There was a movie after that did e uinite the three. But i warn you it ws very badly done. The animation is too slick.. so slick that you can hardly recognise the characters. The plotline is like a hollywood movie. It’s like they take your favorite book and butcher it in hollywood.

In my opinion this is what needed to have happened in order for me to have really liked the film. #1) It had to be Kyosuke who took the initiative to tell Hikaru the truth, rather than Madoka being overtly jealous – that’s just not her character. #2) It had to be done with a lot of regret / sympathy – I didn’t buy that Kyosuke (or Madoka) could suddenly become so coldly decisive. That’s not their characters…. #3) They should have had a more significant ending and “coming together” of Kyosuke+Madoka to leave on a strong, even if maybe slightly bitter, ending.

I guess I didn’t feel the disconnect between the anime and movie versions of the characters because I just didn’t have the same attachment to them. I liked Madoka very well, but Hikaru was just “OK,” and Kyosuke just sort of irritated. The pervy friends turned my stomach, Yuusaku was well-meaning but annoying, etc. I also didn’t see the depth of the trio that you did. It never felt like a trio to me, but rather 3 duos put together in a way to make for comic interaction. To me it was Hikaru and Madoka, Hikaru and Kyosuke, and Kyosuke and Madoka, not Hikaru, Makoka and Kyosuke. I just never felt they tied together that much as a group, particularly since they aren’t really shown as a trio, or if they are, they’re looking longingly at one person or another. I’m starting to really see how much weight you put into the trio that I just didn’t think was as strong. It’s definitely a different perception, and certainly explains your discontent.

I’m very interested in reading the manga now after Mechamorph’s comment. It would be interesting to actually get to see the rising tension.

There is yet another Kimagure Orange Road movie that takes place after another significant timeskip, Shin Kimagure Orange Road. Perhaps that one will be more to your taste. Let’s just say that it does not all end on a sour note.

It’s the way that it was done that I disliked. It just didn’t feel like the KOR characters that I knew. It felt like the ending of some other love triangle, a more typical one. It felt like they hired someone to write a finale and said “It’s a love triangle involving Madoka and Hikaru. Kyosuke chooses Madoka.” But that trivializes the whole thing. KOR was never an indecisive love triangle in that way. Kyosuke “chose” Madoka far back in the TV series, and it was solidified by the end. We have already been show the beautiful connection between the two yet…the film eliminates it by making it seem again like an indecisive triangle in the beginning…

I guess it’s rather hard for me to verbalize my rambling and incoherent response to this film. Well, I’ll put it this way, I wanted the film and characters to have to really face the extent of what it all means, what it means to truly lose friendship, lose innocence, to pursue something that feels right even though it may hurt someone you hold dear to you, and as a result, have to grow up emotionally. Yet the briskness and near-callousness with which Kyosuke and Madoka go about ending this source of conflict which has existed for years, in my opinion, betrays the part of their characters which enabled the conflict to begin with. I expected far more introspection, sympathy, regret, and emotion. I don’t know, there was just something that felt artificial and insincere that kept nagging at me.

There was one phrase uttered by Madoka during the AbCb conversation, “I guess it will never be the three of us again.” That is the sentiment which I thought would be so prevalent throughout this film, that bittersweet sentiment of “wanting to return to that day” but knowing you can’t, and in the end, I just didn’t get that from the film, except for a few token phrases or flashbacks. But maybe I’m just insane =)

Moreover, it caused Hikaru to finally realize how much her own selfish childishness was hurting the people she claimed to love. Of course she’s not going to take it well, and the scene between her and Madoka was realistic in that sense. They both loved each other too much to allow it to go deeper into blow up mode, but at the same time, they needed that moment of anger to start working through it all.

Then again, it might also be that to me, high school friendships are there to teach people how to interact in the real world, not to continue on forever. High school is a learning experience filled with bittersweet memories that shape the way we live our lives.

I also think the essential difference between this and the series is what we didn’t see. Time has passed, and the tension that the series tried to ignore or show as funny finally turned into what it is. Life cannot continue the way it was. I agree that Kyosuke’s “indecisiveness” was as much his desire not to hurt as anything. But that still hurts. It hurts Hikaru when she sees his eyes wandering. It hurts Madoka every time he treats her as if she’s the one, then turns back to Hikaru. It hurts Kyosuke as he sits there stuck between a rock and a hard place. For one school year, it was okay, but to continue on at that pace? I think that’s why they skipped so much time, to provide the distance necessary. Who wants to watch an OAV or short series about people starting to bicker? Instead, skip right to the crux. I think the characters were spot on in the end–they were 3 people that’d been hurting each other for 3 years straight and had to do something to make it stop. Because without it, there’s no hope for anyone being friends.

In the end, Kyosuke is really only sacrificing his relationship with Hikaru. Madoka and Hikaru have too much history for this one thing to split them. They’re going to grow more distant, as is the way things go when people head off to college, but there will still be affection and memories.

Still, I understand why you feel the way you did. You’re an idealist, and want things to work out. Whereas I’m a bit of a romantic, but also much more a realist. This was a necessity in their lives to me, and something that made them all stronger.

And surely you liked the very ending, right? The moment with Hikaru after her performance? The moment that said, I can do this? Stole my heart, it did. ^_-