Aside from the original manga, this pilot is where the whole Kimagure Orange Road saga began. Released for Jump Comics about a year prior to the beginning of the series' television run, the Kimagure Orange Road Pilot is an interesting look at how the characters in the series might have been. However, there was just something unsettling about it all...

First of all, the voice acting is among the worst I've heard in an anime in a long, long time. I'm not saying this because I'm disappointed with how they compare to the voice actors in the rest of Kimagure Orange Road, I'm saying this because they're just THAT bad. Kyousuke's voice is high, squeaky, and barely bearable, Madoka's voice just seems so... out of character, and Hikaru sounds exactly the same as she always has. That's iinteresting, though, because she has a different voice actor than in the television series. The music also got on my nerves a little, with the sole exception of the rather energetic opening theme, Mogitate no koi.

The feeling of this episode was not unlike the first few episodes of Kimagure Orange Road. It takes a while to go through things like character introductions, then it moves on to situations that are there for comedy instead of romance. There's even the tried and true "Yuusaku makes a ridiculous plan that involves separating Kyousuke and Hikaru" formula that was used over and over in the television series, as well as the "Madoka gets mad at Kyousuke, forgives him, gets mad again, then forgives him again" dynamic that we saw in nearly every episode. I'm not saying the story is bad or anything, I'm just saying that if you've seen the television series, you've probably already seen an episode just like this one. The only difference now is that, possibly due to the voice acting, the characters aren't very likable.

You heard what I said! The characters in this pilot are just so... stale. If I could think of a better term to use, I would definitely use it. It seemed like they had lost all of the personality and quirks that made them so interesting in the series. Each and every character was almost as uninteresting as the next. However, like I said before, I may just be thinking that because the voice acting is just awful.

So is it worth watching the Kimagure Orange Road Pilot? Well, I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're a big fan of the series, movies, and OVA episodes. It doesn't really have enough to stand by itself as an anime, so watching it without having seen the other things probably isn't a very good idea.