Kimagure Orange Road


Kimagure Orange Road is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Izumi Matsumoto. It was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine from 1984 to 1987, with the chapters collected into 18 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. The story follows teenage esper Kyōsuke Kasuga and the love triangle he gets involved in with Madoka Ayukawa, a young heroine with bad publicity who is believed to be a young delinquent, and her best friend Hikaru Hiyama.
Following a 1985 film pilot, Toho and Studio Pierrot created an anime television series that was broadcast on Nippon Television from 1987 to 1988. Two more films were released in 1988 and 1996, as well as an original video animation series that began in 1989. In the mid-1990s the series was novelized as well. The manga has been released in English digitally by Digital Manga Guild. The anime television series, second film, and original video animation series were all released in North America by AnimEigo, while the third film was licensed by ADV Films. The anime series is currently licensed by Discotek Media.
Kimagure Orange Road was an influential series. It is credited alongside Dragon Ball for introducing an entire generation of Europeans to anime and manga. It was also an archetypal shonen romantic comedy, a genre which it had a major influence on, and the character Madoka is considered to be a root of the tsundere archetype. The anime's Christmas episode also featured an early use of the time loop plot device.

Plot

Kyōsuke Kasuga and his family had to move several times after being seen using their esper powers. Upon settling for the seventh time, Kyōsuke briefly meets a pretty girl who gives him her straw-hat and falls in love with her on sight. On the first day of school he learns this girl is his junior high classmate Madoka Ayukawa, who, contrary to his initial impression, is feared as a delinquent. Their underclassman and Madoka's best friend, Hikaru Hiyama, sees Kyōsuke use his powers to sink an impressive basketball shot and falls in love with him. Kyōsuke ends up dating Hikaru while constantly struggling with his feelings for Madoka due to his indecisiveness. Likewise, Madoka has feelings for Kyōsuke which she masks with her capricious nature for fear of hurting her friend Hikaru.

Characters

; Kyōsuke Kasuga
; Madoka Ayukawa
; Hikaru Hiyama
; Manami Kasuga
; Kurumi Kasuga
; Takashi Kasuga
; The Kasuga grandparents
; Master
; Seiji Komatsu & Kazuya Hatta
; Kazuya Kasuga
; Akane Kasuga
; Yūsaku Hino
; Sayuri Hirose
; Hiromi
; Ushiko and Umao

Production

Kimagure Orange Road was commissioned by Weekly Shōnen Jump after rejecting Matsumoto's work "Spring Wonder". Several short manga that were precursors to Kimagure Orange Road were created prior and later published in a collection called Graffiti. Matsumoto later stated that Kimagure Orange Road was the first series to combine elements of science fiction and romantic comedy together.
Matsumoto and his three or four assistants worked in a one-room apartment, with Matsumoto saying he sometimes had to work in the bathroom due to a lack of space. One of his assistants was Kazushi Hagiwara. Because an art shift is seen in Kimagure Orange Road once it resumed from a Matsumoto health-related hiatus, it is rumored that Hagiwara was responsible for the change in style.
Protagonist Kyōsuke Kasuga seems to have been based on Matsumoto himself, the author saying "His nature was always my own." The series' setting was inspired by the Umegaoka, Gotokuji and Shimokitazawa neighborhoods in the Setagaya Ward of Tokyo. The café ABCB seen in the manga was inspired by a real one called Genso Katsudo Shashin Kan.

Media

Manga

Kimagure Orange Road was written and illustrated by Izumi Matsumoto and serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from issue No. 15 on March 26, 1984 to No. 42 on September 28, 1987. The 156 individual chapters were collected into 18 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha from September 10, 1985 through August 4, 1995. The series was republished in a 10 volume aizōban edition, and a 10 volume bunkoban edition. A special chapter, "Panic in the Bathhouse!", was created for Matsumoto's Comic On CD-ROM manga series and published in Super Jump issue No. 10 of 1996. A second special was published in Weekly Playboy issue No. 44 of 1999.
In March 2013, Hivelinx released the manga first volume in English as an e-book for NTT Solmare's Facebook app "ComicFriends," and for Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks. In March 2014, Digital Manga Guild acquired its rights and released Kimagure Orange Road through its eManga website. The series was expanded to 20 volumes for the English digital release. The manga was crowdfunded for a six volume omnibus print edition with a new translation, and reached its goal as of May 5, 2016. All six print omnibus volumes were made available for purchase exclusively on eManga's website and Amazon on May 13, 2019.

