Here we are, the very end of our journey with the shown known as orange.  To be honest with you all i really didn’t think we would actually make it here. Early on in the show i just assumed Thomacus and I would just up and abandoned it and move on to the next.  With that being said i am very glad that we stuck it through.  Though this show really unfolded in what seemed like a matter of three total episodes The message within it is sweet and it is nice seeing a show tackle an issue like suicide awareness. That’s not to say that i loved this show completely and remember this final rating was concluded by us tallying the ratings that we gave each episode into one final sum (We all know Thomacus rates a little high).  There were a couple of things that just didn’t add up to me at the end of the season like the fact that we learn how they get the letters back to their past selves but the show does this weird thing of only giving the reader enough information for them to interpret it in their own way. I really do wish they would have used up some time and either gone into a little more detail with this or just completely done a scene showing them perform this action. The other thing that i really didn’t like about this show was how bad of a job they did at explaining what was what towards the end when they were timeline hopping every other scene.  Admittedly this could be just a thing that i did not understand but i surely can’t be the only one.

We also took the time to give each main character a rating. You can find that below.

Ueada…

It goes without even saying that we absolutely do not like this character.  She was a bully and really did nothing to contribute to the story.  Honestly this entire show could have existed without her.  Sure there would have been no point of conflict for our main character Naho but I think we would have all be ok with that.  For those reasons we give Ueada a 0.

Kakeru

The show starts off by making you feel sorry for Kakeru, his mother passed away and it may potentially be his fault.  We can all feel sympathetic towards that however, by the end of the show something changes.  He seems to become angry all the time, almost bipolar and starts treating Naho like absolute trash.  That mixed in with the fact that he is so unsure about everything and cant just man up and say how he is feeling has landed him at a 5.

Naho

Just like Kakeru, Naho is very quiet and often times shy and afraid to say how she feels out loud (perhaps her and Kakeru really are a perfect match). On top of this she has a letter that is telling her exactly what to do in order for her to be able to save Kakeru and she fails it at least 3 times in the series (mostly because of her inability to just make a decision and go through with it). As one of the more important characters you would expect her to be a little more stern and straightforward.  For that we give her a 5.

Suwa

Suwa gets a 7 because he really did carry the weight of getting things accomplished for the letter.  When Naho was out there failing it left and right we could all be assured that Suwa was going to come in and save the day by fixing whatever it was that she screwed up.  On top of that he was struggling with his own internal issues because he knew in another universe he was married to naho with a child and kept that to himself the entire time to avoid further conflicts.  Those things however, are not the soul reason he ends up with a 7, He did this incredible play where he started to ask Kakeru if he would be ok with Suwa and Naho getting together.  At first you go into this thinking that he is becoming a bad guy and losing to his own internal conflict.  You will later realize that he was pulling a reverse psychology trick on Kakeru to make him become more interested in Naho! On top of all that he was just a very likeable character.

Takako

Takako was another character that this show really could have existed without. She fell into the list of main characters but had a very little part in it. The only reason we gave her a 4 rather than a 0 was because she stood up for Naho and almost slapped the shit out of Ueada. While typing this post out just trying to find a picture of Takako alone was almost impossible proving how unimportant to the show she was.  They could have done a lot more with her.

Azusa

This character really grew on us.  throughout the season we steady called her bread girl because that is really how you are introduced to the character.  You learn that her parents own a bread shop. Through the show you will come to love her crazy actions and high energy. I will say however her 7 really didn’t come to be just from her part of that was because of her interactions with Hagita.  You will come to be more interested in that relationship than the main one that you are suppose to be interested in.  Overall her ability to slowly work her way into the limelight was nice.

Hagita

Finally saving the best for last! We have Hagita the man of very few words but all of those words count.  The man who single handily helped his friend Kakeru when his friends told him he was being excessive.  This character at first starts off real slow he only ever has a few lines but they are always sassy and funny as hell.  Come time for the big race this character breaks through leaving you laughing through the entire episode or almost every episode after. Although Thomacus and I liked this character all the way through the entire season it wasnt until the very last episode that we noticed Hagita might have single handedly been responsible for saving Kakeru. He mentions that they show go smash Kakerus bike in order to at least slow him down.  The group tells him that he is being excessive and sort of blows it off.  Behind their back we come to learn that he went and did it anyways. After talking about it we thing that had Kakeru been on his bike he would have probably been hit by the truck no matter what it was the face that he was walking that gave him enough time to fall over onto the sidewalk before the truck was about to hit him! Also Hagita was the person who presented the black hole idea in order to get the letters back to their past selves in the alternate timeline! All these thing plus his relationship with Azusa have brought his rating to a 10 and the FIRST official inductee of the Animag hall of fame!

Like i said this show was slow to start and really only used the back end of each episode to get you wanting to move into the next up until mid way. but that is not to say it was a bad show, there was a goal and it was accomplished. If you are looking to dive into a season that is only one long and a fairly easy watch we do recommend this having come in at a 7. It is also in manga form which Thomacus and a few other people that we have talked to said is a better format for it.

You can listen to out podcast final thoughts review below!