Character Profiles

Please note: more profiles and pictures will be added soon. This stie is a work in progress!

Kasuga Kyosuke

In the Japanese tradition, all names will use the family name first, followed by the proper name. Kyosuke is the chief narrator of the stories of Kimagure Orange Road. As the story begins he's in his 3rd year of middle school (i.e. high school freshman for you Americans) and has just moved for the 7th time with his family. His family is a group of "ESPers". They have the powers of telekenesis, teleportation, plus a number of other powers. Unfortunately, they've been branded freaks in every town they've lived in due to the discovery of these powers, so they keep moving. He lives with his father and two sisters (his mother is long gone, but not really explained until near the end of the Manga), and hopefully this time they can settle down in one place.

You meet Kyosuke as he counts the steps leading towards his new school. Near the top he spots what he believes to be a UFO, but which turns out to be a Red Straw Hat, owned by Ayukawa Madoka, a pretty young girl a few months older. Kyosuke and Madoka get into an argument about the number of steps, but they resolve it quickly and in their own ways, decide they like each other. However it takes a while for this to become apparent from both sides. Madoka gives Kyosuke the hat, and Kyosuke decides he's going to like it here in this town.

Of course, things are never this simple. Kyosuke has a problem with his personality, in that he's indecisive. At school he accidentaly kisses Hiyama Hikaru, who immediately falls for him. Thing is, she's Madoka's best friend, and this sets up a triangle relationship. Madoka doesn't want to see her friend hurt, yet she also cares deeply for Kyosuke. Kyosuke has fallen for Madoka, but he honestly cares about Hikaru as well. Hikaru, being a bit younger, remains blissfully unaware about how Madoka and Kyosuke feel about each other, and neither Kyosuke or Madoka try to clarify things.

Some fun facts about Kyosuke: He's pretty inept as an athelete (although Hikaru doesn't think so), can't swim, hates cookies, hates smoking, and his birthday is November 15th. He's considered average looking, and yet several girls go after him over the course of the series besides the two main characters. He's genuinely nice, but has the normal hormones of a teenager and this tends to land him into trouble.

As the series progresses, you find out more about his powers as despite all the attempts to keep them secret he keeps on using them. He's easy to hypnotise, and... well I could go on forever here. I recommend you read the Manga summaries to get more.

Ayukawa Madoka

The girl at the top of the 100 steps Kyosuke meets on his first day. She has a reputation as a delinquent, even if it's not true. However, as she doesn't care about her reputation this has lingered. She can fight, is a great musician (both of her parents are world-class violinists), and has made a promise to Hikaru that keeps her from openly declaring her feelings to Kyosuke. So while she wants him herself, and often drops hints about the subject, she also tries to help Hikaru win her man by playing a big sister role.

She doesn't talk much about her past, so she remains an enigma for quite a while. As Kyosuke has a tendancy to jump to conclusions (often wrong) this leads to many misunderstandings and fun plot twists. But in reality she's a good person, but keeps an air of mystery about her in part just to keep others off balance and maintain her privacy.

Madoka is strong willed, and a bit whimsical (Kimagure means Whimsical in Japanese). She keeps Kyosuke off-balance for much of the three years the series covers, and she often enjoys it. But as she cares deeply for both Kyosuke and Hikaru, she often handles things in ways you wouldn't ordinarily expect. While Kyosuke is the heart of the series, Madoka is the soul.

Hiyama Hikaru

Hikaru is two years younger than Kyosuke, exactly (they share the same birthday). At first she's portrayed as a delinquent who sneaks behind the gym to smoke and gets into fights. As stated above, she's Madoka's best friend and has a guilt-by-association label attached thanks to that. However... she sees Kyosuke use his power to sink a basketball shot from over 100 feet away, and suddenly believes that she's witnessed a great athelete in action. When Kyosuke accidentaly kisses her after a collision in the school hallway, she falls instantly in love with him and firmly believes he has fallen for her as well. Events tend to conspire to reinforce Hikaru's beliefs all throughout the series, right up to the next to last episode of the Manga.

Hikaru's a bit flighty, and often sees only what she wants to see. Several times the Kasuga family powers are demonstrated right in front of her but she always thinks she's seen something else. But of the three main characters she's my favorite, because you know that ultimately she'll be the odd-person out. You tend to favor Kyosuke and Madoka finally getting together, but Hikaru is a great girl too, and because Kyosuke recognizes this the triangle lasts for three years.

Hikaru-chan is in demand by other boys, but she only has eyes for her darling sempai, Kasuga-kun. As she grows from child into woman, Kyosuke has more and more trouble deciding between Hikaru and Madoka, which leads to yet more plot twists. Again, I recommend you read the Manga to get the full impact.

Kasuga Manami

One of Kyosuke's twin sisters, in the same grade as Hikaru. Manami is the smarter of the two, and essentially runs the Kasuga household, doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry and most of the other household chores as well as keeping the family in order. And in my opinion the prettier of the two, but hey, I like glasses. Manami is also the household referee, and perhaps the one member of the family who really is careful about using the power in front of others.

