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Orange
Episode 7

by Nick Creamer,

How would you rate episode 7 of
Orange ?
Community score: 4.5

Things moved forward quickly in this week's Orange, as Suwa's reveal at the end of last episode led to him overtly assisting Naho in her plan to save Kakeru. The two of them compared letters and ultimately arrived at a plan to use Kakeru's upcoming birthday to demonstrate how important he was. And for once, it seemed like things in this melancholy little universe actually went well.

It wasn't surprising that Suwa's upgrade to co-protagonist lead to some swift dramatic resolutions. The show so far has moved largely at the pace of Naho's actions, and Naho is not the most proactive person. She's guided far more by her insecurities than her desires, and while the show's composition has been right to respect the truth of her feelings, it's made for an undeniably slower-paced character drama. When you couple that with the fact that Kakeru is far too caught up in his regrets to actively pursue Naho, it certainly feels like a relief to see someone like Suwa stepping in and getting things done.

Suwa's actions were generous and heartfelt this episode, and he fortunately avoided Naho's trap from last week. Naho's general failing is that she lacks the social grace to turn her letter-born knowledge into useful action; when she tries to act on her information, she often fails either through insecurity or because she's just not good at talking to people. When she actually did overcome her insecurity last week, the results were insensitive and distancing. Naho ended up outright interrogating Kakeru about his feelings, when the right course would have involved offering her support without demanding answers. By contrast, Suwa's actions are all open-handed - he simply acknowledges that he knows the truth about Kakeru's mother, asks a single question, and largely constrains himself to trying to build Kakeru up.

Suwa's friends are all lucky to have him, frankly. He's at a much more stable point of emotional maturity than most of them, to the extent that his concern for the happiness of the people he loves is more important to him than his own immediate feelings. Naho isn't deliberately selfish, but her insecurities make it difficult for her to look beyond herself; she'll run into a difficult situation and think “how is this my fault,” not “what could my friend be going through that might lead him to act this way.” Concerning yourself too much with what others might think of you can unfortunately make it that much harder to actually engage with what they might be thinking.

That said, while I was very much a fan of most of this episode's narrative material (barring Rio's brief predictable scene, an unnecessary repeat of all her other appearances), I'm somewhat saddened by the show's increasingly rough production. There were some interesting shots this episode and a few cute reaction faces here and there, but the characters are getting increasingly off-model as the show continues, and the already limited animation is leaning toward longer stills. Intimate character dramas like this actually demand strong animation and design work more than most shows; when so much of your show's dramatic intent hangs on small emotional shifts, you need to have character acting capable of depicting that. Orange's execution is increasingly unable to match the poignancy of its variables.

But that's more of an overall production issue than something specific to this episode. Overall, this episode was still full of the grounded conversations and small emotional peaks that make Orange a generally satisfying experience. I hope these sad kids turn out okay.

Overall: B

Orange is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.


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