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

Ikeda, Kazuma Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Sena, Rika Supporting

Fukui, Yukari Japanese

Sakura, Tsubaki Supporting

Chiba, Saeko Japanese

Kobayashi, Noriko Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Kamimura, Yasuhiro Producer

Abe, Michihisa Producer

Reviews

Feb 2, 2025

Puri20thboy

Recommended

Kare Kano (His and Her Circumstances) is a romantic comedy that stands out from most others, diving deep into its characters, exploring themes like identity, and featuring an experimental direction that enhances its storytelling.

The story follows Yukino, a seemingly perfect student adored by everyone at school. However, when Arima appears and surpasses her, stealing the spotlight, she becomes frustrated. Arima eventually confesses his feelings to her, but she rejects him. Later, he discovers Yukino’s true, less-than-perfect self and takes advantage of this revelation, setting the stage for their complex relationship.

While this synopsis may sound like a typical setup for the genre, Kare Kano avoids falling ... into clichés or relying on archetypes. The characters undergo genuine development, evolving throughout the story in a meaningful way. More than that, the series delves deeply into their inner struggles, desires, and identity crises. Both Yukino and Arima have built false personas, ultimately losing themselves in the process.

The side characters are just as well-developed, not merely serving as comic relief but also having their own struggles and growth arcs. However, this in-depth focus on secondary characters means that, at times, the main protagonists take a backseat, with their relationship and development temporarily put on hold.

Unfortunately, due to the series’ cancellation, the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying, leaving many narrative threads unresolvedespecially disappointing given that it happens just as Arima delivers a spectacular internal monologue.

Despite this, Kare Kano’s experimental direction and animation are remarkable, adding both humor and depth to the storytelling, making it an engaging and highly enjoyable experience.

Kare Kano is far more than just another romantic comedy—it is a character-driven story that deeply explores identity, relationships, and personal struggles. Its experimental approach to animation and direction makes it a unique and memorable experience. While its cancellation leaves it incomplete, the journey it offers remains impactful and well worth watching.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 9, 2021

Justykanna

Mixed Feelings

In the last few months, I've been looking at some older anime romance series that have gotten some decent ratings. His and Her Circumstances did come up in that search. Someone I used to talk to about anime sent me a message a while ago and I mostly forgot about it until a few months before this review. I decided to follow up on that message, finally!

Story: Yukino and Souichirou are two top students in their class - they get very favourable grades, they're athletic and are very well liked by their classmates. The beginning specifically focuses on Yukino, who does ... just about everything to make sure her top spot is kept. At home, however, Yukino is very laid back and doesn't act anything like she does at school. Souichirou finds this out and, while at first he blackmails her, Yukino slowly realizes that they could be compatible after all. They start dating and, honestly, there are many instances where they make quite a pretty cute couple. This series does play out a lot like you might expect of some high schoolers, and when you can relate it, it pulls in the audience even more. There's some pretty strong content written into the story too, which is impressive considering the year in which it was released. The interactions between our main couple are really well played out.

One thing I don't love about many of the episodes is the extensive use of monologuing. It just happens way too often and while many fans won't mind this, I found it took some of the experience away from me. Every so often isn't a bad thing because you get to hear what a character thinks in the moment, but when it occurs as often as this series uses them, you almost feel like you're listening to an anime, rather than watching it.

Many of the episodes take some time to get us to know the backstory of several characters as well - including, but not limited to, Souichirou and side characters Tsubasa, Hideaki, Tsubaki and Takefumi. All of their backstories are fascinating and very different from each other. With 26 episodes to play with, I'm glad they took the time to get us to know the side characters better.

All that being said, the ending leaves a lot more to be desired. It feels like the last few episodes don't really belong here because they focus on a student event, but they never execute it. Much of the planning happens, but we don't get to see anything else about it after the initial episode. It seems like a really strange way to end a series and the last episode doesn't even feel like a conclusion. (7/10)

Characters: Yukino and Souichirou, as alluded to above, are strong characters with some fascinating backstories to them. Yukino tries to hide who she is at home from her classmates, even though she's seemingly perfect on the outside. Souichirou has a past that he isn't particularly proud of, but gets exceptional grades, despite his past, which clearly haunts him. While they more or less try and get through common problems together, you do sort of wish major points of contention were brought up more often. Specifically, the last bunch of episodes don't really show them together all that much.

