Familiar Diversions
I'm a librarian who loves anime, manga, and reading a wide variety of genres.
Currently reading
Orange: The Complete Collection (manga, vol. 1) by Ichigo Takano, translated by Amber Tamosaitis
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.)
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