Kimagure Orange Road: Jump Special - 1985

Kimagure Orange Road: Jump Special is a 30 minute OVA created by Shonen Jump magazine in 1985 to test the waters for converting Izumi Matsumoto's popular manga from 1984 into a TV series. The OVA was successful enough that the start of the production for a tv series began in 1986, with the show airing on tv in April 1987 . This OVA is often referred to by fans as the KOR Pilot although in my opinion it's something slighty more special than that.

There are many major differences in staff, voice casting, music, and direction between the Jump Special and the final TV series. This is because in the year between many changes, only the animation studio Pero and the character designer Akemi Takada were retained to work on the TV series which is why the transition from one format to the other was less than subtle.

I've watched and enjoyed all that is Kimagure Orange Road including the TV series, movies and the 1989 OVA spinoff series but out of everything i've seen this is by far my favourite entry. The Jump Special OVA uses a much more direct style of story telling so there's no messing around or any delays with the character development or story progression. This brings around a welcomed change in pace because one my main criticisms of the TV series was it sometimes dragged too much. At least this way we get to see some strong romantic themes almost from the word go.

If KOR fans when watching this are wondering why they may have seen this plot before, well thats because this OVA shares a similiar plot to that of episode 46 from the TV series. You see the Jump Special and episode 46 are both adapted from the same manga story. The only big difference between the two is that the OVA's setting is changed from a ski resort (as seen in the manga) to a more glamourous beach location, which i think pays off dividends for a one off release such as this in 1985.

Alot of people familiar with the TV series seem to dislike the differences seen in the Jump Special but i actually prefer most of them. In particular i really adore the upbeat and more summery OST soundtrack used here. I've watched the stylish intro segment in particular, many of times. Ironically the OST soundtrack did get a US release back in 1996, under the name Kimagure Orange Road cd collection. Although we may laugh and find this strange now, this kind of thing was quite common in the 90's for some reason. I feel kind of sorry for any unsuspecting fans who bought this thinking they were geting the tv series soundtrack, but maybe a few of them were at least pleasantly suprised by the different music choices. There's still some used copies left in the Amazon marketplace for any KOR enthusiasts, or the just plain curious.

Another obvious difference to this delightful OVA are the more cutesy character designs which give them a younger, more adoreable look. In one scene, right in the middle of the OVA, your even see the whole cast in SD (super deformed) form for around 10 seconds which is a very nice bonus. Something we didn't see reused in the later adaptations. It would have even been great to see a short SD Kimagure Orange Road OVA parody made back then like they did with Gundam back in the 80's but then maybe i'm being greedy.

Sadly as fate always seems to play out, this was the only entry in the franchise not to be picked up by Animeigo. It was not their fault though, they persued the license during the 90's but some rights issues prevented them from licensing it. It's also worth noting that the company that distributed the Jump Special in Japan was different to the one that distributed the TV series, which at the time would have further added to the complications. At least for now we can enjoy this precious gem below, even if the quality is less than perfect, it's all we've got until the dawn of a subtitled dvd release rises from the clouds.

Download - Kimagure Orange Road: Jump Special

Overall Grade/Rating: A-
Commercial Availability: VHS (Japan), Laserdisc (Japan)