, it already has a live-action movie, and it has a little “time traveling” theme. From what I’ve heard, it’s supposed to be a really good story and I hope that it’s true. 

Naho Takamiya, a 16 year-old HS student, who is receiving letters written from herself in the future. These letters tells her all of the things that will happen to her. Like, she will meet a handsome, shy, ikemen guy named Kakeru Naruse, a new student who moved from Tokyo. It also warns her not to invite Kakeru to hang out with her group of friends. She doesn't understand why her 26 year-old self wrote this down. But she chose to let that event happen anyway. The next day, Kakeru is absent from school for a couple of days. She begins to worry about him. 

From reading the letters, she learns that she will eventually fall in love with Kakeru. She decides to take a leapt of faith and actually follow her future self's advice by changing the regrets that she has made. The letter from herself strongly emphasis to keep a close eye on Kakeru. She works up a courage to make a connection with him. It looks like it’s a start of a new romance blossoming and possibly something depressing is about to come?

The only thing we know about the future Naho is that she’s married to her best friend, Hiroto. They are taking a bouquet of flowers to Kakeru…HOLD IT. Wait a minute, are they trying to say that he died? Does he have an illness?! Which explains why he’s been absent from school. I’m hoping that this won’t be another teen illness story, because it’s been done before and we all know how that’s going to go down. But I hope that I am wrong and this is only my interpretation of what I saw from the first episode. There might be something else going on with Kakeru. 

I thought the first episode had a good introduction to the story and the characters. It looks like it will focus more on the romance drama than on the mechanics of time traveling. The concept of receiving letters from oneself in the future is something different and has me intrigued. If Naho fixes her mistakes in life, will it change Kakeru’s future?