Orange 🍊 Chapter 2

Week 3: Letter 2

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Orange :tangerine: Home Thread

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Start Date Chapter Page Numbers Page Count
July 16th Letter 2 57 - 100 44

Vocabulary List

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5 Likes

So much goodness in this chapter and also so much pain when you already know what’s happening :sweat_smile:

from page 73 in the digital version

I enjoyed the parallel between Naho’s hesitation to make Kakeru a bento and her mother’s overthinking about whether to pass on the neighborhood notices or wait for a better time.

It shows where she gets that trait from. The interesting part is Naho even comments that about her mom so she recognizes that problem. It just feels like a step in the right direction for her growth to recognize it and then also overcome it when she decides she doesn’t regret not making the bento, even if it somehow troubles Kakeru in the end.

from pg 78

There goes Kakeru and his observation skills again. He gave her such a good chance and she acts in such a dramatic way. This is probably one of the reasons why so many people get annoyed with Naho :sweat_smile:

from pg 86 (the biggest spoiler in this chapter so don't read ahead if you haven't read this part yet - it's after Naho and Kakeru sit down at the park for the book readers)

I knew this was coming but I forgot how we found out about it, so it was actually really surprising to read Kakeru tell Naho what happened during those 2 weeks just like that.

He must really trust her to be able to just come out and tell her something super personal like that. Like even in western countries, telling a friend a family member passed away isn’t exactly easy either. But in Japan, unless it’s telling the school or your work place so you get a grieving period, telling someone you barely know for less than a month(?) is definitely very odd. Especially because no one wants to make others feel obligated to listen or offer their condolences.

And on top of that, he tells her the reason that it happened. If it was death from overwork that’s one thing, but suicide holds a lot of negative associations especially in gaman culture Japan where mental issues are severely looked down upon as something you just couldn’t personally overcome vs treated as a disease that people genuinely need to be treated for.

TL;DR That reveal holds some heavy baggage that Kakeru truly entrusted Naho with. He basically just wore his heart on his sleeve and trusted she wouldn’t hurt him for it.

Sadly, Naho couldn’t do the same when she had the chance to offer him the bento. She couldn’t trust him to not have a negative reaction to it so she gave up in the end. Kakeru is truly strong, and he doesn’t even get a letter to help him fix his mistakes. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

4 Likes

Thoughts as I read (hopefully with accurate page numbers):

Page 62 physical / 64 omnibus

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Not looking for any spoilers here, but I do hope we eventually find out where Count Dracula is on Azu’s mother’s side of the family or father’s side of the family.

Page 64 physical / 66 omnibus

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He just can’t not look obvious, can he?

I probably would have come up with some more serious comments except I got absorbed, and reading the rest of the chapter just kind of flowed without stopping.

10 Likes

Well, this story is just getting better, but I fear for the future (both the known and the one Naho might create).

First, I will start with some questions and then move into impressions, predictions, wishes, that sorta thing.

Language questions

Page 65
おこられる is written beside a speech bubble from Suwa. And I think it is probably 怒られる but it could also be 起られる. Since the word is outside speech bubble and not written like an extra comment from Suwa (imo), it almost have to be Naho’s thoughts/observations, right? But if she thought Suwa seemed angry, wouldn’t she use 怒りがる/怒られがる? Maybe that isn’t necessary when you know someone well?

Page 97
Suwa says in the last panel:
なんだよー ずりーなぁ
I don’t get the ずりー, can’t figure out what it is…


Story questions, comments, predictions and such things; many spoilers here, and also long...

It is so weird to see Suwa include and encourage Kakeru to hang out with them so much (inviting him to the football club and such), when it is also so clear that he is interested in Naho. Honestly, the thing that made me cry this chapter was when Suwa and Kakeru was walking home and Naho joined them, and Suwa bowed out to let them be alone. Just the heartache in his expressions are so: :pleading_face: :sob: :broken_heart:

You know what I want the new future to look like? A modern threesome/three-way poly relationship (not sure what they are called). Kakeru, Suwa and Naho all together in one happy couple three-ouple.

Kakeru’s bonk on Naho’s head early on was so much fun. Especially everyone’s reactions around it. :joy: (Except Suwa’s, his is just sad :sob:)

I understand Naho so well. When she’s debating whether to make a bento or not, what would cause the most trouble for her and for Kakeru, would he accept it?, would he be happy to get it or embarrassed? Etc.