Manami has a huge following out there on the net, and I'm one of those people who follow her myself. She's the brains of the Kasuga family, and as self-appointed caretaker and referee she often shows more smarts than the rest of the family combined. In one episode she decides to take a day off, exchanges her glasses for contact lenses and changes her look, and winds up on a date with her own brother, who doesn't recognize her. She doesn't recognize him either because she loses the contacts. In the Manga the house falls apart while she's out, but in the TV show Kyosuke finally recognizes her and fixes up the house before she returns. Either way it's a great episode.

Manami, incidentally, believes from day one that Madoka is Kyosuke's real girlfriend, and she's the only other member of the family who knows about the red straw hat which Kyosuke keeps in his room.

Kasuga Kurumi

The other twin, and the younger (and more childish) of the two. No glasses, and a real attitude when it comes to the power. She's the reason the family had to move last time, as she ran the 100-meter dash in 3 seconds. She accepts dates for the free food, not the potential for romance, is an expert at hypnotising people, and is a willful young girl. And unlike Manami, she can't cook, clean, sew, or do anything like her sister. As you can imagine, they fight a lot.

Kurumi is the reason that Hikaru first becomes aware of Kyosuke, as she tries to join up with the dangerous girls in the very first story. But the dangerous girls are in fact Madoka and Hikaru, just smoking behind the gym. Kurumi believes that Hikaru is Kyosuke's girlfriend, despite Kyosuke's frim denials that either Hikaru or Madoka is his girlfriend.

Kasuga Takashi

The father in the family, and the only one without powers (it was the mother who had the special blood). He's a free-lance photographer who mostly works with landscapes and still life photos. He's constantly reminding his brood not to use their powers, as he's tired of moving over and over again. He met Kyosuke's mother out in the country while a young man, and asked her father for her hand only to be given an impossible task to win her hand. He does it, with Kyosuke's mother's help, and she reveals the power to Takashi, who keeps the family secret.

Takashi is a kind man, and he understands quickly about the triangle relationship once he's met both girls. He often gives Kyosuke a hard time about it, but only interferes once, when he see's Kyosuke upset about Madoka leaving a photo shoot in an early episode. Mostly he's there to remind his children to not use their powers in front of others.

Jingaro

This final member of the Takashi household only exists in the TV show and OAVs, and the first movie. He doesn't exist in the Manga at all, which is kind of a shame. He's funny. Jingaro the cat is the often victim of the consequences of the power being used around the Kasuga household. He tries to escape almost every day, but he gets caught and is levitated back, ususally to suffer more punishment. In one episode Kurumi dresses him up like a punk rock wrestler. Watching Jingaro try to get the costume off is one of the funnier moments in the whole series.

Master

As I've said before, Master is my personal favorite of all the minor characters. He's Madoka's boss at the coffee shop known as ABCB, and he understands the triangle relationship from day one. He also refuses to interfere, although he does tend to encourage Madoka to keep Kyosuke in her sights.

Master never gives his real name, but takes his title from the british practice of calling a bar owner Master. It's used a lot in Japan. ABCB is one cool coffee shop, and as a San Francisco resident I've seen more than my share of cool coffee shops. His coffee maker is an hourglass shaped thing with a bunsen burner to heat the water. Fascinating!

In one memorable episode, Master takes the entire crew to the country to gather mushrooms. In the Manga the mushrooms do things like make people giggle, cry, and try to seduce each other. In the TV episode, a blue mushroom is supposed to make someone tell the truth, but Kurumi, in a fit of power, turns every mushroom on the mountain blue. Chaos ensues as people eat the blue mushrooms.

Master is also the unwitting soul who finally confirms for Hikaru that everything is not how it has seemed in the next to last episode of the Manga. The reality of this is much more complicated than I've just told you, so it knowing that in advance won't ruin it for you if you haven't read it yet. Nothing is simple in KOR.

Ojiisan & Obaasan

Kyosuke's grandparents, and his mother's parents. Powerful ESPers, who think nothing of using their powers in front of others, which causes no end of trouble for Kyosuke. They are powerful enough to travel through time, teleport for hundreds of kilometers, bring down snowstorms and lightning, and in one memorable scene, levitate Kyosuke in front of his friends so that he has to pretend he's a world-class gymnast when in fact he's struggling to remain on the ground.

Ojiisan manages to convince Kyosuke's friends that he's a magician, and so gets away with much of his power in front of the others. He's also a lech, but usually finds a way to blame Kyosuke for his peeping-tom ways.

Seiji Komatsu

One of the perverts in Kyosuke's class. Terrible in school, but with an eye for the ladies equal to none. He kind of reminds you of the pimple-faced kid who would ask out every girl in school and wouldn't be discouraged despite the fact that they all said no. He keeps Manga and Playboys at his desk, and keeps a running list of the measurements of every girl in the school, except the delinquents (like Madoka and Hikaru).

