Music of Kimagure Orange Road
There isn’t a whole lot of music from Kimagure Orange Road that stuck out for me, so this post will be rather short, and you probably shouldn’t expect another orchestral remake project like I did for Maison Ikkoku (heh). With that being said, there are some pieces that I enjoy:
Score: On the score (background music) front, there are relatively fewer background tracks of real value. One of them that I posted about earlier is Madoka’s Theme. There are multiple versions found on the CD, the best one is “Madoka no TE-MA ~In lovers room” . I’m not sure where the second half of that name comes from, but this is the version that has the saxophone joined in by background strings. This is a slightly jazzy, charming piece of music which makes good used of major and minor seventh chords. To be honest, a lot of the rest of the KOR soundtrack feels more like stock material from what I have heard (or perhaps the directors simply didn’t put enough emphasis on the score to help the story), and there aren’t many recognizable melodies apart from Madoka’s theme, as far as I remember (if I have overlooked one, feel free to correct me).
Vocal Music: Again, a mixed bag. None of the songs really stood out to the extent that Waltz might, but there are a few pleasantly nostalgic and enjoyable pieces. Two in particular that I’ll mention here are the first two OP songs. The first, Summer Side is a fun, light-hearted piece which is accompanied by a visual (in the TV series) that I can only describe as “seizure-inducing”. The constant switching between images for every beat of every bar may annoy some viewers, but I think it has some kind of charm to it. Maybe I’m just crazy. Beyond that, it has a likeable and memorable melody, particularly when you’ve heard it open the series over and over again during the course of the show. The lyrics aren’t profound by any measure, but they do the job well enough, I suppose.
…that also carries over to the next song I’ll mention, “Orange Mystery”. This song caught my interest because of it’s opening chord progression, it has that same tinge of youthfulness but with a slightly melancholic tinge. However, I’m not a huge fan of the chorus. I really don’t like “Tell me baby that you need me” Britney-Spears kind of lyrics, and I hate them even more when they appear in the middle of a Japanese song that I was liking up to that point. Still, it’s a generally pleasant song.
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