Orange 🍊 Chapter 1

I’m sure it’s digital-only.

Nah, just by a little :wink:

I might have to write a little script to adjust the page numbers for me.

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Just finished this weeks reading! :tangerine:
Very interesting so far! It’s been a while since I’ve read a shoujo manga and it was definitely time to jump into one again!

Definitely getting some vibes that things aren’t going to go well for this group of friends, so I’m nervous for them.

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I’ve just finished this weeks reading. Its very intriguing so far! I found it tough to make myself stop mid-chapter because i really wanted to find out what would happen next.

Like @MissDagger I wonder if Kakeru’s absence is sickness or allergy related. Perhaps the メロンパン that he traded from Naho (which might explain why her future self wanted him to not be invited) or the 野沢菜パン that he was encouraged to try?

The vocab list was super useful, and big thanks to @Hantsuki for explaining the whole Azusa No.2 part. I had the basic gist of what was going on but found it a bit confusing so I wasn’t sure I was understanding it properly!

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For some reason I got confused about what page we were reading to and stopped short! So, finished the last couple pages just now, and then read one extra page because I could not stop myself. :joy:

The only (language-related) question that remains for me is ... (page 20)

Why did Naho say しかもPV出たよ ? Without the しかも I would have just assumed she was (semi-randomly) saying something along the lines of “Oh, they made a music video, you know.” But with しかも it must be somehow related to her previous statement about her dad singing that song at karaoke, right? I’m lost here …

Kakeru-kun and Naho making their bun exchange was so cute. And Azu getting mad when Naho left for class without her haha. I’m starting to really appreciate Takano-sensei’s art style! Especially the expressiveness of the speech bubbles, as someone else mentioned.

@ChristopherFritz I love your panel-by-panel commentary! :joy: It definitely called attention to some things I hadn’t really noticed …!

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Page 20 PV sentence reply

I was gonna confidently tell you what I read that as, and then I started looking closer and realized my take might not be anchored in the text. Why does that keep happening? :joy: (Although it turns out I’m often close with my takes but still…)

出る (jisho) is one of those verbs with so many definitions. So I first read this as kinda “Furthermore (dad) took out (from storage) the DVD of their promotional video”, and I can’t honestly tell you how I got there. I guess I was thinking take out/show physical copy of video. :joy: Obviously, that isn’t what it is saying.

More likely I’d guess it is something like “a promotional video have been produced” (definition 13) or “have come out” (definition 5). Pinning down the exact definition used is not something I can do, several of them could fit.

I think the しかも is referring to the song, since it is the topic, rather than her dad singing it at karaoke. I know the song isn’t marked by は, but it is put first in the speech bubble with a potential pause/omitted something after (が or は probably), like saying “I’m talking about the song”.

Maybe someone else can come with something more exact, but that is all I got. And hopefully it is fairly accurate. (Unlike when I kinda breezed past it with a thought “I get this enough”, lol.)

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Start of Week 2

Here starts the discussion for week two, aka part 2 of chapter/letter 1. Please hide spoilers from this second part since all of letter 1 will be discussed in this thread.

Please feel free to keep discussing and asking about the first part. This thread is now the thread for all of letter/chapter 1, so talk and ask about any part of the chapter. :smiley:

Reading

Start Date Chapter Page Numbers Page Count
July 9th Letter 1 - Part 2 32 - 56 25

Participation poll for Week 2!

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I am no longer reading the book

0 voters

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Time to restore what I accidentally read/posted early last week!

(I think I have the correct physical page numbers here.)

Page 33

image

Pretty impressive for a guy who shows up for a day, then disappears for a couple of weeks! Giving someone the food they wanted is some powerful stuff.

Page 42

image

Did she just temporarily lose her right shoe?

Well, we have letters from the future, so if I classify this as sci-fi, anything can happen =D

Page 43

Technically, there are no rules against this.

Now to wait a second week before I can read again.

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Just wanted to quickly note that I read this week’s section today but I don’t have time to fill in the vocabulary sheet. I will do that tomorrow, probably around this time or slightly earlier. So just know in 24 hours the vocab sheet will have a lot of entries for the second half of chapter 1 (I looked up a lot :sweat_smile: ). I thought I should mention it if anyone would rather wait until there are some entries. :smiley:

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Second Part of chapter 1

Kind of agree with that. Like the guy was there for one day and then disappears for 2 weeks … I think most people would have already forgotten about him!
This time around Naho probably is super curious about Kakeru, because of the letters, but apparently it happened the first time as well? :smiley:

I’m honestly wondering how none of Naho’s long time friends know that she likes the curry bread best. Like Azu just plainly states Naho is supposed to like sweet bread? So she has to eat the sweet bread all the time?
I mean if Azusa would know in advance that everyone likes curry bread she could just bring more of it, right?