When Komatsu discovers that Kyosuke is the brother of the pretty twins back in first year middle school, he declares Kyosuke to be his best friend for life so that he can get closer to them. But his true colors show and the twins understand immediately what kind of person Komatsu really is, and tweak him constantly. For every plan Komatsu comes up with to get a kiss from one of the twins (and he's not choosy, he'll take either one, or both) somehow his plans get foiled.

Fun piece of trivia: Seiji Komatsu is a real person, one of the assistants who drew the Manga, and one of the writers on the current Manga called "Seseme Street", also created by the man who brought us Kimagure Orange Raod (more below...)

Hatta Kazuya

Komatu's accomplice in crime and the other class pervert. A bit more clumsy than Komatsu, and nowhere near as subtle. Will put a camera on his shoe to get a good photograph, and suffers from nosebleeds around the pretty girls. In one memorable TV episode, he fakes an injury to illicit sympathy from the twins, only to be bound up like a mummy one scene later. In the TV show you will always find him blowing up ballons, which Komatsu immediately assumes are condoms. Hatta usually has to ask "were you thinking something dirty just now?"

You usually don't see Hatta's first name anywhere, because of this next character...

Kazuya

Kazuya looks like Kyosuke at about age 5, but he's a much stronger ESPer than his cousin. He can read minds, teleport, and even exchange bodies with other people. He's constantly using this trick to get out of trouble and place Kyosuke in trouble. Deep down he's a good kid, and rescues Kyosuke and Madoka in one episode, but mostly he causes trouble. He has two girlfriends himself, who look like young clones of Madoka and Hikaru, but they're only in the Manga.

Kazuya likes to trick Kyosuke into doing things he wouldn't normally do. In one case he makes Kyosuke believe that if he tries to "get fresh" with both Hikaru and Modoka, they'll like him better. Amazingly, it actually works, although that's not what Kazuya had intended.

Akane

Kazuya's sister doesn't appear in the TV show at all, which is a shame. But two of the OAVs do involve her as well as numerous episodes of the Manga. She's an ESPer as well, but her power is a bit different. She can make people believe that she's someone else. In the Manga she can only do it to one person at a time, but in the OAVs she can do it to almost anyone at will.

She meets Hikaru by accident when we first meet her, and is so astonished that Kyosuke could be hooked up with such a cool girl that she uses her power to make Hikaru believe he's closer to her than he really is. But she gets wind of Madoka and decides to interfere again, to ruin Kyosuke's relationship with her, only to fall for Madoka herself.

My favorite appearance of Akane, though, is when she needs to convince two of her friends that she has a boyfriend and convinces Kyosuke to pretend he's her lover. I'm not going to tell you any more than that. It's funny.

Hino Yuusaku

When we first meet Yuusaku, he's following Kyosuke around trying to intimidate him. He can do it too, as an expert in Karate. In the Manga he destroys a door just to show how strong he is. In the TV show he dents a lamppost, and then fixes it. Yusaku is an old friend of Madoka and Hikaru's, and he's in love with Hikaru. He resents the fact that Hikaru has fallen for Kyosuke, and has vowed to make him pay. However, while he can confront Kyosuke easily, he wilts in front of Hikaru. Kyosuke doesn't like Yusaku much, but he doesn't hate him either and occasionally calls on him for help. Mostly however Yuu-kun is there to complicate Kyosuke's life even more.

Favorite sequence: early on we see Kyosuke talking to Madoka, then Hikaru, then Manami, then Kurumi, and even another girl, so Yusaku believes that Hikaru has fallen for a playboy who goes after every woman he's ever seen. When Kurumi accidentally smacks him in the face he goes ballistic and decides to make an example of her, only to be thwarted when she's rescued by Hikaru, which of course blows everything Yusaku had planned.

Umao & Ushiiko

Umao and Ushiiko only show up a few times in the Manga, just to be another couple that everyone stumbles upon. However in the TV show they live one floor down from the Kasuga apartment. They're in almost every episode, throwing lines from "Romeo & Juliet" at each other no matter what the circumstance. My personal favorite is an episode where Kyosuke is swimming at the school pool and the camera pans down to see Umao and Ushiiko doing their Romeo & Juliet routine while wearing heavy diving suits. They occasionally have other lines, but usually it's for shock value.

The Band

There is a band that occasionally shows up in Kimagure Orange Road, that Madoka occasionally plays keyboards for (Madoka plays guitar in the TV show). The band is led by Shuu, Madoka's cousin and Yukari, Shuu's lady love. They're mostly there to confuse Kyosuke even more than he already is, as he first thinks that Yukari is making a pass at him and that Shuu is making passes at Madoka. The band causes trouble later on when Madoka is called on the replace Yukari at a big audition when Yukari (who is the singer) falls ill. It sets up the only time that we really see Madoka use her musical talents in public, and Kyosuke (who is under the impression that he'll have to move because a stranger is about to reveal his secret to the world - more about this later) falls that much more for her.