Kimagure Orange Road
I finally buckled down and read the manga version of KOR. Scanslated, of course, but a better quality of scanslation than I am used to.
It made me want to watch the last two episodes and the first movie again.
The anime is a more or less direct adaptation of the manga - The anime depicted more of Madoka's delinquent side than the manga did (and also had her specialize in throwing guitar picks around) - but it left out quite a few stories while creating entirely new ones. There were also quite a few characters (I'm actually really surprised by how many) that were given much smaller roles or written out of the story altogether in the anime.
What was the same in both versions was the slow, almost inexorable buildup of the relationship between Kyosuke and Madoka. Halting and guilt ridden, with misgivings on both sides. Hikaru claims him early in the story, and goes about her daily life thinking that Kyosuke is her boyfriend, when in reality he is slowly growing to harbor feelings for Madoka, and in some sense was smitten from their first meeting. To me, it seems like the fact that he couldn't officially come out and do anything with Madoka allowed their relationship to progress to a point where it wasn't a matter of being smitten; it had actually become mutual love, based on shared experiences and a better understanding of each other. Or at least that's how I see it. ^_^; Lets face it, there's a lot of sit-com/ranma 1/2-type crap here as well, and that is more often than not annoying.
As with the anime, I just wanted to smack Kyosuke and tell him "This can't last forever. The longer you put this off, the more either Hikaru or Madoka are going to be hurt when the inevitable happens." That's part of the bittersweet nature of this series, and a huge part of why I appreciate it so much despite the fact that the manga and to a lesser extent the anime don't hold up well compared to the manga of the subsequent 21 years (quintessential 80s stuff here, to be sure). It can be annoying at times, you can tell when the assistants helping the author change (The style that the characters were drawn in changed so much between some mid-series chapters that I had to make sure that I was still at the correct place in the series), and some of the chapters were just fucking boring. However, despite the lumps, This series is still one of my favorites of all time, and I am glad that I've had the opportunity to own several different versions of the TV series (I purchased used AnimEigo Laserdiscs for really cheap, and then managed to get one of the last full sets of DVDs that was available after AnimEigo's license on the series expired), and I'm equally glad that the people at MangaProject.cjb.net saw the worth of the manga series and put it out in a translated format.
This sorta turned into a review, but in essence, I just wanted to state my satisfaction with the manga series. I really enjoyed reading it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has an open enough mind to stomach 80s manga.
It made me want to watch the last two episodes and the first movie again.
The anime is a more or less direct adaptation of the manga - The anime depicted more of Madoka's delinquent side than the manga did (and also had her specialize in throwing guitar picks around) - but it left out quite a few stories while creating entirely new ones. There were also quite a few characters (I'm actually really surprised by how many) that were given much smaller roles or written out of the story altogether in the anime.
What was the same in both versions was the slow, almost inexorable buildup of the relationship between Kyosuke and Madoka. Halting and guilt ridden, with misgivings on both sides. Hikaru claims him early in the story, and goes about her daily life thinking that Kyosuke is her boyfriend, when in reality he is slowly growing to harbor feelings for Madoka, and in some sense was smitten from their first meeting. To me, it seems like the fact that he couldn't officially come out and do anything with Madoka allowed their relationship to progress to a point where it wasn't a matter of being smitten; it had actually become mutual love, based on shared experiences and a better understanding of each other. Or at least that's how I see it. ^_^; Lets face it, there's a lot of sit-com/ranma 1/2-type crap here as well, and that is more often than not annoying.
As with the anime, I just wanted to smack Kyosuke and tell him "This can't last forever. The longer you put this off, the more either Hikaru or Madoka are going to be hurt when the inevitable happens." That's part of the bittersweet nature of this series, and a huge part of why I appreciate it so much despite the fact that the manga and to a lesser extent the anime don't hold up well compared to the manga of the subsequent 21 years (quintessential 80s stuff here, to be sure). It can be annoying at times, you can tell when the assistants helping the author change (The style that the characters were drawn in changed so much between some mid-series chapters that I had to make sure that I was still at the correct place in the series), and some of the chapters were just fucking boring. However, despite the lumps, This series is still one of my favorites of all time, and I am glad that I've had the opportunity to own several different versions of the TV series (I purchased used AnimEigo Laserdiscs for really cheap, and then managed to get one of the last full sets of DVDs that was available after AnimEigo's license on the series expired), and I'm equally glad that the people at MangaProject.cjb.net saw the worth of the manga series and put it out in a translated format.
This sorta turned into a review, but in essence, I just wanted to state my satisfaction with the manga series. I really enjoyed reading it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has an open enough mind to stomach 80s manga.