Warning: this manga deals with depression and suicide. You've probably already read the first volume and know that, but this volume goes into more detail and includes a lengthy section from the POV of a character up to the moment he makes his decision to commit suicide.

I enjoyed this but had some issues with it that I’m not sure I can articulate. Well, I’ll give it a shot.

Orange is only the first two thirds of this volume. The last third is an unrelated story with a completely different tone. I’ll discuss them separately in this review.

Orange:

This volume picks up right where the first one left off. Naho is still trying to save Kakeru, but now she knows she isn’t alone - literally all of her friends also received letters from their future/parallel universe selves and are also working to save him. Things have changed enough now that the letters don’t always help, although they can still provide a little bit of guidance. But will it be enough? And will Naho and her friends’ efforts really manage to save Kakeru?

One of the things that worried me about the previous volume was the possibility that Takano might be taking the story into “high school romance saves Kakeru” territory. That worry never quite went away - although Takako thought that Kakeru would be fine even if his romance with Naho didn’t work out, Suwa was so unconvinced by this that he continued to sabotage the future he knew he could have with Naho. That said, the way the ending was written indicated that it was everyone, not just Naho, who was necessary to save Kakeru. What he needed wasn’t specifically romance, but rather relationships with people who cared about him, worried about him, and thought about him enough to try to stand by him through everything, even when he actively pushed them away.

Which brings me to the thing I’ve been avoiding writing directly about: suicide. While I think Orange is very good, it feels like something that was written more for people like Naho, Suwa, Takako, Hagita, and Azu than people like Kakeru and his mother. The section from Kakeru’s POV is part of the reason why.

At one point in the volume, Takano includes a flashback to Kakeru’s POV in the original timeline -

I probably wouldn’t recommend this series to someone who was dealing with depression and/or suicidal feelings unless they had someone they could go to that they felt comfortable talking to. The ending

When I first started this series, I said that it could maybe be considered science fiction. After reading this volume, I take that back: it definitely isn’t science fiction, despite its occasional passages about parallel universes. Takano’s explanation for how Naho and her friends managed to send their letters back in time and start a parallel universe where Kakeru doesn’t die was absolutely ridiculous. Rather than coming up with some kind of brilliant plan to save Kakeru, they

Haruiro Astronaut:

Chiki and Mami are identical twins. Mami’s the cute one that guys are always asking out. Since she can never bring herself to say “no” to any of them, even if she isn’t interested in them, Chiki always ends up being the one to break up with them for Mami. And then they ask her out because they view the twins as interchangeable. Chiki wants to find someone who sees her for who she is, rather than as an acceptable substitute for Mami, and who wants to be with her.

Mami introduces Chiki to Yui, a hot new guy in her class, and Chiki falls head over heels in love. Unfortunately for her, he’s interested in Mami. As if the situation weren’t already painful enough, Mami starts to fall for him too. So where does that leave Chiki?

This one’s light and fluffy tone was a welcome change after finishing Orange. The worst thing the characters had to worry about was whether the person they liked happened to like someone else.

This story had not one, but two love triangles: the one mentioned in my summary, involving Chiki, Mami, and Yui, and one involving Chiki, Yui’s best friend, and a guy who initially says he’s interested in Mami. To my surprise, I actually kind of liked these love triangles. Although they both had aspects that were painful for the characters, neither one got to the point of truly hurting anybody and wrecking friendships. I’m still not sure how I feel about the final pairings, but the fact that everyone could still talk to each other and have fun together after everything was said and done was really refreshing.

(And I wonder, am I the only one who looked at that last page and had a sudden vision of Chiki, Tatsuaki, and Natsuki all going on a date together? Natsuki would quietly and happily soak up the atmosphere, Tatsuaki would be overly loud in a failed effort to hide his nervousness, and Chiki would blush and laugh.)

Rating Note:

If this volume had included the end of Orange and nothing else, I might have given it 3.5 stars. Something about the way Takano wrote about Kakeru and his mother's depression didn't quite sit well with me - I don't think I've figured out exactly what bothered me, but I don't know that I care to spend more time digging into it either.

