I was perusing books at Fully Booked as usual one afternoon last year when my attention was captured by a particularly interesting manga cover. It was a group shot of high school friends and the title was Orange by Ichigo Takano. I do love the color orange, and the manga gave me a sort of feel-good feel, but what caught me is the story. It's about a girl receiving a letter from herself ten years in the future, urging her to keep one of her biggest regrets from happening as a new student transfers to her school from Tokyo.
I wouldn't go into specifics, but in the end I had to put it down due to my book-restraining order (I had to, or else I'd be reading all day for weeks and was supposed to be doing illustrations) and the fact that it was rather pricey but to be honest the book was thick enough to keep me occupied for a few days. And so, I put it back in the shelf, promising I'd buy it the next year. I kept coming back for it the following weeks. Painful. Absolutely painful. I refused to go upstairs for months so I wouldn't see it. But one time I did look for it and found another volume. Right, more reason not to get it now. I must wait.
Fast forward to midnight today, my brother interrupted me from feeding the pups to show some link on Youtube. I felt myself jolted into a state of full alertness as I saw the same group of friends from the manga cover in one of the lineups of countless anime series on the television screen. Almost screaming (well I did actually cause quite a ruckus), I asked my brother to watch it with me. He did, thankfully. It was dark outside, but watching those first few wonderful seconds it suddenly felt like it was four in the afternoon with the golden light of the sun shining down on me -- it almost felt like a memory. Here's the trailer (in Japanese):
There's a warm sort of magic and nostalgia in Orange -- it is like a very painful but loving memory.
