Marmalade Boy 7/10

I used to think wearing a school uniform might not have been too bad. Marmalade Boy has shown me the dark side of prescribed fashion and I am now grateful I never had to wear green plaid pants with a grey blazer or a uniform the colour of surplus army tents. Yikes!

With 76 episodes Marmalade Boy is certainly a handful to get through. I also believe this is the longest series I've reviewed so far. On the technical side I liked the character designs in this show and it looks great. The quality of the animation remained about the same over 76 eps. so I must be impressed. The opening theme was great but the rest of the music was only so-so. This is mainly due to the horrible Doo-doo-doo-dah-doo-dah-doo version of the OP theme used at times. I can't stand that version and it unbalanced my furies. The VAs were great but the female main character's (Miki) voice put me on edge at times. This show aired from 1994 to 1995 by the way.

So, you've heard of Marmalade Boy in fanboy legends so what is it? It's the story of two families living together after divorcing then re-marrying each other. Each couple has a teenage child (Miki and Yuu) and the story is about the romance that develops between the kids and the various romances their friends are involved in. This romantic comedy show does have some real good parts. The story of Miki's best friend and her relationship with a teacher at the school and the class president is probably the most interesting in the series. Yuu's first rival and Miki's childhood friend also has a pretty good story throughout the series.

I can't say the same for the main romantic plot though. For the first 2 seasons things move along alright but in the third, storylines begin to feel repetitive and the plot becomes a little ridiculous. Because of this 3rd season madness I found myself wishing that Miki and Yuu would suffer some sort of tragic accident leading to an interesting funeral episode or something. Not to wish death on them but....I really got irritated.

I have to recommend this show to anyone who likes a good romantic comedy but beware parts of the 3rd season as I got a little pissed off at Miki's stupidity.