Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou

Yukino Miyazawa is the female representative for her class and the most popular girl among the freshmen at her high school. Good at both academics and sports on top of being elegant and sociable, she has been an object of admiration all her life. However, in reality, she is an incredibly vain person who toils relentlessly to maintain her good grades, athleticism, and graceful appearance. She wants nothing more than to be the center of attention and praise—which is why she cannot stand Souichirou Arima, the male representative for her class and the only person more perfect than her. Since the first day of high school, she has struggled to steal the spotlight from her new rival but to no avail.

At last, on the midterm exams, Yukino gets the top score and beats Souichirou. But, to her surprise, he congratulates her on her achievement, leading her to question her deceptive lifestyle. When Souichirou confesses his love to Yukino, she turns him down and gloats about it at home with only a hint of regret. But the very next day, Souichirou visits Yukino house to bring her a CD and sees her uninhibited self in action; now equipped with the truth, he blackmails her into completing his student council duties. Coerced into spending time with Souichirou, Yukino learns that she is not the only one hiding secrets.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Miyazawa, Yukino Main

Enomoto, Atsuko Japanese

Arima, Souichirou Main

Suzuki, Chihiro Japanese

Shibahime, Tsubasa Supporting

Shintani, Mayumi Japanese

Asaba, Hideaki Supporting

Kisaichi, Atsushi Japanese

Pero Pero Supporting

Miyazawa, Hiroyuki Supporting

Kusao, Takeshi Japanese

Izawa, Maho Supporting

Noda, Junko Japanese

Sena, Rika Supporting

Fukui, Yukari Japanese

Ikeda, Kazuma Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Sakura, Tsubaki Supporting

Chiba, Saeko Japanese

Kobayashi, Noriko Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Kamimura, Yasuhiro Producer

Abe, Michihisa Producer

Reviews

Nov 10, 2006

Crystal

Recommended

Kare Kano was a romance anime that could have become incredibly great, if it had the proper budget and ideas from the producer to actually complete the show properly. Unfortunately the stale ending that Kare Kano ended on left myself and I’m sure many other fans in frustration. Based on the popular shoujo manga by Masami Tsuda, Kare Kano is about the blossoming love between two high school students who lived a life of lies, pretending to be the perfect person for their own reasons. Being able to truthfully open up to each other, their initial friendship turns to love. Sadly, life isn’t so easy ... for them as they face many trials to be together.

At first glance, Kare Kano is your average high school romance story. Thankfully, the odd personalities of the two leading characters break the idea of this just being another romance story. Kare Kano does contain the usual shoujo romance story elements when it comes to the trials for our main couple (jealous outsiders, temporary separation). But originality is able to come through with the way the leading characters handle their problems, often ending in a comedic resolve to their troubles. Besides the usual love trials, Kare Kano also features a number of interesting side stories about the support characters, so if you’re not a fan of the main couple, fear not, there are other amusing couples in the series as well. Unfortunately, Kare Kano’s story takes a nosedive with the lack of an ending. The last few episodes continue to build the plot up, but the series simply ends before anything can come out of the previous events. This is one of the greatest annoyances when it comes to Kare Kano, especially if one is not a manga reader.

The animation is more or less quite poor in Kare Kano. Taking into account this show is from 1998, anyone can easily see the budget was definitely not allocated to producing good animation. The first half of the show had its moments, the animation in this part of the series were acceptable. One of the techniques that the producers used was to cut out still images directly from the manga, which can be both a good and bad thing. Obviously this saves the producer a lot on cost of actual animation and some may think it is quite cheap of them. But I would think majority of people feel the black and white manga images added to the atmosphere of the show, especially in the moments they were used (which were when things became more serious). The second half of Kare Kano was when the animation began to lose its charm. More still images were constantly being used. Episode 19 of Kare Kano had the entire episode made up of cardboard cut outs, which were stuck on sticks and moved around (like a puppet show). The last five episodes were horrendous, a lot more of the manga pictures were being used, but rather then adding to the atmosphere, it just made the entire show feel cheap. The final episode barely had any animation at all, simply still images.