Also caught up to the end of chapter 1! :smiley: I feel like I missed tons of fun conversation, but I guess there will be more to come.

And about the letters:
I think it’s actually pretty nice that there are letters that don’t have furigana. When furigana are there my eyes just kinda automatically go to them if I want to or not, so I’m always happy for material without them!
I think usually all the kanji will appear at a later time in the chapter (with furigana). At least for those I didn’t identify right away I just skipped/guessed the content and found the reading later on.

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Aw, Kakeru is such a dream boat in this first letter. Like imagine a guy trying to get you out of something you don’t want to do because you know it might not only be painful but also embarrassing. And then when he shows up with the first aid kit to treat her feet rubbing on her shoes. You can’t deny, we could’ve all used a Kakeru in high school. But also my man Suwa…so proud of Naho’s homer…

Considering Naho’s character, it totally makes sense. She’s the type to not speak up about something and just go with the flow, even when it comes to enduring the pain of her shoes. Even though they were a size off, she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and make extra work for the school who would have to reorder her another pair.

It’s very likely that she would think specifically asking for her favorite bread would cause unnecessary work for her friend (who provides the bread for free anyway). Maybe there’s not enough curry leftover to make curry pan for Naho, and in the case that there wasn’t, her friend being a good friend would apologize. And Naho, being a good person wouldn’t mind at all, but her friend would still feel like she would be disappointing her friend for not bring her her favorite bread that she might look forward to. In this sense, simply requesting curry pan could obligate her friend, and instead of putting pressure on her, she acts like any bread is good. (She probably eats the sweet bread happily if it’s always leftover, for example, so that would lead them to think she likes it.)

One of the big points of this chapter is to show Naho and Kakeru’s characteristics. On one hand, Naho puts up a front so she doesn’t cause trouble for anyone. She would rather bring pain to herself than “cause problems” for others. It’s a very Japanese characteristic (the “がまん culture”) so it might be hard to understand from a western perspective unless you’ve had experience with that sort of thing. It’s not just a natural personality that certain people have either. It’s taught to them in school and regularly practiced.

Example of "gaman culture" practiced in schools

As an example, in pre-pandemic times, it was very common to wait until the hottest months in the year to turn on the AC and the coldest months to turn on the heaters in the classroom. Each area is different, but when I was living in Tochigi for example (where it’s a little cooler) they’d only run the ACs during July and August. In Hiroshima, they start as early as mid-June, but during pandemic times where masks make it harder to breathe, they had the ACs on from May and probably until September.

Then we have Kakeru, a mysterious transfer student who claims he “skipped class” for two weeks like it was no big deal. He seems to have a lot on his mind, but he’s very observant of Naho (he could tell she wanted the curry pan, and he knew she wanted to get out of being the pinch hitter because her feet were killing her - I mean, who wouldn’t fall in love with a caring personality like that, especially at that age?). He also gives her some sage advice about not sacrificing yourself just so you won’t be a bother to others. Why would he offer this advice so seriously, almost like a warning?..

As for the end of Letter 1, we finally see a little window into the future. I won’t write the details in case someone feels tempted to read this without finishing the chapter. But did anyone see those details coming? Were ya’ll shocked? Disappointed? Happy? What do you think is waiting in store now? :slight_smile:

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Sorry it is a bit later than I meant it too. Usually I get back home at roughly the same time after a game night, but I was later than usual plus I had to take care of a lot of stuff (like reviews and lessons) before I could get to adding the Orange vocab. I hope I didn’t keep anyone waiting. :bowing_woman:

I’m gonna post twice. This post is gonna be a tip about reading the letters and my grammar questions. I’ll get to observations, replies and predictions in my next post!


On reading Future Naho's letters

This is true so far as far as I understand:
a) If there is a dot before a line, it means that it is a line for Future Naho’s diary.
b) If there is a circle within a circle (don’t know if that symbol have a name), then it is Future Naho talking directly to present Naho.

