Schoolhouse Angst

Review: His and Her Circumstances/Kare Kano/Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou

Anime/Manga/Music/DVD's/Fandom/Merchandise

Reviewed by: BadJew

Title rating: PG to PG-13. Romantic angst and humor, tastefully done romance, Tokyo being destroyed

-25-episode TV anime series, complete
-13+ volume manga (comic) series, still running

Every so often there comes along a show that is perfect in every respect. Character design; perfect. Sound; perfect. Story line and writing; perfect. Even the things which look like flaws only serve to make the show more perfect. Kare Kano is this show. A show were even the recap episodes were done so well that they made me, a grown man and a bad Jew, cry out of sure beauty. The last thing that made me cry was a good kick to the crotch, just to make sure the above comment is in the context it deserves. There is a finite limit to the amount of times that I can say "Gainax is God", however, if we assume that the life span of the universe is 15 trillion years, and I say that Gainax is God at every possible opportunity, then it would take about 7X10^17 universal cycles for me to reach that limit. If Gainax is not the God, then it is surely a God.

The plot of Kare Kano (in English, "His and Her Circumstances," and in Japanese, fully, "Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou") is not important, it is simply boy likes girl, girl likes boy, both have problems communicating that fact. Same plot as Kodocha or any number of shoujo (girls' comics) titles. But then again, Homer's Odyssey is about a guy trying to sail home. Though, in a nice twist which you don't see often enough, story arcs shoot off from the main theme of Miyazawa and Arima's (the two main characters') romance to focus on other characters, such as Miyazawa's father and her friends. Without these arcs, it is easy to imagine that Arima's angst would get so overwhelming that it would serve as a turnoff, but these different story lines prevent this from happening.

It's the characters that make the show great. Yukino Miyazawa is possibly the most well-developed person I have ever seen in an anime. The director Hideaki Anno of Eva fame does a fantastic job of making her a real person. Sure she's smart, beautiful, and an all-around good person (or so she pretends to be), but in order to reach this pinnacle of social success, she has given up any chance of having a normal teenage life, going out with friends to the movies and shopping and such. She reconizes this fact, but one of her major downfalls is that giving up a social life in exchange for scholarly success is so ingrained in her personality that she must work to overcome this problem.

Souichiro Arima, Miyazawa's boyfriend and enemy when it comes to grades, too is developed excellently. While he is a bit overly angsty, teenaged angst is a major theme in many of Gainax's recent works. Unfortunately his angst sometimes reaches such a point that it's a bit of a turnoff, but this doesn't happen often, and mainly occurs later in the series when the story arc turns from him to other side characters.

Ahhh, ain't she a cuttie.

But, though this is a shoujo teen romance show, that doesn't mean that the patented Gainax humor doesn't show itself. Chibi-moments, dirty jokes, the destruction of Tokyo, and live-action shots of the characters on popsicle sticks all make appearances. This show is probably one of the funniest shoujo titles this side of Kodocha. Miyazawa making battle plans to capture the heart of Arima, Kano, Miyazawa's sister (though she clearly looks and sounds like a boy), explaining what true love is using manga that he made himself, and Miyazawa's father calling Arima a maggot for daring to court his daughter, only to be conquered by Arima's winning smile and thus offering his daughter for marriage, make the show an instant classic.

In fact, the only major disappointment that I had with this show is that it ends, or to be more precise, it doesn't so much end as there are no more episodes made. Episode 25, the last episode, does not bring a conclusion to anything; in fact from the looks of it it seems that it was the start of a new story arc. You're left thinking that there must be one more tape that you just didn't see on the fansubber's page, or that there's still going to be one more DVD forthcoming, but no, this is truly the end my friend. Who knows, maybe there was a very good reason for this, or may be Gainax doesn't employ any accountants who would keep them from spending all their money before the last episode of the show (anyone remember episodes 24 and 25 of Eva?), or maybe God just hates me--but whatever the explanation, there is no conclusion to this show. In fact, the reason why it stopped was an argument with the manga artist over if the show should be a romance or a comedy (Gianax wanted a comedy, she wanted a romance.)

