I wonder if anyone here's ever heard about this one (besides from the times I mentioned it.)

It's a quite old anime/manga (from 1988. Bet some of ya weren't even born back then. surprised ) and it's got all the base elements of a soap opera. Boy moves to new town, boy meets girl, boy meets other girl, both girls want boy, boy can't decide.

In fact, it's got elements that inspired details in other shows (whether they admit them or not,) and for once, the comedy elements don't kill the romance or drama, they're quite even throughout the whole series.

But it's got a twist. Let me tell you how things go:

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Kyosuke Kasuga is an ESPer (a psychic) whose family just moved to a new town. The family keeps on moving around the country, as their powers must not be known by normal humans, and whenever people finds out, they need to flee and start over elsewhere.

Kyosuke himself knows better than showing off his powers, but his two younger sisters (twins) are a bit careless about it. Kyosuke lives with his father and two sisters, and his mother died giving birth to the "brats." The boy developed, over the years, a quite shy and unassertive personality, though he can be outspoken and brave when he really needs to.

So, on his first day in the new town, Kyosuke decides to take a walk through the park. Upon finding stony stairs in his path, he starts climbing them, counting the steps. The stairs had a hundred steps, however Kyosuke gets distracted by a straw hat flying straight to him, driven by a sudden gust of wind. Kyosuke leaps up and catches it, then hears a voice, and sees the owner of the hat on top of the stairs. A black-haired, beautiful girl that's seemingly on her fourteens (just like him,) and who asks for the hat back. Kyosuke keeps climbing the steps, and counts up to ninety-nine, because he skipped one with the whole hat business. The girl, Madoka Ayukawa, insists the stairs have a hundred steps, but Kyosuke's stubborn, so in the end, they decide for ninety-nine and a half steps. (Silly, huh?)

Next day, Kyosuke meets Madoka on his way to school, as they're both going to the same... And also, Kyosuke meets Madoka's younger friend, Hikaru Hiyama, who immediately likes Kyosuke.

That same day, Kyosuke accidentally kisses Hikaru (they crash into each other since Kyosuke was running through a corridor,) and she dubs him her boyfriend. What Hikaru doesn't know, is that Kyosuke has feelings for Madoka, who also likes the boy.

Throw in the psi powers of Kyosuke and his family (including a perverted grandfather, an oblivious grandmother, a cousin that can 'disguise' herself into whoever she wants, and a little brat of a cousin who can read minds at will,) and a quite big number of secondary characters who'll create enough chaos for Kyosuke's life to stay eventful.

But over all this, the question was always... Who would Kyosuke choose? Because despite his inwards belief that he loved Madoka and only her, it was quite clear through the show that he also felt something for Hikaru, and that was the only thing really keeping him from confessing his love for either of them... He knew whoever he chose, the other one would end up hurt.

If you grew on high school romance manga/anime, you can't miss this one. It was most likely the patriarch of all those soap opera manga/anime we have today.

Random "useless" facts:

- Kyosuke has many powers, most of which require a certain event to happen.
* He can travel through time, but that only happens when he falls off a very high place (it's a lifesaving power, bah.)
* He can switch bodies with anyone, but only if their heads collide.
* He can hypnotize others, but whenever he tries that in the show, he ends up hypnotizing himself.
* He can teleport almost anywhere he's been before, but this power drains him quite fast.
* His powers, when fully unleashed, are able to destroy almost anything on sight and give him superhuman strength, but this only happens when someone he cares for is in grave danger (in the anime, this only happens once, in the final episode.)

- Madoka was, until she met Kyosuke, a gang member. She'd mixed her liking for music with her street life, and thus had learnt to use guitar picks as ranged weapons. In fact, she was know around the town's lower circles as "Madoka the Pick."

- Hikaru and Madoka were friends since they were little, but while Madoka grew a gloomy, rebellious girl thanks to her parents never being around, Hikaru got the other face of the coin: She's always been overprotected and looked after, and thus is quite a brat when she wants something she can't get on her own.

- Kyosuke's twin sisters have most of the powers he has, but tend to use them to fool around with people. They take care of not being seen, of course, but sometimes they're not careful enough.

- Kyosuke's grandfather has a clock that can stop time (but he is unaffected by it) and has the power to send others (and himself?) to a different timeline/dimension.

- Kyosuke's father isn't an ESPer, in fact marriages between ESPers and normal humans weren't allowed in the village Kyosuke's family comes from, but his mother met his father and fell in love with him, and after a lot of trouble, they married.

- When self-hypnotized, Kyosuke becomes "Ninja Kyosuke," an evil yet harmless loser who loves stealing panties.

- Kyosuke's quite a wimp, and even the lightest rain will make him fall sick. And when sick, his powers often go berserker on him.

- Madoka used to smoke until he met Kyosuke.

- Related to the fact above: Madoka only slapped Kyosuke a few times through the show, but the first ever was the funniest: Upon seeing Madoka lighting a cigarette, Kyosuke says she shouldn't smoke, because she wouldn't be able to have healthy babies in the future. Madoka gets angry at him for that and slaps him.

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Well, I think that's what one could call a detailed review. ninja

My rating for this one: 9.5/10. It would get a 10 if it had more fights (more than the two or three it has.)