I spent waaaay too much time on the letter on page 33 because I didn’t realize the above mentioned stuff. I ended up looking up basically every word and grammar (even those I knew) because I didn’t understand at all what it was saying, because I didn’t have the right context (aka Naho talking to Naho). :sweat_smile:


Page 34 question

At the top of page 34, Naho is thinking:

1 きっとそれは私があの日
2 翔くんを誘わなければ防げたことだったから
3 かもしれない

I’m wondering mostly about the bolded part. I get the gist but I feel like maybe I’m missing something. I would roughly translate this as:
1 Almost certainly that*, I, on that day (*not entirely sure what それ is referring to here, but maybe to the last sentence on the previous page about Kakeru’s reason for his absence not being written in the letter?)
2 If not inviting Kakeru, prevented/avoided the thing* because. (*Kakeru’s absence?)
3 Might (be)

So: On that day, almost certainly, if I hadn’t let Kakeru be invited, his absence might have been avoided.
(I’m taking some liberty with the translation by pulling in context, for example Naho didn’t actually do any inviting with Kakeru on that day, so it more that she didn’t oppose it or stop it before it happened.)

My biggest uncertainty is about what 防げたことだった means with the rest, and is the part I’m most concerned I might be entirely off the road on. I’m not concerned if I haven’t picked the perfect way to translate it. Instead I just wonder if I’ve gotten the meaning correct. Please advice. :blush:


Page 36 question

Page 36 Chino Takako says:
すごいよねー 投げかたちげーし
I don’t get the second part at all. The pitcher/thrower ???


Page 53 question

Page 53, Suwa Hiroto says in the bottom left:
今年 桜咲くの早かったなー てかもう今年で俺ら27だよー
Is てか here, ってか? I hope so because then I’m get it. ^^


That took longer than I expected. :sweat_smile: But the vocabulary sheet is much better filled in for the second half now.

I don’t think I’d thought about how much time it takes to fill in a vocab sheet. (And it always feel bad when I don’t feel comfortable enough to pick a definition to add the word…) I don’t resent the time though, considering how many previous book clubs I’ve benefitted from and will benefit from.

But it sure does take time. ^^

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The それは is referring to the thing that could have been prevented/avoided - I’m not sure I can answer what that is exactly, because I can’t check the book right now and I’m not sure it was stated in chapter 1 yet. So maybe someone else should take this question. :smiley:
I’d break that sentence down a bit differently:
私があの日翔くんを誘わなければ防げたこと is one noun phrase.
きっと それは [私があの日翔くんを誘わなければ防げた]こと だったから かもしれない

Surely/Maybe it was because that was something that could have been avoided if I had not invited Kakeru that day.

Colloquial contraction of 投げ方, way of throwing,()ちがう, is different, し, particle giving one reason out of many.

So, ‘That’s amazing! She has a different style/way of throwing, and stuff.’

Yes. :slight_smile:

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Now on to impressions, comments, and predictions.


Reactions to ChristopherFritz's observations

Page 33

I glanced over the last couple of pages of last week before I started reading this week’s portion and I think this take of yours is correct. I think the panel showing Naho looking at Kakeru’s empty spot is setting us up for the discussion she has with Hiroto outside the classroom.

Page 42

I noticed that too. :joy:

Page 43

Lol, you’re right though. Time travel advice is not yet banned in sports. What an oversight. :joy:


Naho stuff around Kakeru and curry bread

I agree with @Hantsuki take on why Naho falls so quickly. Honestly, I recognize myself some in Naho, of not wanting to be trouble to my friends (although I do speak up for myself) and such. And having someone seeing me so clearly would be seriously ドキドキ inducing.

Honestly I’m a bit in love with Kakeru already. His smile just hits me right in the heart, especially since it feels like it isn’t something he does much. (Well, except Naho provokes it a lot. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: )

Same with the curry bread. You can tell that Hiroto is suspicious about Naho’s non-preference, but decides for whatever reason to not probe deeper at that point. I definitely have known people who wouldn’t speak up with a preference. I always try to encourage them to voice them. (Also because otherwise I feel like a dictator who always gets to decide despite knowing that my friend probably don’t want exactly the same things I want.) So she could very well never have stated a preference.


And on to my unfiltered reactions, I’m not gonna try to keep them on chronological order, so this contains spoilers for all of chapter 1.

Chapter 1 O_O - impressions, thoughts, predictions

I… I don’t have words. :sob:

The end of the chapter had me crying. As soon as I saw Hiroto with a flower bouquet and he said he was giving it to Kakeru, I knew. In that future Kakeru was dead. And being the kind of person who cries when sad things happens in the things she watches/reads, I started crying. I hadn’t expected that after just one chapter.