The sound in Kare Kano is one of its stronger points. The opening and ending have catchy pop songs that some may or may not like depending on their taste in music. There are also a number of enjoyable piano tunes in Kare Kano. All in all, the background music fitted well to the mood in this anime. A good pat on the back for the Japanese voice actors of Kare Kano as well. The VA for Yukino (the leading female) did a wonderful job in bringing out Yukino’s two faced personality, as did the VA for Arima (the leading male). If anything, the only complaint I have for the Japanese VAs was the one for the supporting character Tsubasa. I only felt her voice did not feel right.

Perhaps Kare Kano’s strongest point would be the characters. The leading couple is two somewhat eccentric two faced people (particularly the female) who pretty much break out of the stereotypical shoujo couple. The leading female, Yukino is an absolute riot to watch. You will witness her stressing over the smallest of things, unbelievable for someone who at first glance seemed to be the most perfect person you could find anywhere. Supporting characters such as Asaba and Tsubasa are also equally enjoying to watch as their odd personalities fit in perfectly with Kare Kano’s quirkiness. Character development is very thorough in Kare Kano, with even Yukino’s parents having screen time to develop their back stories. The only negative feature when it comes to the characters is that even towards the end of the show the characters are constantly built up with development, only to have the show end before anything could happen.

For why I enjoyed Kare Kano, I was previously a fan of the manga already. My favourite character would definitely have to be Yukino for her weirdo personality and decisions to solve her problems. I also really like the ending song, which I thought was perfect. Albeit I was definitely frustrated with how the show ended. The terrible animation was just painful for me to watch (especially the last 6 or so episodes). And I thought it was a poor decision on the producer’s part to end the show like it would end every other episode, and slap on a “The End”. I mean, nothing ended at all.

Overall, despite its obvious flaws Kare Kano still manages to be a favourite amongst the shoujo lovers for its interesting array of characters and somewhat unique storyline for the main couple. If you aren’t normally fond of stereotypical high school love stories, try giving Kare Kano a try. It’s recommended though to continue with the manga after watching the anime if you want to see how the story ends, since you won’t find any ending from here. So yeah, If you like comedy, romance, weird characters and high school settings then Kare Kano will probably be for you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 9, 2010

aoi-ryu

Mixed Feelings

OK so I really liked this anime the characters in it were great, I loved the fact that it is set apart from almost every other anime in this genre with the lead characters not being the typical boy meets girl, boy likes girl (or other way around) but both being to timid and shy to do anything about it, in Kare Kano they get on with it and happily admit that they like each other, I also loved that the lead characters were real in the fact that when at home they were completely different from when out with friends or at school.

What I ... really did not like at all about this anime and the reason that i have given it such a low overall rating is the fact that the last final episodes (25 and 26) do not follow the story line that has been set and are really just filling you in on what has happened throughout the series so far and then the final episode finishes without really giving you an ending, so really it is like the producers thought "hey lets make this manga into the anime" and then halfway through it they got bored of it and decided they just didn't care anymore and couldn't be bothered leaving all the fans going "ummmmm huh OK, so where is the rest?"

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 19, 2014

Fear_the_Reefer

Not Recommended

Yukino Miyazawa is at the top of her class in both grades and respect. She’s the perfect model student... poised, generous, cultured, the picture of a school idol. But before you can start throwing around accusations of her being a Mary-Sue, she informs you very clearly that it’s all an act. She pretends to be perfect, working her little butt off to not only get good grades, but to make it look easy. Why? Because she loves receiving praise, and Japan has that whole ‘sempai’ thing going on.

Her world is thrown into turmoil when a new student transfers into her class, named Soichiro Arima, and ... his good grades immediately bump her from her pedestal as the smartest kid in school. She declares him her rival, and he declares her... His love interest?

There’s a lot to talk about in regards to this series... I’ll try to touch on most of it... But to start, I can’t restrain myself from gushing about the English dub, which is easily one of the best I’ve ever heard. It consists mainly of some of the best and brightest stars of the nineties, and they all give four star performances. Yukino is a very talky character, whose inner monologues take up a disproportionate amount of the script, and this would be unbearable coming from anybody other than Veronica Taylor(Ash Ketchum, Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun), who has a distinct habit of throwing herself wholeheartedly into every single role she performs. Her obsession over her grades and her budding relationship is every bit as convincing as her drive to become a Pokemon master ever was, and she never misses a beat on this project.