And while I probably would have managed to give Kakeru the bento for lunch, actually I’d probably have given it to him first thing in the morning rather than have that clawing at me until lunch. I get why Naho doesn’t. I also get why she reacted so strongly when Kakeru tried to take her bag to help her carry it. She was both embarrassed and feeling guilty. She had this good food for him but she’d been to shy/embarrassed to give it to him. The guilt would have been so much. And then he goes to be all nice and gentlemanly and she just feels worse.

Not how anyone would like to react, which is why she apologized, staying behind and probably telling Azu and company to go home without her. So honestly, while I can understand how someone could find that annoying, I also kinda can’t.

I like how she has such good intentions and try to carry them out and still it falls short of what she wants to do. It makes her so human.

Same reason why I like good guy Suwa. He could go being super jealous and try to push Kakeru away, it would probably be the most common way this kind of conflict would show up. But instead, we see a person having the conflict of seeing the girl he likes falling for another and he chooses friendship (instead of strife/envy), and doesn’t try to interfere to stop the romance, instead he helps it along.

I was a little confused in the middle. I think Naho started to decide she wouldn’t read the letters any further, but then that goodbye at the park, where she could see how much Kakeru was hurting, she realized how much she wanted to make him not hurt and if future Naho could help her, then reading she will.

Another thing, did I understand it correctly that Kakeru promised his mother he wouldn’t join any clubs? Seems like such a weird promise. But then, it also looks like if Kakeru hadn’t gone with them to Azu’s family bakery, that Kakeru might have been able to stop/prevent his mother’s suicide. I expect to learn more in the future.

For me, it doesn’t seem strange. Sometimes I’ve found it so much easier to tell my trouble to virtual strangers, than it might to someone I care a lot for. All that not wanting to be a burden stuff, but with a stranger (or close to it) it doesn’t matter so much. If they walk away, I hadn’t invested a lot in them already, so it wouldn’t hurt.

Also, sometimes things just have to come out. Naho and Kakeru clearly have this instant connection and the ability to see what they try to hide from most people. That kinda understanding would make it feel safer to tell Naho, and certainly more comfortable than telling any of his other new friends. Honestly, sometimes you just need someone to know so you’re not carrying it all yourself.

Argh, this is already super long but I’m finding it so interesting and fun, and I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this so… a little more.

So we get to see all of them (that are alive) in the future. Although if I understood it right, this was the first time since graduating high school that they were all together again? I wonder what made them get together right then, if they revealed that in this chapter, I missed it. Also kinda sad, but not unusual for school friend groups to stop hanging out when spreading out across different schools/jobs.

And we learn how Kakeru dies. Well, we learn he dies in an accident, and not a detail more about it, except possibly that Naho can save him from that accident. That kinda made me quite revealed, because considering his mental health, I was fearing he’d go the same way as his mom. T_T

Anyway, I’ll shut up now. :joy:

7 Likes
Page 65

Important detail: 取り掛かる means 「し始める。着手する。」 (Source)

He’s saying the button got caught and started to come off that morning. Since it now came off, おこられる is to say that it happened (it ended up coming off).

Page 97

This is ずるい.

You might also see it written as ずりぃ

3 Likes

It’s this one, yes. Pretty common way to express “if I do this, someone is gonna get mad at me”. 〜さんに怒られる = 〜さん is gonna get mad (in this case, his mother is gonna get mad that the button came off)
怒りがる and 怒られがる don’t exist. 〜がる is paired with adjectives, not with verbs.
I don’t know what 起こられる would mean. To be woken up is 起こされる.

Slang for ずるい :slight_smile:

It says 取れかかる. :wink: ボタンが取れる means “to come off (of a button etc.)”. And the suffix 〜かかる means “something begins to …” (like 〜かける, but intransitive)

5 Likes

Sound like I had it wrong. I’m still very much a learner here!

1 Like

According to Jisho it means “to occur; to happen”. But I guess if it took that meaning, it should be in the past tense anyway, since it would be to say “it happened”.

So it is Suwa kinda muttering the おこられる. Thanks, @Myria! :smiley:

I think this is the first time with this manga were I got confused about who said what; but I think it was my own fault, haha. This manga have been very good at being clear on that, even when it could have been confusing.