As for your side characters, they all have strong points for what they are. Hideaki is a bit of a weirdo, but he fits perfectly into the series. It adds some comic relief and his interactions with Souichirou are fantastic. Tsubasa is introduced a little later on and she has some pretty rough problems of her own. What makes her stand out is how the group she's around attempt to help her through those problems and the result is really satisfying. Takefumi doesn't have a great past either and works hard to try and better himself so that he's happy with his life. For the most part, he's a fine character, but I feel like they didn't expand enough on his character.

Characters are generally pretty strong, being propped up by a episodes that are dedicated to them. Not everyone's likable - Tsubaki and Maho I feel were written in to be unlikable - but you don't hate any of them. Even Yukino's dad got some spotlight later on. So while you don't like the whole cast, you can certainly pick out some side characters and say they added well to the series. (7/10)

Art: When you're watching some older anime, the question that comes up is "How well does it hold up today?". Sadly, this series does not hold up well - at least in my eyes. The animation always feels lackluster and the series' reliance on still-photos does beg a few questions. They started doing them less in the late part of the series, but when you're watching our main couple in multiple still shots, it gets old. There's also an episode in the middle where they use real-life backgrounds with cartoon-looking pictures as the character portraits and it really doesn't look good for me. (2/10)

Sound: If we're asking how the art holds up, we can also ask how the sound holds up, right? Because, while the OST and tracks aren't super impressive, the VOs are. Pre-2000, dubbing companies were very clearly still figuring out how to bring a strong audio presentation to the stage and this was executed really well. Kathleen McInerney (Yukino) was fantastic. Perfect, almost. She's obviously known for her work in the Pokémon anime as Ash and his mother, but this would have been one of her early works too and she kills it. Other veterans who grade out well here are Liam O'Brien (Hideaki) and Megan Hollingshead (Kano).

One minor thing I wanted to mention is that I love what they did with the episode previews. You end up seeing two females talking into a mic, very expressively, about the next episode, in the recording studio. In English, the VOs for that are Yukino's sisters (Megan Hollingshead and Jessica Calverro). Obviously the audio isn't synced with what you see on screen, but the energy these two brought to an episode preview was impressive - and very different from what you see today. (8/10)

Overall Enjoyment: His and Her Circumstance is probably the most difficult I've had grading out an anime series, ever. The story they have in place is there, but the way it was executed leaves a lot more to be desired. Normally, art styles don't bother me but I can't help but feel it took so much away from the experience. If this was produced today, I feel like it would see widespread acceptance. It's still good, but this may just be a case of a good anime with poor execution that didn't age all that well. (6/10)

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 18, 2022

alquimistablanco

Not Recommended

An analogy: imagine you're listening to a singer perform a brand-new song that has four verses. Their voice is nothing special, but the first two verses and the chorus tell a deeply relatable, at times heartwarming and at times heartwrenching story... then on the third verse the singer stumbles for a bit and ends up having to repeat the second verse, and on the final verse the entire tune changes and is distorted until it's unrecognizable. How do you rate such a song? Was it good overall? Do its exceptional parts outweigh its stumbles and ultimate failure? Does it matter if the sheet music had ... a fifth unsung verse even worse than the performance you just saw?

KareKano was a promising series that suffered a late-term budget and directorial abortion midway through. The honest romance, strong characterization, realistic relationship struggles, and unique art style got abandoned halfway through and replaced with clip show recaps and a back half of episodes that never quite manage to find their footing after the interruption.

If you're feeling like an anime archaeologist and want to see a classic romance series that has the bones of a good story with a depth of emotions, characters who actually push themselves and each other forward, and a sometimes hypnotically calm and thoughtful pace, you could certainly use to flip through a few episodes of KareKano, but it never quite delivers on what it promises at the outset.

That being said, hungry for more, I pursued the manga, which concludes on some... deeply problematic notes with enough red flags to make the Beijing Olympics look tame. You've been warned.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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