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.

Please keep in mind I've only read 10 chapters so far, for lack of more.

Story: 8
It's not like the kick-off is excelling in originality. Two people have to live together because of certain circumstances, we've seen this before. What raises its value, in my opinion, is the fresh look on things. Both persons were married before and have two children. The gender distribution is very clear, which allows for pretty hilarious jokes, and at the same time for singularly heartwarming moments. The story (thus far) follows a pretty likely curve, no surprises there. All this makes it very good, but not great.

Art: 8
While the characters ... are drawn in a very clean, aesthetically appealing manner, giving the main character depth and likeability, the backgrounds are far from intricate. I like the general feel, but it could be a good deal better. It's really made up by the facial expressions, which convey the characters' emotions very well. Again, very good, not great.

Characters: 9
The character development is the main selling point here. Starting out from seemingly bland and naive people and slowly chiseling out their little traits and worries, social surroundings and how they manage to cope with them. Being bent on build-up in stories, I think great (short of awesome) applies.

Enjoyment: 9
The series manages to deal with a pretty serious topic in a light and playful manner, not overly stressing the disheartening aspects. Its (mostly visual) jokes provide a nice, steady stream of smile-inducing tidbits. With every chapter leaving me waiting for more, I think the manga deserves to be called great in this respect.

Overall: 8.5 (Ratings do not allow for floating-point numbers, so I rounded to the next integer)
For a slice of life manga, this sports a lot of action-rich sequences, but this is necessary to distract from the shortcomings in the plot and art department. Still, it's a very nice-to-read, mostly lighthearted work, and thus highly recommendable.

この批評を読んだことにどうもありがとうございます。m（＿ ＿）m

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.

Orange Yane no Chiisana ie is story of two divorced families living under one roof due to some circumstances?! Father with two sons and a mother with two daughters!? It is a wonderful story which will remind you abit of the brandy bunch!?

You will fall in love with the characters, they are so real and so normal!? not your stereotyped rich and beautiful people!? But normal people!? The kids are adorable when they talk they are soooooo kawaiii!?

The drawings are simple not too complicated?! crisp and clean as the saying goes?!

There are some moments where you will cry, laugh and get frustrated?! But ... the end you just feel an amount of joy and happiness and sense there are is some good in this world!? Even though at the start of manga there was soo much drama, gradually the characters start to open up more and start to understand each other?!

I hope you will sense the warmth i felt from this story?! I hope you like it as much as i did!?

I hope you found my review helpful

"Orange Roof" is a heart warming story of two single parent divorcees who meet through unusual circumstances. Through some misfortune, both "half families" are forced into cohabitation with each other. Initially relations vary from friendly (the two youngest children, like all small children, just look at the situation as just having more playmates) to hostile (the two older children act like pre-teen boys and girls will) to frosty and reserved (the two parents) but over time the reader gets to see how they evolve, almost unwittingly into a some semblance of a "real family".

Of course, this is a love story, so it's almost preordained that ... the two parents will fall in love with each other. Unlike a lot of manga, this actually seems somewhat believable. Natsume, the mother, is a kind hearted woman who gives her all into being a mother and role model for her children, but struggles with a fear and distrust of men due to her poor treatment at the hands of her philandering husband. Shoutarou, the father, unlike a lot of male manga protagonists is a hard working, honest and diligent man who was only trying to do his best by his family by working hard, but feels he managed to drive his wife away through neglect. A great deal of the pleasure of watching their romance evolve is that they're both incredibly nice people who really deserve a "second change at love" and the mangaka makes great use of this by placing them both in situations where they need to rely on each other, further demonstrating of course how perfect they are together.

The plot of this manga is fairly straight forward since we know what direction it's heading in already and what the conclusion is going to be. However the mangaka manages to keep it somewhat fresh by dividing it up it multiple character arcs where the growing love between Shoutarou and Natsume is challenged by various people from their pasts. This is pretty much a mix of some drama bits and some comedy bits as some of the suitors or situations are serious and others are just laughably absurd. On the whole, even though it was trope ridden, it was executed nicely allowing the strength of the characters to carry it off.

On the all, the art is attractive in a cute way - the family itself is adorable and the pacing is good as the manga moves at a brisk pace, but still feels like serious development is happening and not being rushed. I really appreciated this because there didn't seem like there was endless "filler" chapters like other manga. Every chapter I read felt like it really contributed to the story.

"Orange Roof" is a sweet romance featuring a pair of endearing protagonists that you can't help but cheer for. If you're hankering for an "adult manga" that doesn't deal with whiny highschool kids then I heartily recommend it.

Hey everyone out there! This is my first review and i had to do it on this manga, I loved this manga because of how you are drawn in the story not because of the art but the story telling of this manga is great. Having two different people live together because some con artist scammed them and having them get along with each other for their children's sake. Eventually getting along and getting closer and closer. It's just a heart warming family story and if you guys or girls out there didn't read this, take some time and read this and I hope you ... enjoy it :)

have a nice day and take care :D

Note: This review may contain bunch of grammar mistakes.
I read this manga 2 years ago. Back then Romance, Slice of Life, Seinen genres was best for me. It included everything with pretty long lovely outstanding story line. I proudly say that It was masterpiece for me. But they didn't made anime for this :((

Story was best. It's story about divorced man and woman(they both have 2 kids) who is good person but ditched their blind ex partners. They both helps each others for their kids and gets more closer <3. They meet a lot good and bad people and things. But they handle it goes ... forward. In first half of this manga male MC shows his best takes down every problems, that was cool tho.
Second half Female MC show his flawless moments===.

Art was very cute and great for this enjoying story line. Also it made this manga into very bright. I loved that.

I typed about MC's so they felt very warm and cute inside of me, lol.. I forgot about their kids what were they to be honest. But they very really cute especially younger both.

I just read whole volumes without any pause. I had really enjoyed it.

I really hope there's more this kind of warm and unique story lined mangas there.
Hope it helped you. :3

[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