Anime

Kimagure Orange Road was adapted into an anime series broadcast on Nippon Television, animated by Studio Pierrot and directed by veteran animator Osamu Kobayashi with character designs by Akemi Takada and scripts by Kenji Terada, with Narumi Kakinouchi adding design work to the anime, as well as the opening and ending credits for episodes 1–8.
Animeigo licensed the 1st movie and OVA series for North America on VHS and Laserdisc in 1993/1994. A subtitled Laserdisc and VHS release of the TV series release was published in 1998.
On February 1, 2002, a complete box set was released on DVD with updated and 'improved' translations from the earlier VHS and LD releases. However, the company's decision to remove the opening and ending songs from each episode on the DVD release was heavily
criticized by fans, forcing AnimEigo to release a public apology and a promise that they would correct their mistake once their initial press of the 'flawed' DVDs were depleted. After a lengthy remastering process, the company made good on their promise and gave buyers the option of mailing in their original DVDs to receive a version that had the themes intact, free of charge. AnimEigo's translations were not legally available outside of North America, and their license for the TV series and OVAs expired 10 years after the initial licensing, in July and August 2006 respectively.
On September 1, 2017, Netflix in Japan began streaming the entire 48 episodes of Kimagure Orange Road with a new high definition transfer and restoration.
In August 2018, Discotek Media announced its licensee of the series and it will be released in two Blu-ray Disc sets, one covering the television series and one covering the OVAs and the first movie Features on the set include the original TV Series remastered in High Definition using the new transfer from Netflix Japan, creditless openings and endings, TV broadcast promos, translation notes, an art gallery, as well as the music video OVA "Their Love Repository." The TV series Blu-ray set was released on March 26, 2019.
AD Vision released the second movie to dubbed and subtitled VHS in 1998 and on DVD on August 21, 2001. However, this movie went out of print in 2009 after ADV's shutdown, since its license was not transferred to Section23 Films. This movie remains the only piece of the animated series that has been dubbed into English.
In the UK, only the OVA series and first movie were released on VHS by MVM Films, subsequently receiving low sales likely due to the absence of the television series.

Soundtrack

Composed for the most part by Shirō Sagisu.
Anime television series
OVA: "White Lovers", "Hawaiian Suspense", "I was a cat, I was a fish", "Hurricane Akane", "Stage of Love = Heart on Fire ", "Stage of Love = Heart on Fire ", "Unexpected Situation", "Message in Rouge"
Kimagure Orange Road Movie~ I Want to Return to That Day
New Kimagure Orange Road Movie ~ And, The Beginning of that Summer

Reception

Kimagure Orange Road was an instant success. The manga sold over 20million tankobon volumes in Japan. The Kimagure Orange Road anime series was broadcast in Japan and around the world, in countries such as Australia, France, Italy, Singapore, Spain and Turkey.

Critical response

Reviewing Digital Manga Guild's first English release for Otaku USA, Che Gilson described Kimagure Orange Road as an enjoyable and classic manga. He wrote that "Even though it looks its age, the artwork is clean and easy to read, the characters are engaging and well drawn, and the simplicity has a charm all its own." However, he stated that the translation suffers from a lack of editorial oversight, with missing and misplaced words, sentences not fitting into their word bubbles, and awkward phrases.
Also of Otaku USA but looking back on the anime, Erin Finnegan wrote that the psychic powers are not important in the series, serving simply as an excuse for "zany plotlines" and gags, with the I Want to Return to That Day movie dropping them completely. She noted that the TV series does not have a resolution at the end and that viewers wanting closure have to watch I Want to Return to That Day, which she called "very touching, and very true to life." Anime News Network gave positive reviews for both the TV series and the I Want to Return to That Day movie. THEM Anime Reviews gave the TV series a rating of 5 out of 5.

Cultural impact

Kimagure Orange Road is considered an influential series. The anime has been credited alongside Dragon Ball for introducing entire generations of Europeans to anime and manga.
According to manga critic Jason Thompson, Kimagure Orange Road is "The archetypal shonen rom-com" and had a major influence on the shonen romantic comedy genre. Although not the first to be made, it was the first to have significant popularity. He wrote that the series is about "first love and indecision, about the blurred lines between love and friendship, and it's all very close to reality, or better still a sweet, idealized, gentle reality." Thompson noted that the art is not great, but it gets better as the series continues. He also called Madoka the root of the tsundere archetype.
Manga UK notes that the Christmas episode featured an early use of the time loop plot device, predating the films Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow and the "Endless Eight" arc of the Haruhi Suzumiya light novels and anime series. In turn, Kimagure Orange Roads use of the time loop concept was predated by the anime film .