Orange Yane no Chiisana Ie

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A divorced man, with two sons. A woman who wants a divorce, with two daughters. Put them together inside a single house given an accidental circumstance, and what do you get? Noriyuki Yamahana's take on slice-of-life, with a twist. It's a barrel of laughs, sweetness and genuine fun.

Little House with an Orange Roof (more popularly known simply as 'Orange Roof') is a story about how two people got tricked by a conman into living in one house, and the development that followed. A really simple, mundane plot that's been used since forever. But there's a rarity of finding a work telling the goodness of being ... a family on a manga. Orange Roof does not boast of deep philosophical views, nor of complicated characters and good-morals-preaching. Then again, that's what makes it unique.

Natchi and Shoutarou - both funny, loving, and caring. Each of them has weaknesses. However, they try to overcome what's blocking their way with the help of one another. They understand they can't do things alone. What truly amazes me is how they complement each other; when one cannot take it all, the other supports. Isn't it wonderful? This is the charm of Orange Roof - selflessness, coated in comedy (well, it seems that everyday is fun inside the house).

Is it a love story? Yes. But it doesn't just throw its love story onto you and leave the supporting cast completely devoid of any character. Actually, they're pretty interesting at some point. There's more to Orange Roof than the two main protagonists. You have the four children and their issues, for starters. How two teenagers, a soccer boy and a primadonna girl, would get along (even if it looks impossible that they will); how they would take living without the other 'original' half of their respective parents, things like that.

Enter MORE people: Natchi's younger sister (who appears more mature), her old husband's family, her mother; we've also got Shoutarou's old wife, his parents, and his co-workers. Then, there's the gossip-starved neighbors, the children's friends, and of course, the rivals of love. You can say that 64 chapters are not enough to develop all of them, but it's handled quite all right. Artwork's pretty much same-old Yamahana style. There's some nudity in here, however, even though it looks like it's your typical Rated-G for-the-family story.

Full of humor, lightheartedness, and, at some points, emotional heartwarming scenes, Orange Roof lets you take a breather and appreciate familial love and tight personal bonds. Natchi and Shoutarou proves that having that special someone by your side can make all the difference in the world. But before you can witness its magic, be prepared for wacky situations and hilarious interactions. Guffaw, smile, sit back, and enjoy.

[Warning]
adult nudity - don't read this one on the train!

TL:DR
Mixed Recommendation: for those that want sweet romance fluff and melodrama
Cute fluff but pointless drama and main characters are Mary Sues. Honestly reads like self-insert fic for overworked salary men. I suspect many would enjoy this for the cozy read it's meant to be but it's not my cup of tea.

Story: 6/10
It's pretty nice, a little heart-warming tale.

I like the slower build up of the characters feeling, I expected them to be more immediately romantic but we see more of platonic interaction in a way that's more grounded than if they were all over each other ... right away. The author worked up to them getting romantic feeling and it feels more earned when they fall in love with each other rather than forcing it because that's the plot.

It was fun to see the kids interact as well. There is a weird implication that the two eldest are attracted to each other but this thankfully goes nowhere, they are step-siblings by the end after all. The two youngest are fast friends and it's great to have a core of the family being uncomplicatedly fond of each other. We also get to see a bit of the parents relationships with their children and, more interesting, with each other's children.

There's a lot of contrived drama that is introduced at the start of a chapter only to be neatly resolved at the end with no character growth or effects carried forward into future chapters. It feels very forced, like the author needed to stretch out the run time with filler.

The Mary Sue-ness of the characters and the preachy-ness increases near the end and it becomes almost unbearable. I just wanted it to hurry up and finish already, it soured what was otherwise a decent conclusion.

There's a conveyor belt of love rivals. Some of them are real good and some are boring but none stays for long so we never get much out of them and it's pretty disappointing because the first two rivals are the best of them and I would have liked to see more.

The manga is possessed of a bizarre naivety where antagonist characters will behave like complete and utter psychopaths for multiple chapters and then the main characters will be nice to them for a bit and then said antagonists will be purified of their sins or something. It's so bizarre and it feels ridiculous that the characters are just sooooo nice that they can fix the lunatics that they seem surrounded by.

Not a positive or a negative but the author appears to be a Christian and it comes up sometimes. The manga is not preachy or anything, just an interesting thing to note seeing as most mangaka seem to be Buddhist. Perhaps that explain the redemption of the antagonists, the Christian model of forgiveness and turning the other cheek?

Characters: 5/10
Usually manga characters are self-inserts for edgy teenagers, Shoutarou is what the self-insert character for middle-aged salary men looks like. He is basically the just the perfect husband: self-sacrificing, caring, protective, etc. Usually this is more low-key but there is one chapter where this is just so overexaggerated. I actually kind of liked him up until this, he had charm but this chapter reveals how shallow his characterisation actually is and really slaps you in the face that this is supposed to be the caricature of a perfect husband. Oh and every woman in the manga wants to jump his bone because of course they do.

Natsumi is the caricature of a perfect Japanese wife. Shoutarou alone could be fine but when paired with Natsumi, it turns the manga into something just a tad too saccharine, it's all a little to perfect to really be sweet and cosy. There really isn't more to her than that except when the author decides she needs to be stupid and create conflict which she happens to do all the damn time.

The children aren't important enough to have their own sections. They're fine, they don't have any glaring problems like they're parents but it would have been nice to focus on their relationships with each other because their isn't a lot of it and what's there tends to be pretty shallow.

The rating of this section is singlehandedly raised by how entertainingly mad some of the antagonist love rivals are. There plotting is very amusing, it's just a shame that they have no backstory or character development. This means that they remain squarely one-note villains and they disappear and are replaced soon after they appear.

Art
Nothing stand out but it's pretty good. Cute character design, pretty much what you would expect form this sort of manga.

Overall: 5/10
Do you want some heart-warming fluff? Well there's better but this is a very specific fantasy that you might enjoy. The first half was pretty good and I did finish just to see where the characters were going. The manga was just a bit too saccharine and some of the later chapters left me longing for the manga to just end already.

Mixed recommendation: for those who want fluff and melodrama

I don't usually write reviews, but I am so viscerally offended by this manga that I felt like I had to let the world know.

Orange Yane no Chiisana Ie is written by somebody who has presumably never actually talked to a person in real life. Every character is a parody of a parody of a caricature of a caricature of a person, with the most comically tropey and idiotic reactions to any given situation.

Ninomiya is a stereotypical hard-working, well meaning but clueless dad, which isn't a crime on its own, but when you introduce Natsumi, the dynamic becomes unbearable. Natsumi is the most ... frustratingly braindead character imaginable. She takes the slightest problem and blows it entirely out of proportion, choosing to take misunderstandings and run with them instead of behaving like an actual adult and talking about anything. Her histrionic stupidity speaks to an awfully skewed perception of women by the mangaka. It's not as though stupid misunderstandings caused by miscommunications are uncommon plot devices in anime and manga, but Orange Yane's usage of them crosses the line from acceptable into sickening. Every conflict feels so forced and meaningless when you realize that any two people acting like grown adults and talking to each other would resolve it quickly and easily.

Orange Yane no Chiisana Ie is like a clown car packed full of the worst narrative devices you can imagine. It is a trash fire. Do not read it.