Well done, 高野苺. :clap:

Also all that about regret from 27/Future Naho, and how present Naho realized she didn’t want to have regrets for her life from deciding not to bat that day. Also I loved when she said:
痛みはいつか消える、でも後悔は消えない

I know I hadn’t figured that out at 16/17. Only in the last few years, late twenties and now early thirties, did I realize that my brain is an expert at reminding me of every mistake I ever did, every regret I’ve ever felt, everything I’d wished I’d done differently. It is however very poor at reminding me about all the good things that have happened in my life.

The fewer regrets I can create, the happier I’ll be.

There is so much more I could say, but I’ll finish with saying that Naho and Hiroto seems like a cute couple, and it seems clear to me that Hiroto is in love with Naho in the present/high school times. So are they together in the future because Kakeru dies? And also, what happens if Kakeru doesn’t die, since future Naho seems to imply that maybe him dying could be stopped (otherwise why watch him closely)? What becomes of Hiroto?

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Page 34
I didn’t break it down, I just used how it was written in the book, haha. :sweat_smile:

I’m pretty sure it hasn’t.

And your breakdown helped, thanks. :slight_smile:

それ is too flexible a word. :sweat_smile: I didn’t even think about the option of it referring to something later in the sentence.

I feel like I got the gist of it from reading, but this was one of those sentences I wanted to try and better understand how the parts worked together because I just knew I wasn’t getting that right (even if I got the meaning right overall).

Page 36
:woman_facepalming: I was thinking 方 = person, not 方 = way of/method. And therefore I couldn’t figure out/guess what ちげー was, aka what a non-slangy/non-colloquial way to spell it was. I thought it was talking about a pitcher, not the pitcher’s way of doing pitching. Thanks!

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I’m really enjoying this book so far but after one chapter I can already tell that its going to destroy me emotionally several times. :smiley:
I can also tell that this going to be a bit of a tough read for me, but I’m going to do my best not to fall behind!

Thoughts

Like @MissDagger, I wonder what would happen to the future Naho and Hiroto if past Naho follows all of this advice…

The idea of being able to write to my past self and fix the things that went wrong is thought provoking, and has me wondering what advice I would be writing in those letters if I had the chance. There are definitely things in my past that I wish I could fix, avoid or do differently. But also despite having those regrets, I love the life I have now and wouldn’t want to risk changing it too much!

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I must have cried at least once per chapter reading this manga so good luck with that haha. At least it was both from sad and from happy things.

Ahh so many questions I can’t answer yet! Can’t wait for everyone to get there.

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On Time travel

I think you are addressing what might be a time travel paradox (she only pays more attention to kakeru due to the letters, but what happened when there was no letter?). Also, the predictions wouldn’t be right since by having that information her actions would change and make the outcomes change as well (though maybe with her gentle/reactive nature her actions just don’t have much effect, which would be mostly sad honestly).

I guess we will have to wait and see, I doubt they will address it much and it doesn’t really matter in the scope of the story honestly, but I am a bit curious to see how it will pan out.

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I have so much crying to look forward to then. Oh joy… xD

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It’s been very interesting, the whole idea of time travelling is very appealing to me because of the implications, but I was not expecting that ending. That ending totally shattered my heart.

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I fiiinally finished this chapter! (It’s been a weird week.)

I didn’t fully understand what she’s saying at the bottom of page 48, but I’ll come back to that later.

My main question is still … why was she supposed to not invite Kakeru at the beginning!? Did something happen that we didn’t see or understand? Ten-years-later-Naho’s motivation seems to be to regret fewer things, but so far there’s nothing regrettable happened as a result. So … it feels like there’s another shoe that’s going to drop at some point.

Apropos nothing, I just learned a theory that the idiom “waiting for the other shoe to drop” might have come from NYC, where you can hear your upstairs neighbor taking their shoes off and dropping them on the floor …

I was really surprised that we got a glimpse of the Naho who’s writing the letters! I really enjoyed it too. I like grown-up Naho and Suwa.

And if I could write letters to myself at sixteen? I don’t even know where I would start. :joy: Like, maybe some bad things could have been avoided through a simple decision, but if I didn’t have those bad experiences, maybe I would have ended up making bad choices for a longer period of time, you know?

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