Kimagure Orange Road: Jump Special - 1985

[mcarocks2003]

Kimagure Orange Road: Jump Special OVA was created by Shonen Jump magazine in 1985 to test the waters for converting Izumi Matsumoto's popular manga into a TV series. The OVA was successful enough that the start of the production for a tv series began in 1986. This OVA is often referred to by fans as the KOR Pilot although it's slighty more than that.

There are many major differences in staff, voice casting, music, and direction between the pilot film and the final TV series. In the year between, many changes were made, only the animation studio Pero and illustrator Takada were retained to work on the TV show which is why the transition was less than subtle.

I've watched and enjoyed all that is Kimagure Orange Road including the TV series, movies and the 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 and there's no messing around or any delays with character development or story progression. This brings around a welcomed change in pace which should please alot of fans of the show.

This was the only entry into the franchise not picked up by Animeigo, simply because the distribution rights belonged to a different company. I have no idea if the company persued it but i'm sure back int he 90's they at least made some enquiries into it.

Alot of people dislike the differences seen in the Jump Special but i actually prefer most of them. In particular i really love and prefer the OST soundtrack plus the more cutesy character designs which give them a younger, more adoreable look. In one of the scenes your even see most of the cast in SD form for a few seconds which is a nice bonus.

Download - KOR: Jump Special.avi (Click Here)

The video quality for this file is very poor with the picture being fuzzy and the colours washed out but it's the only English subtitled version available. I do have a much higher quality version but it's with Spannish hard subtitles otherwise i could have combined the better source with the subtitles.

Stayed Tuned - More Rare 80's Anime Classics Coming Soon...