His and Her Circumstances - Reviews

Not going to be long because I don't have much to say and I'm not the best at reviews. This was pretty cute and sometimes even made me laugh. But towards the end I got really bored. I didn't really care about the side characters stories. All I wanted to see was Arima and Miyazawa. But otherwise it was nice. Very old.

His and Her Circumstances (Kare Kano) is about a girl in her freshmen year at high school that is not what she seems to be. She masquerades as the perfect model student but under her disguise she is a totally different person. His and Her Circumstances is the story of how she releases her true self to the world and the things she discovers about herself.

I really liked this story. It’s funny, touching and compelling. The mix of comedy and romance is near perfect and brings the story to life. The story is told with a lot of flash backs and through the thoughts of the main characters. Nothing is a secret to the audience and everything is told. I found this important to the story because give a deeper understanding of the characters and how they were feeling unlike some other anime were the audience is to assume many things.

The characters in the story are very interesting. They may seem generic on the surface but throughout the story they are really well develop and the audiences gains a great understanding of them. Each character is unique, very lovable and has their own quirks.

The animation of His and Her Circumstances has a lot of still images, it was fine for the first couple of episodes but it got annoying after awhile. It did take some emotion away from the characters when it did go into still frames. There was also a lot of scenery in it too (pictures of random things), I don’t know why they did it but it happened too often and for way too long periods.

Overall I really loved his anime, its one where I couldn’t in one sitting and watch the whole thing, I needed to stop watching and absorb what I just saw. It’s indeed a very good anime.

Story:

The story begins with Miyazawa Yukino, a girl who loves to be praised for everything she does and Arima, a boy who wants to excel at everything to get rid of his dark past. Ok, what I just told you will be recalled EVERYTIME by LOTS OF recaps. I think there are at least 4 episodes which are just recaps... (Skip those)

Look forward to the comedy and not the romance. As a personal opinion I think Arima and Miyazawa's relationship turned a little bit toxic at the end (at least for Arima's side...). Nevertheles, this show tried too hard at comedy which is a pity.

Animation:

The animation was really original. At first it has a decent good looking animation with good camera angles and colors but then it changes. There are some episodes which are entirely paper based or real photographs of Japan. The last episode i even a mute episode with people narrating some events.

Sound:

The classical touch fitted really well with the themes presented. Really pleasant to listen to.

Characters:

Arima and Yukino had an interesting story and the anime protrays their family life and emotions perfectly. But, once you know everything about them there isn't anything else really...

Secondary characters are also developed but it isn't something to praise as it doesn't affect the plot at all.

Overall:

You should definitely watch this. It's unique and super funny. Sadly it falls off midway terribly. But, I can guarantee that you won't regret watching it as the concept was unique.

When I saw the first episode of this one, I really found it very interesting. It is quite unique story for a shoujo for me. The strong points of this manga is the character development and the humor. I liked how the characters developed their feelings for each other. It is also really  funny for a shoujo genre and can really make you laugh out loud as you watch it. But things are only good on the first parts. When it reaches the middle part, the story loses its "interesting" factor and the plot goes into many different directions and will leave you wondering what is really happening between the main characters. The main reason for that is a lot of new characters are introduced and take a lot of space in the plot but their stories doesn't even end with a bang.

If you want an anime that really has a solid, steady and interesting plot then this is not for you. But if you are just after some cheesy moments and humor then you MIGHT like this one.

I was expecting Kare Kano to be yet another silly romantic comedy. I was wrong. It's different from the rest and oh so refreshing.

This anime has many flaws, but it's definetely worth a watch. 

It's set in high school and protagonists are our two high school students, Miyazawa and Arima. The first 10 episodes are dedicated to Miyazawa and Arima's relationship, after that the spotlight passes to the secondary characters - and that's the reason why many people say that after episode 10 it's largely filler. Well, I do admit it's annoying. I would have liked to see the main story more developed too. Anyway, there isn't much of a plot because the anime is unquestionably character-driven.

And the characters are in fact very well built and developed. Miyazawa prides herself on being a model student, admired by teachers and students alike. She loves being praised and puts a lot of hard work in creating that perfect image of herself she then successfully manages to broadcast to the whole school. Initially she comes across as quite annoying. Arima, too, is a model student, popular, handsome and liked by everyone, both boys and girls. The two meet, and the initial rivalry between them paves the way for the development of a deeper relationship: they get to know the real person hiding behind the model student mask and in the process they also understand themselves better. Obviously they fall in love. The relationship, the interaction between them also makes them change - and this process is very well narrated. Miyazawa is a more superficial character if compared to Arima; but you've gotta love her guts. She isn't scared of admitting her faults and mistakes; and it's quite a paradox for one so eager to be praised, but she doesn't let other people's judgement influence her. At a certain point her female classmates gang up against her so she is effectively the object of some serious bullying, not only doesn't she break down she also rejects Arima and the teacher's offer to help, determined to solve things by herself on her own terms. It's so easy when you describe episodes of bullying to portray victims. But she doesn't even for a moment think of herself as a victim. I really liked that. And she seems to see things more clearly, she has a clearer intuition of how her relationship with Arima is evolving and where it's going. I'm more of an Arima character myself, as in troubled and prone to overthinking things and lacking in self-confidence. So I really really liked Miyazawa. Arima has more depth, but I really couldn't empathise that much with him; even though, as I just said, I have a very similar personality. So, yeah, the characters are good. And the relationship is interesting. But I can't help feeling that it could've been even better. More's the pity that they introduced all those secondary characters and comedic filler episodes. As for the minor characters, some are better than others and some are better developed than others. Thanks to them we see some nice episodes of friendship, and often they serve to give insight on the two main characters. 

The soundtrack is really something. I wouldn't download it, but it's different from what we normally get and it really helps to define the mood and atmosphere. For what concerns the animation, everyone points out that the anime suffered from a serious lack of funds and insufficient budget. But nonetheless, I like how they managed to make things look artistic using sketches and black and white drawings and the such. I found it appealing to my aesthetic sense. I think this worked especially well for the scenes where deep emotions were being conveyed. What I didn't particularly like were all the still images - drawings and photos - of completely random stuff, mainly traffic lights, water taps, brooms in the school cupboard, industrial sites, drainage systems, school chairs etc. I just don't get what of any of that has to do with the story.    

So I definetely do recommend it. It's an entertaining and funny anime. It's got some good character development. It's more realistic than other anime dealing with the same topic. And it explores the relationship between the two main characters quite in depth. But there's a lot of filler and some of the secondary characters and their stories could have been easily left out. Even though it undeniably is a love story, my impression is that there wasn't all that much romance in the end. It's more of an analysis of the relationship between the two main characters and how that relationship changes them and to what extent they are aware of those changes. And in my opinion it would have been better if it had stuck to this - which it did really well - instead of being side-tracked by the minor characters.