Christopher Nicholas plays Soichiro just as flawlessly, hitting a wide range of emotions where most other actors would have just gone flat. He’s a damaged boy with very profound abandonment issues, and his motive for overachieving is entirely different from Yukino’s, even though it has about an equally complex affect on his life. He does such a great job that I have to wonder why he only had six other anime roles aside from this one.

Soichiro’s childhood friends consist of Hideaki Asaba... Or Sexy Carlos, as AMV Hell 3 called him... and Tsubasa Shibahime, who has an unrequited crush on Soichiro. Because of course she does. Hideaki is played by Liam O’Brien, and I don’t really think Dr. Tenma from monster needs me to tell you how great he is. He loves his lascivious ladies’ man character, and eats up every sleazy line he’s given. Lisa Ortiz, who voiced my favorite character of all time Lina Inverse, portrays Tsubasa, and she’s able to command the screen even when her dialogue is reduced to growling. Which is a thing that happens. Rachel Lillis also has a handful of roles, and while they’re not as diverse as her multiple roles in Pokemon, she still does a great job.

The other two of note are Yukino’s younger sisters, Kano and Tsukino, but the only really big part they play in the story is the fact that it’s their job to dole out plot summaries at the beginning of most episodes, and the preview at the end of every episode. And who did they cast for these roles? Megan Hollingshead (Officer Jenny, Nurse joy, the Sonozaki Twins) and Jessica Calvello (Excel!). While either of these actors are phenomenal on their own, they work even better together, feeding off of each others’ already boisterous energy.

By the way, i’m going to go briefly off topic to say how awesome it is to have Calvello returning to voice acting. She’s already done a few recent roles for Sentai filmworks, and even some Cyanide and Happiness clips, and now she’s going to be in Attack on Titan! Glad to have you back, and I mean it!

Oh, I should probably say something about the music. There's some nice sounding 60's stuff, but the track you'll remember the most is a very somber piano piece. You'll remember it the most because they play the damn thing over and over and over again.

Since this series was produced directly after Evangelion, I don’t think it’ll be any surprise that it had an abysmally small animation budget to work with. But that’s never the death knell of any anime... Any show can look fantastic even with the barest of budgets. And since Kare Kano is a slow paced and text-heavy romantic comedy, it should have been easy to cut corners wherever possible without really upsetting anybody.

But since this is late nineties Studio Gainax, the order of the day seems to have been ‘make it look like the last few episodes of Evangelion.’ Much like he did in Eva, Director Hideaki Anno overcompensates for the lack of animation money by employing hyper, eclectic visual style that’s meant to distract us, like dangling keys in front of a baby. this is a huge pet peeve of mine, and until now, I always assumed that Bakemonogatari was the worst offender. The art direction is largely directionless, as the breakneck editing frequently jumps from style to style. When we’re not watching the lifeless key frames of the actual material, we’re looking at art-class charcoal sketches, monochromatic manga images, and... I swear I’m not making this up... Actual cardboard cut-outs on popsicle sticks, all in a hilarious attempt to distract us from what little visual flare the soft, pastel-clad series has to offer. There’s no OTHER reason for such a slow paced anime to do this... Oh, wait, yes there is.

In order to talk about the writing that went into Kare Kano, I’m going to have to start by explaining the concept of Show Don’t Tell. Well, a condensed explanation is in order, as it pertains to a visual medium. Basically, telling the viewer about something isn’t going to give them the same experience as showing it to them. If a feeling or emotion can be stated with a simple change of expression, there’s no reason to have the character blab on about it. For example, my biggest problem with Kick-Ass 2 was that the admittedly bold character development was explored through long-winded emotional speeches, rather than actual actions. Show, don’t tell.

Unfortunately, Kare Kano is an extremely ‘telly’ series. Every single plot point is stated to us, sometimes over and over again, and I’m not just talking about the plot recaps. The voice-over narrations between our two heroes are incessant, as they beat us over the head with every thought, concern, or emotion that may be going through their minds. We’re constantly reminded about things that we couldn’t have possibly forgotten, and no matter who’s talking, they won’t shut up about Yukino’s personality, whether real or constructed, or about the fact that her and Shoichiro are changing each other. A good cast can go a long way, but this amount of expositional soliloquizing wears out it’s welcome fast. And don’t even get me started on the constant... And I mean constant... On-screen text.

