KARESHI KANOJO NO JIJOU

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ComedyKareshi Kanojo no Jijou
MOVIE AdventureTonari no Totoro

REVIEWS

• 

  TheRealKyuubey

  30/100
  It's actually something of a trainwreck.

  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!

  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 particular joy of yours.

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• 

  mochiko

  85/100
  Pure 90's shoujo romcom bliss that is able to survive its own sabotage of itself

  Kare Kano - an excellent shoujo and an outstanding but simple romance, with visuals and sound that craft an extremely cute and cheery style, one that manages to be relatable and organic. And the last anime series that Hideaki Anno would ever direct.

  Right off the bat, there’s one thing you need to know if you’re considering watching this. The final 8 or so episodes see a dramatic drop in quality and are largely considered to be not worth watching at all (I didn’t watch them). This is most likely because Anno’s involvement lessened significantly at that point. The show was already plagued with the same time management problems as EVA, and this shows throughout the series.

  HOWEVER. Even considering this, episode 18 still offers a perfectly fine resolution of sorts for the main couple. The rest of the characters aren’t so lucky, but they weren’t particularly developed very much anyway.

  AND. Even with production problems and a good amount of lacking animation, colorless frames, and just plain real life footage, the animation and art style still shines in many moments. Often characters are given great expression and motion. Overall, the good outweigh the bad and the problematic moments probably won’t sour your experience.

  THE MAIN REASONS TO WATCH THIS ANIME - The development of the main couple, both AS a couple but even more importantly as individuals (and the effects that those developments then have on them as a couple), and the style. It’s pure late 90’s shoujo romcom bliss and I instantly fell in love with it.

  Now, to examine some things a bit closer and address some other elements.

  As the story progresses, new characters are introduced. Their greatest contribution is to give conflict and resolution arcs to the main couple and therefore act as plot devices for them. They nearly are able to stand on their own as fleshed out, interesting characters (some more than others), but they don’t quite get there.

  Yukino’s seiyou does an excellent job and brings quite a bit to the character. I thought her design wasn’t very appealing before watching the anime but I’m pretty sure her seiyou alone was enough to completely change my perspective on her. She’s a terrific protagonist altogether. Every moment with her is great.

  The two leads aren’t black and white. They have somewhat complicated personalities and histories that lend to great development, growth, and relatability. Read the summary on the anime’s page and you’ll get a better idea of what I mean (it’s basically the pitch of the show).

  The OST is worth noting because it’s excellent. It has this really upbeat like 1920’s(or 1950's?) romance vibe to it? It bleeds charm into every other element of the show and only uplifts the animation and the characters, Yukino especially.

  This anime subverts some particularly frustrating romcom cliches. Doing so isn't necessarily a mark of good writing on it's own merit, but it’s satisfying and a breath of fresh air. I will say though that KareKano's writing is good and the places where those cliches would've appeared in a lesser story, there are good characters and conflicts that only become better and more fleshed out. And the relationships these characters have (and the ones they build through resolving internal and external conflicts) are much more organic and human. And that combined with the silly over the top romcom style is a wonderful combination and reminds me why I even like anime in the first place. The untrained eye could see the over the top style and discount the show for being cheap and shallow, and oftentimes with lesser shows this is the case (not everyone is skilled enough to craft good characters). Anyone familiar with these kinds of shows, the good ones, knows this isn’t a rule. You CAN have good characters, human characters, and real conflicts, and also have a ridiculous sense of humor. Kare Kano does this well.

  3 cliches in particular caught my eye (these are a tad spoilery):

  1. The beginning of Arima's and Miyazawa's relationship altogether. Romance in anime is usually bogged down with the worst of cliches that seem to do everything they can to avoid giving the audience a satisfying and enjoyable narrative and progression. No garbage here. No irritating irrational misunderstandings. No deus ex machina to interrupt key moments. It just, flows naturally, and the drama is able to come from the foundations the characters are built upon rather than the writer's poor plot/drama construction.

  2. The jealous girl who's in love with Arima tries to sabotage Miyazawa and make her look mean and rude - right when this conflict is introduced, Arima shuts it down and sees right through her. This was honestly so cathartic. And the show was still able to keep the conflict of her being jealous without any problems (although it was rather minor, and resolved quickly and without much consequence).

  3. The jealous girl who turns the class against Miyazawa - after having given Miyazawa the silent treatment for a while, some of the girls are starting to pick up on the fact that their hatred for her is unfounded and unreasonable. Then the most amazing scene happens: they all are gathered in the classroom and they REASON out why it was stupid for them to do, and then they APOLOGIZE to Miyazawa, and THEN they go to the jealous girl and tell her that they've seen through her ploy and even though they can't like her now they still won't be petty and give her the silent treatment in return because they've learned how petty it is. GAH SO REFRESHING HOLY SHIT.

  [Note - the characters in cliche's 2 and 3 are jealous of Miyazawa for different, understandable reasons and they're very different characters.]

  Okay, having said all this, as much as I enjoy this anime, the story itself is pretty lowkey. Not particularly gripping in the way that Toradora is. But again, it stands on its own for the reasons I've talked about and I believe it’s well worth watching. It’s without a doubt one of my favorite romcoms.

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• 

  unimportantuser

  100/100
  Kare Kano is a great successor to Evangelion

  Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou/Kare Kano/His & Her Circumstances is a romantic comedy slice of life anime originally written as a manga by Masami Tsuda. Which was then adapted by studio Gainax & directed by Hideaki Anno of Evangelion fame. Kare Kano is a rather divisive anime on MAL (and in general), it has vocally passionate fans, and strong haters who think it’s trash. I think you can guess which side I’m on looking at the score, but I might as well explain why I’m on the side that I am. This review may contain mild spoilers, read at your own risk.