Haruiro Astronaut really was a breath of fresh air and managed to nudge my rating up to 4 stars, which is a bit funny considering that I probably wouldn't have given it that rating if I'd read it on its own.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Orange (yes, I know the title is supposed to be lowercase, but it feels too weird) - I'm not sure how I feel about it. The ending was a little bit "high school romance saves Kakeru," but it's more "having people who care about him enough to do everything they can for him saves Kakeru." And

Now that I've read the whole thing, I don't consider this science fiction. At best, I suppose you could call it fantasy. Takano's explanation of how the group managed to send letters to their past selves and create a parallel universe was very hand wavy. Basically:

Haruiro Astronaut - This took up the last third of the volume and was better than I expected. The main character was the responsible twin, while her sister was the one who always dated the first guy who asked her out and then depended on her sister to break up with him for her. This has two love triangles, one between the twins and a cute guy, and one between the main character, the cute guy's best friend, and a scary-looking guy who was actually a secret softie. I liked the love triangles, I think? They resolved themselves less painfully for everyone involved than I thought they would. I'm glad this was just a one-shot because I'm not sure I could have taken more than a volume of it, but it was pretty cute.

I still haven't decided how I'll rate this volume.

Guessing on the page number, since there are none.

I really need to remember to add a content warning for depression and suicide to my review when I write it, because dang. I just got through the series' first (only?) Original Kakeru POV flashback, including all the stuff that snowballed into his final decision, and it was a horrible reminder of some childhood stuff I would rather not have suddenly remembered.

Although this is good, it's leaning an awful lot towards the message I was hoping Takano wasn't going to go with ("high school romance can save Kakeru"). There are signs Takano might have something else planned, though, so I'm crossing my fingers. It looks like Orange ends about two thirds of the way through this volume, and after that there's an unrelated (?) extra manga.

This is another manga that made it onto my TBR list because of some review I came across a while back. I can't remember which one or who wrote it.

Unfortunately, I saw the "complete collection" part and didn't look closely enough before requesting the volume. If I had paid better attention, I'd have realized that "complete collection" didn't mean that the series was complete in this one volume - instead, it's an omnibus edition with one more volume after it. I'd have requested both if I had known.

I went into this with vague memories that the reviewer had loved it, and also that it was maybe science fiction. I suppose it could be considered science fiction due to its thread about

, but it read more like drama that had the potential to be a tear-jerker.

The story: Sixteen-year-old Naho receives a letter from herself 10 years into the future. She thinks it's weird and some kind of prank, at first, except that everything it says keeps coming true. It tells her what's going to happen each day, her future self's regrets, and what she needs to do to make things better. Above all, she's supposed to look out for a new classmate of hers, Kakeru, who will commit suicide by riding his bike in front of a car in the winter of his 17th year.

I really enjoyed this, although parts of it gave me very mixed emotions. For example, in the original future, one of Naho's male friends, Suwa, will eventually become her husband. After Kakeru died, Naho, who had secretly had a crush on him, cried for days. Suwa eventually helped her pick up the pieces, they got married, and they now have a child together. A bit later in the volume it's revealed that

That said, I could understand what they were trying to do. I definitely plan on reading the next volume (in fact, I have an interlibrary loan copy waiting for me to read it right now). However, I'm worried that this series is going to rip my heart out and stomp on it. Every step the characters take makes it harder for them to figure out what to do next, and several important steps are hard for Naho, who's naturally pretty shy, to take.

Crossing my fingers that volume 2 puts everyone on a good path and doesn't make a high school romance the primary thing that saves Kakeru. I also hope there's some kind of explanation for how those letters got sent

Rating Note:

I struggled with rating this. I really enjoyed it, but it has great potential to fall flat on its face. I gave it the rating I felt like giving when I first finished it, rather than after I'd thought about it for a bit, with the understanding that my rating for the next volume might end up being far lower depending on how certain aspects are handled.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)