Basically, it has the pretentious writing style of Evangelion, and the heavily randomized viaual style of FLCL, and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it wasn’t for it’s slow pace and limbo-champ stakes.

Which is unfortunate, because when the show actually shuts the hell up for two minutes and develops the characters normally, it can deliver some heart-stoppingly beautiful moments. But they're few and far between.

I don’t think it’s a big spoiler to say that our two leads become a couple, since this is a romantic comedy, but the surprising factor is just how fast they get together. Instead of relying on the cliched will-they-won’t-they dynamic, Kare Kano isn’t a story about them getting together as much as it is about them staying together. And that would make for a really interesting plot, if there was any actual threat to them. Yes, the characters themselves may not be annoyingly perfect, but their relationship damn well IS. Every conflict they ever face... And I hate using hyperbole, so no, I am not exaggerating about this... Is resolved as quickly and easily as possible, before being instantly forgotten. Even the characters that try to get in their way are defeated, befriended, and robbed of any future identity or screen time.

Unfortunately for Kare Kano, my other big pet peeve is when a series spends an entire episode... Or two... On one character's arc, giving them development or a backstory just to drop them out of the story immediately afterwards. When that character is going to be killed off, that's one thing, but when they're going to lose all of their dialogue and literally act like a monkey for the rest of the show, that's something else. And not something good.

Sometimes, even the events revolving specifically around our couple ultimately result in nothing. Here, I’ll give you a spoiler-example. Soichiro was abandoned by his deadbeat father and physically abusive mother as a child. He’s raised by his aunt and uncle, and at one point in the series, we travel with him to his family reunion. And because of some betrayal his father committed, everybody hates him, saying he’ll amount to nothing. You may be saying “Wait, isn’t he at the top of his class?’ Yes, and his uncle brings up that exact point, telling all of them that they’re feelings toward him make no sense. And that’s where that storyline ends.

If having a character point out that something didn’t make sense was enough to make up for the fact that it didn’t make sense, I would have enjoyed Angel Beats a bit more.

Now, here’s the part where I put my money where my mouth is; That entire plot point could have been easily improved. Rather than openly hating him for something he didn’t deserve, why not have them secretly hate him, but wear fake smiles around him and pretend to love him BECAUSE of his grades? Then when they find out that his grades slipped because of his girlfriend, their true natures show! See, by doing that, they could have tied this conflict directly into the main plot. His relationship to Yukino could have been dragged into it, kicking and screaming if necessary.

To address the elephant in the room, a lot of people consider this show’s damning flaw to be the fact that it suddenly ended at episode 26, leaving off without any sort of conclusion. This was done because the manga author, Masami Tsuda, didn’t like the direction the adaptation was taking. She said that Anno was focusing more on the comedy than the main romance, and as such, she refused to let them adapt her work any further. Personally, I think it was unfair and entirely inaccurate of her to imply that this show was moving in some sort of direction in the first place. But yes, I have to side with her on this. I’m actually glad she cut them off, because in addition to protecting her own name, she prevented Anno from embarrassing himself any further.

There's a long list of shows that were inspired in some way or another by this particular series, including one of my first positive reviews, Yamada's First Time. The problem? Almost all of these shows are decisively better than Kare Kano.

For those of you who decided to TLDR by skipping right to my final thoughts, I’d hate to disappoint you, so here they are. Kare Kano is a train wreck. I’m sorry, I know it’s popular, and a lot of people love it, but I have to be honest; This is one of the most badly written and poorly executed pieces of work that I’ve ever seen. It showed some promise in the beginning, but even then, the cracks in the writing were already beginning to show. My expectations may have been a little too high, but even if they weren’t, my opinion of this show would still be the same. I thought it would be the best anime I reviewed this month, but no, it’s the worst. At least This Ugly Yet Beautiful World put forth some actual effort, making a genuine attempt to have a decent story and a consistent plot.

I give His and Her Circumstances a 3/10. If you’re pleasantly intrigued by the idea of watching a circle of talking heads play Uno for three minutes, go ahead and raise it to a 5/10, as no other show will be lazy enough to deliver on that esoteric joy.

His and Her Circumstances: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worshiping and Hate the Gainax.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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