Kimagure Orange Road OVAs

Original Title: きまぐれオレンジ★ロード
Romanized: Kimagure Orange Road
Literal: Whimsical/Capricious/Moody Orange Road

Plot Synopsis

The Kimagure Orange Road OAVs take up roughly where the TV Series left off. Kyosuke, Madoka, and Hikaru are in senior high now, and this series of stories take place during the various vacations of these years. These escapes from school take us into some new territory, and all new adventures--from a couple of body switching experiences, to a haunted cave in the mountains, to a kidnapping in Hawaii...

Quick Review

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-08-22

The Kimagure Orange Road OAVs carry on the tradition of the TV series, but as the now high school-aged characters have matured slightly, so has both the feel of the series and the themes in it. It is, overall, an improvement--less silly, better drama, slightly more mature (though still adolescent) humor, and more substantive romance (even if it has a little less of the "wide-eyed young love" air of the TV series). My only real complaint is that the episodes are somewhat disjointed, so there's not a lot of character development--each feels like a more or less stand-alone story. The visuals have a bit more polish than the TV series, and the quality acting and period J-rock are as good as ever.

The Kimagure Orange Road OAVs take up where the TV series left off, with slightly more mature characters, stories, and themes. Do yourself a favor and see some of the TV series before the OAVs, but if you liked the TV series, the OAVs are a more mature and slightly more substantive progression of the characters, and definitely worth watching.

US DVD Review

AnimEigo's DVDs are, as usual, minimal in the way of extras but have it where it counts: high-bitrate, artifact-free video transfer (a little grainy due to the source material, but noticeably sharper than the TV series), crisp stereo audio, and your choice of no, limited, or full English subtitles. There's no dub, and the only extra you get are AnimEigo's famed liner notes.

Content Guide

The themes are about appropriate for the ages of the characters, so AnimEigo's recommended 13-up is about right.

Violence: 2 - Some rather serious violence in a couple of episodes.

Nudity: 1 - Underwear in one episode.

Sex/Mature Themes: 2 - Nothing overt, but some relatively mature subjects.

Language: 2 - Not that bad, but not mild, either.

Notes and Trivia

Sandwiched between the TV series and the first movie chronologically, it was actually released after the first movie hit theaters in Japan. In the US, the OVAs and first movie were translated by AnimEigo as a set, and were one of their first releases.

As always, AnimEigo has their extensive liner notes available on their KOR page, either as a large web page or a downloadable PDF (down at the bottom of that page).

Availability

Formerly available in the US from AnimEigo, most recently on a set of two subtitled DVDs. Prior to that was available on 4 subtitled VHS tapes, with the first movie making up a fifth tape in the set. The same was also available as a 3-disc LD set. All of the above are out of print as of this writing.

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