Well… here’s a tough one to recommend.
Now don’t get me wrong here, Kimagure Orange Road is a very good series. The way in which it fleshes out its characters leaves most teen-aged romances far behind. Especially Madoka is amazing as the main female love interest. With 48 episodes, this series also excels in its character development. That’s all fine and dandy. However, this series also made me want to bash in the screen, multiple times per episode.
Kimagure Orange Road is a very, very annoying series. Basically, nearly the entire series is about teen-aged hormones running around. It’s not just one character that becomes unbearable because of this, there’s a whole bunch of them that makes this series a chore to watch.
Starting with the most obvious: the two horny classmates. Granted, these two have actual personalities and are more than just stereotypes, but that doesn’t make them more likable when they consistently drool over cute girls, trying to get into their panties. For one episode that might not have been too bad, but these guys are present throughout THE ENTIRE SERIES. That’s a lot of time to get on your nerves.
Beyond that, there’s the secondary love interest for the lead character, along with another guy who is secretly in love with her. The former is annoying especially in the beginning, before her character develops. She continues to spoon up to the lead character with the most annoying voice. The latter is annoying because he never develops: he just keeps screaming and acting like comedic fodder.
Then there is the lead character, who just isn’t the most likable guy around. The series basically turns into a love triangle, and even though it’s obvious from the beginning with which girl he’s going to end up with, he refuses to MAKE UP HIS MIND about which girl to go out with. And it’s not even realistic! Some of the things he does are just completely stupid, even for teen-aged standards. This does get more bearable in the second half as THANK GOD this guy develops, but good luck getting there.
The episodes are mainly spent on standalone events that happen around the characters. Most of the times, there is some misunderstanding, some character who does something stupid, or the lead character’s telepathic powers (yes, the lead character is an esper) doing something to cause trouble. The episodes are pretty disjointed, and there are a number of continuity errors. It’s all very much forced in order to spice up the relationship between the lead characters as much as possible.
All of this makes this a very difficult series to rate. I mean, despite all of this, Madoka really was one of the best female love interests in a teen-aged shounen romance here; her portrayal throughout the series is really outstanding. Was her development worth sitting through so many episodes of annoyance? I’m still not sure, really. I mean, there definitely have been romances before that have had their incredibly annoying parts, and yet turned out to be very memorable to me (for example White Album and Bokura ga Ita), but even compared to those… Kimagure Orange Road was a bit much. It also doesn’t help that this series popularized episodic tropes that would later, especially in the past ten years, become milked to death cliches.
| Storytelling: | 8/10 – Good slice of life, decent but forced episodic stories. |
| Characters: | 8/10 – The character-development is really excellent here, let that be clear. Some of the characters however make it an incredible chore to watch. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Pretty good for its time, the animation does what it’s supposed to do. |
| Setting: | 8/10 – There are some continuity errors, but overall the creators did a pretty good job in portraying the city that the series takes place in. |
Suggestions:
– Maison Ikkoku
– Aoi Hana
– White Album
Madoka alone is a good reason to watch this serie. This anime is from 1987, and she was a hell of a tsundere back then.
It’s been about 10 years I haven’t seen KOR again, but I clearly remember some very great scenes. In most of them, Kyosuke & Madoka are alone.
You didn’t point the importance of Kyosuke and his sisters being espers, for comic relief as well as to put characters in strange situations.
Thank you for the review.
That was one of my favourite series when I was 10 (Madoka _>;
I’ve only seen two episodes of this series so far, but absolutely LOVED them, and had no real issue with any of the characters whatsoever (but then, I love romance tropes in anime!). Now, two isn’t a lot to go by… but do you think I’m pretty much out of the woods in terms of potential for annoyance, or do they get SIGNIFICANTLY more annoying? (:
-Tom
Wyrdwad: well, if you’re fine with the series so far, then I guess that you’ll enjoy the rest of the series. There will be scenes in which the characters get more annoying than what they’ve shown in the first two episodes, but not really significantly.
psgels, I wonder if you plan to watch at least the first KOR movie. That’s probably my favorite part of the franchise but people tend to have different reactions to it.
That aside, I also have mixed feelings here. Madoka was a great character at the time and still is a very interesting one today, but the series as a whole is too repetitive. Thankfully the last couple of episodes and a few others here and there are actually worthwhile, but most of KOR is full of redundancy and running in circles.
I’d probably give it a mid-70s rating going by your scale and little to nothing more.
While the TV series really was a chore for me to watch through (the OAVs being only slightly better), the two movies were absolutely amazing and excelled at exactly all those things that the series failed at… so I highly recommend you watch them next 🙂
I’m surprised you scored this series so high, I’m some sort of fan of KOR (because of nostalgic reasons mostly), but nowadays when I try to watch it again I certainly realize that I had a lot of pacience back in my youth, this series know how to be annoying.
You should also watch “I Want to Return to that Day”. Absolutely the best thing KOR has to offer.
Yes. def. watch the movie. It makes the series much more rewarding. It’s basically the Tenchi Muyo in Love 2 of the KOR franchise.
I really disagree with your assessment that teenage harmones and horny boys make it nearly unwatchable-what do you think that KOR’s about, anyway? To me this is a classic anime series in every sense of the term-Madoka is every boy’s ideal girl and the love triangle that develops as the series progresses is what makes it so compelling to watch. This-and Maison Ikkoku are #1 & #2 on my list of all time favorite anime series. Nuff’ said.
I so wanted to like this series for many reasons – similarity to Maison Ikkoku, one of my favorite mangas, the fact that I have an obsession for all things 80’s…
But the characters were just SO. FREAKING. ANNOYING. I have to agree with basically everything psgels says.
However, there are also some good points to this show, like the John Hughes-esque honesty about teen drinking etc., which was probably ground-breaking back in the day, and isn’t all that common in modern anime either. I also liked the character of Madoka, basically because she kicks ass with her sax. Someday I’ll try to just plow through the irritating parts, but for now I’ve had enough.
Aside, is anyone familiar with the show
21 Jump Street?
Kimagure reminds me so much of it at times. I swear to god, one of those shows was ripping the other off a little bit.