  Story & Characters (writing):

  The story of Kare Kano revolves around Yukino Miyazawa & Armia Souichiro, two genius kids who put on a false persona to trick people into thinking they’re much better as people than they actually are. As Yukino & Arima get to know each other & start becoming more friendly, they start to open up & become more of themselves.

  Much like the last anime I took a look at “Kimagure Orange Road”, Kare Kano’s story isn’t very complicated. But the way Kare Kano goes about writing its characters & scenarios is what turns the story into more than just 2 characters falling in love. As the story progresses, we get to see Yukino & Arima not only open themselves up more to people, but get more comfortable with just being themselves and becoming more laid back people in general. Much like Evangelion, Kare Kano dives into exploring human psychology & how these characters act & what makes them act the way they do. Personally though, I think Kare Kano does a much better job at explaining, showcasing, & working in the reasons & events as to why the characters act the way they do naturally than Evangelion does.

  Kare Kano’s comedy isn’t my kind of comedy admittedly, there’s some good jokes & moments sprinkled in there, & I feel as though Kare Kano’s comedy isn’t too intrusive to the story & character development at hand, as Kare Kano knows to keep its comedy out of the darker scenes, but I don’t find myself laughing at too many of Kare Kano’s jokes. Still, it doesn’t ever become intrusive enough to piss me off or annoy me.

  One aspect of Kare Kano that I absolutely will not excuse are the recaps. This was just a lazy money saving technique on the part of all involved at Gainax. There’s no reason I need a recap of what happened last episode everytime. One may argue “You can just skip them” but if it comes to that point, then it’s rubbish, plain and simple.

  Onto the characters. Kare Kano has too many characters for me to list off, so I won’t go over every last one of them, as that would start delving into major spoiler territory, and I’d like to keep the spoilers to a minimum. In fact, I’m going to do something a little different from my KOR & Maison Ikkoku review, I’m going to lump our 2 leads & the side characters into a category & explain how the show writes them.

  An overlying theme about Kare Kano is opening up & becoming yourself. Everyone goes through a mini-arc like that. While this brings up a point on how the side characters are used, & can be argued that this intrudes on the main characters journey, I’d argue it does, but also doesn’t. See, the series isn’t good at working its side characters into the story to help move it along naturally, & the side characters are given just enough screen time in order for this to happen. On the flip side though, this also creates layered individuals with their own character traits & stories to tell. It also helps Kare Kano’s world feel more alive & lived in at the same time. The side characters are a double edged sword, they bring goods, & bads to the series. I’d argue more good than bad though, at least they go beyond nothing more than repeated, tired jokes & caricatures like the side characters in something like Orange Road or Ranma ½ do.

  Art & Sound (presentation):

  The art is a bit of a mixed bag, unfortunately falling more on the lesser side. The backgrounds of Kare Kano look great, but the character art & animation leave a lot to be desired. What also doesn’t help the art is just how terrible Gainax was at managing its money, so the production of this show was an absolute mess, & at times shots & even full episodes (specifically the last 2) are nothing more than “Moving Manga Sequences” with barely any movement to it. The animation can look pretty good at times, but a lot of the time it’s pretty flat, if there’s one thing Evangelion definitely has over Kare Kano, it’s its animation. Kare Kano’s shots are often quite static with not much movement going on in them, although I think these shots do work a lot of the time, that’s only because this series has the strong writing that it would need to back that kind of shot up.

  On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the soundtrack is absolutely amazing! Shirou Sagisu returns from Evangelion to compose yet another piece for Hideaki Anno & his team over at Gainax. It’s very comparable to his score on Evangelion, particularly with how both Eva, & Kare Kano use a lot of classical music. There’s a great variety in pieces & they’re all used to great effect to fit the type of mood that a scene is going for. It’s a very dynamic soundtrack, and for that it gets massive props from me.

  The voice acting is…… interesting to say the least. I think it’s neither outright bad, nor outright good, just, interesting. Kare Kano makes use of child actors to give a more natural feel to the dialogue, which works, but there have been better examples of this practice being used to great effect. One performance I really have to bring mention to is “Mayumi Shintari” as Tsubasa. I like her voice, but it doesn’t really fit. Overall, I'd give the voice acting a 5. There's goods & bads to it. It fits the series ok enough, but there isn't an absolutely outstanding performance attached here.

  Final Thoughts/Overall

  So that’s Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou. Is it a perfect series? No, not even remotely. It has pretty distinct flaws to it, especially in the production of this show. Without spoiling too much, Tsuda didn’t like how Hideaki Anno & his team over at Gainax adapted Kare Kano, so she and Anno were constantly having disagreements. At some point, Anno just became fed up & not only left Kare Kano, but left TV animation entirely. This in turn lead to the show taking a lot, and I mean A LOT of corner cutting techniques, one of the episodes was literally made with paper & popsicle sticks (though I quite like that episode). At the very least these episodes were able to keep the strong writing seen in the first 18 episodes, but even that can’t begin to excuse how terrible the production values in episodes 19-26 are. Not only that though, the art is pretty mediocre, the side characters can intrude, & the recaps are pure laziness. But with all that said, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou is still my 2nd favorite anime of all time. It may not be better than Evangelion on a technical level, but I love it way more than Evangelion & consider Kare Kano to be when Hideaki Anno peaked. I love the characters of this anime, I love the story, I love the overarching theme, I love the cinematography, I love pretty much everything about Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou. In spite of Kare Kano’s massive flaws, I will always love it. So with that said, my final rating is going to be an enthusiastic 10/10. I know not everybody is going to feel the same way about this anime that I do, and that’s absolutely ok. But if you’re looking for a rom-com/slice-of-life, or are a massive fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion, then I highly implore you all to check out this work.

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