Orange Road starts off with Kasuga and his family (dad and twin sisters) move into a new city and by a chance encounter comes across Ayukawa. They have some friendly banter between each other, and Kasuga instantly falls in love with her, and possibly like-wise for herself. However, in public Ayukawa is more serious and a bit cold, which throws Kasuga some mixed signals. Then, during his contemplation, he makes an impossible basketball shot in which Hikaru sees him and she falls in love with him.
What makes this a bit complicated is the character interaction between the love triangle as Hikaru and Ayukawa are best friends since childhood, and Kasuga whom while he is in love with Ayukawa, starts to date Hikaru. This begins the young-love complication between the three in their daily lives. As a side issue, Kasuga and his family all have supernatural powers (telekinesis, teleportation, hypnosis, etc.) that they refer to simply as “the power” and must hide it from public knowledge.
Unfortunately, where the romance and interest starts out strong, and with the “power” as an extra obstacle; the series tails off horribly to episodic nonsense with nothing progressing. It is a real shame because the lure of the show was amazing, but the love triangle never progresses and the use of power is totally lost on its potential. Sure, there is the occasional episode to reel the viewer back in, but so much is lost on this show, which is really unfortunate. This anime doesn’t even come to a conclusion without watching the movie afterwards. The movie takes place at the end of high school focusing on Kasuga finally having to make a decision between Hikaru and Ayukawa. If the viewer makes it through the anime, watch the incredibly sad non-power using conclusion.