One day I’ll figure out slang too, or should I say figure out a new slang. I’m pretty well versed on a few showing up in early Yotsuba&, so I knew ずりー was slang, but couldn’t figure out what the non-slangy version would be.

Also thanks to @ChristopherFritz! :smiley:

5 Likes
MissDagger Speculation Responses

That was super sweet of Suwa, I thought. He really wants all the best for his friends, such a good guy.

Yeah, I was also wondering why she didn’t get it over and done with, but such be manga characters, I guess…

That I very much feel as well.

That’s how I understood it as well. Strange, isn’t it? Maybe his mother was bullied and tries to spare him from that?

Yeah, that’s the whole “don’t invite him” thing. But seriously, doesn’t it put a massive burden on Kakeru and Naho? Implying that they could have prevented the suicide through their actions is like, ugh…

But doesn’t he care for her? Like, extremely care? So, I’m with Hantsuki here that it’s pretty unusual.

Not going to call anything here, but we didn’t learn how the accident came about, did we? :eyes:

7 Likes
Summary

My pet theory is that maybe Kakeru blames himself for not going straight home, thinking maybe he could have prevented it… And that this led to him possible committing suicide himself, later. So them not inviting him might have spared him some guilt.

I… Also don’t think Kakeru will die in an accident. What good would Naho watching him do if it was that?

7 Likes

God this got dark fast

4 Likes
Speculation responses

No kidding. Plus stopping one attempt doesn’t exactly cure the Kakeru’s mom, so what would stop her from trying again and succeeding then?

On the one hand, they are virtual strangers, because they’ve only seen each other on a handful of days. (Bread day, sports day, the day Naho learned he doesn’t get bento, and then the fateful bento day.) On the other, they’ve had very meaningful interactions and seem to have fallen pretty deeply for each other in no time at all.

So honestly whether the telling of Kakeru’s troubles are unusual or not, is kinda hard to answer. Considering how shameful mental health problems are in Japan (and the rest of the world), perhaps it is weird. But considering how well Naho seems to understand him, maybe he thinks she will with this too?

My only question for this why Naho wouldn’t call it a suicide directly if it was indeed suicide.

The only reason I could see for this is that the scene with Kakeru and Naho talking in the park didn’t happen in future Naho’s timeline, so she doesn’t know that present Naho knows Kakeru’s mom committed suicide. (Future Naho seems to hold back a lot of information she could give.) But why would she want to keep it hidden that Kakeru committed suicide?

However, I don’t have a good theory for how Naho could stop Kakeru from getting killed in an accident. Since there are so many kinds of accidents that could kill someone, any theory I come up with is likely to be false the second we get more details. ^^

Therefore I can’t rule out that future Naho was just being vague by calling it accident.

I’m having so much fun, spitballing ideas. :smiley: Although they are pretty dark as noted by fyrember.

5 Likes

I’m having fun reading your ideas though it does pain me to not being able to throw around theories too. :sweat_smile:

All I’ll say is most of your questions will be answered by the end of the first volume!

The part that bothers me is why doesn’t Naho read all the letters to the end to get some clarity on the big picture? If she had done that in the beginning, she would’ve understood why she should’ve avoided inviting Kakeru. On the upside, it was probably thanks to that hesitation that something more disastrous didn’t happen sooner.

2 Likes

Hard same.
But it’ll be fun when we get to the end and we can connect all the dots.

3 Likes
Speculation

My pet theory is that future Naho realizes how hard a sell it is to get someone A) to believe that the letters really are from the future and B) to actually do the things they’re told to do in the letter. After all, current Naho almost decides to stop doing what the letters tell her after she fails to give Kakeru the bento and then overreacts when he tries to take her bag, right? But then she finds out what happened on Bread Day, and she’s like shit, I guess I should really be taking these letters more seriously…

Versus, if future Naho had really been trying to prevent Kakeru’s mom’s suicide, wouldn’t she have made it sound more urgent, more important? Wouldn’t she have tried to convince current Naho (rather than just saying “don’t do this”), or sent a letter earlier in order to establish trust first? So, I think that these are the letters sent earlier to establish trust in order to achieve future Naho’s true motivation which is yet to be revealed …

I have another theory, but I kind of don’t want to say it in case it’s true… Even though I don’t see how it could possibly be true … :joy:

3 Likes