Orange Planet

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I was torn between the rating Good and Fair.

The story is pretty simple. The night of her parents wake Rui is crying and she meets an older boy that cheers her up with his words. From then on she writes letter to him just for the sake of writing them, not knowing who he is. When the guy’s apartment next door catches on fire and he gets hurt saving her he asks to move in with her as compensation (only in a manga will she accept). Tarou, Rui’s best friend loves her. She likes Kouru and he’s finally noticing her, or is he? Who ... will she choose?

Rui is confused. So am I, I started doing the math and he is seriously a pervert. She is in middle school, about 12. He is in college. That’s just wrong, they didn’t do anything but still. Ok now that I got that out of my system I’ll carry on. Is it still a love triangle when it involves more than 4 people?

The story flows well but changes about halfway through. Some characters disappear or become quieter, it left me wondering what happened to them. It’s a romance manga, no matter how you spin it. Sometimes it felt like the mangaka was playing a game of, “How many people can fall in love with the main characters?” But at least she spun it well and the end wasn’t a mess, though I personally didn’t enjoy it and it’s weird because I enjoy anything romance. Rui was back and forth between guys that for a second I wasn’t mad that the girls in school disliked her. It really isn’t a comedy and the only characters that make you chuckle are Rui’s friend, one who’s always talking about ecchi things and the another who has anger issues. If it wasn’t for the occasional beating I am not sure I would have finished. That’s a lie I was curious about the title and the love triangle resolution.

Rui was cute and had maturing potential but she was selfish and didn’t think about her actions, but then again she was really young. She hurt people on a daily basis and didn’t notice at first. The one thing that made me think better of her was that she set him free.
Tarou deserved better. He deserved to be the hero to another heroine. His character was sweet and caring, but you know that as soon as you enter the "friend" role in the life of the girl you like, it's pretty downhill from there. That’s what happened to him. He gave too much and was there whole heartedly and it’s a good thing he was optimistic at heart. Though I’m sure if he tells his story we would have seen the brave face he put on in front of people.
Kaoru was active for the first half and then he died down. His character felt like a whim. He was there because he was in the plan but then they changed their mind and decided to cut his role short. He had spunk and was assertive, which was nice but then it disappeared into the black hole good characters fall into. Someone should patch that hole up.
Eisuke was a predictable character. You could guess who he is from the beginning. Makes you wonder why it takes Rui so long to figure it out. He was slutty for a teacher but I guess that’s his charm. He was callous in his choices and he hurt people also. But in everyone’s defense love could end badly for anyone.

The art is beautiful, I could practically see the pages glow in black and white. The drawing style makes this manga pleasant to look at and will keep you reading it just to see what new art follows in the next page. And when they got older they actually changed in appearance, not just in number.

The question on my mind at the end was still, why is it called Orange Planet?