However, if you do want a conclusion, check out the manga, still running strong, at time of writing, at 68+ acts (or weeks that it has appeared in Weekly Shoujo LaLa, the Japanese magazine in which it runs). I have a few volumes of the manga, and it looks like the show follows the manga almost word for word, so much so that even though I can't read a lick of Japanese I can follow what's happening in several volumes. Kare Kano is actually the first time that Gainax has animated a manga--usually they do all their writing in house--and this is an amazing transition. Gainax has managed to keep the manga feel, most notably in the charcoal and ink backgrounds and image shots, while giving a very TV feel that's impossible to get in the manga. It's being released in English through the auspices of Tokyopop, and is something that if you like the series, you should definitely check out.

When I submitted this review for uh ... review on a Kare Kano mailing list, there was a bit of controversy over who should get credit for the story of Kare Kano; Anno, the director of the show, or Masami Tsuda, the creator of the manga on which the show is based. Truly, the manga is great--even though I can't read Japanese, I can detect quality in the drawing style and the way it's set up. However, the story by Tsuda, while it is well-done and contains excellent, well-developed characters, is only so orginal. There was nothing particularly ground-breaking in the manga. It was the show, develped by Anno and the Gainax team that took a good, above-average manga and turned it into something worthy of the epitath 'classic'.

One of the most interesting points of the show is the interaction between the music and the animation. Gainax is well known for its use of classical music, so much so that whenever I hear Ode to Joy I can't help but think of Shinji screaming in a fetal position.

Kare Kano continues the rich tradition of amazing music with a great compilation of classical, modern, and j-pop, which are all used to enhance the overall feeling of the show. Violin and piano are used when angst is on screen; when everyone is in chibi-form, guitar and synthesizer music is used. The soundtracks, which can be picked up from E-Bay or any number of anime stores, is good, though it lacks the original flare that made other Gainax soundtracks, such as FLCL, stand out.

Oh dear God, they're all Nazis.

And you thought she was a nice girl.

Real men don't cry!

DVDs

The domestic DVDs, put out by RightStuf, generated a whole lot of speculation over at AnimeOnDvd.com (the major source for Anime DVD rumors and speculation), and that speculation was well-deserved. From a technical standpoint, the DVD is huge. In Kare Kano there is a whole lot of on-screen text--be it Miyazawa's classmate's admiration for her or her angst, a good deal of the emotions evoked in the show are given in text form at some point. RightStuf decided to try something incredibly difficult: try to subtitle all this text in the same manner and spirt that it was originally writen.

This is no easy task, but RightStuf got it right (damn I love puns ;). Using dozens of different font types and sizes, they were able to capture the spirt of the text.

However, this innovation did not come at no cost. On many older and cheaper DVD players, such as mine, there is a rather large bug in the subtitles in the first disk. At some points during the show, for me once in the first episode and once in the last, the subtitles will suddenly turn off. I have to restart them, and then fast foward past the point which affected the subtitles in order to continue. This is a major bug which I hope will be corrected in future releases of the first disk and all other volumes of the anime.

Fandom

Lacking mainsteam attention within the larger anime community (while Kare Kano is certainly well-known within the otaku--hardcore fan--community, it still has of yet to garner truly widespread attention in the larger anime community), it cannot spawn the sheer numbers of fanfics, fanarts, and websites that other anime titles such as Gundam Wing, Eva, or Kenshin enjoy. But, numbers do not mean quality. There are a good number of fanfics on FF.net, most dealing with the romantic interludes between Arima and Miyazawa, hense they are usually rated PG-13 to R, with the occasional Yaoi NC-17 thrown in every once in a while.

Websites, while few in number, are very good. Check out Novacaine.net, which features a very good selection of character descriptions, analyses, and an image gallery (a few pics within were graciously lent to us for this review). There is a manga translation effort in effect, still going strong at over 68 acts, and a mailing list, that, while not too active, is starting to generate some conversation now that the DVDs are out.

Merchandise

There's not a whole lot in this department: I've seen a few pencilboards and one poster float around on eBay, but I don't particularly like the designs on them. With the domestic release, we might see a few more pieces--in fact I've been hearing rumors of an art book in Japan being released, but I can't expect any major deluge of posters any time soon.

Every once in a while, a good show, no, a very good show, no ... an excellent, hmm, I need to brake out the ol' thesaurus for this one ... a coruscating show comes along. Even if you hate shoujo anime, do everything besides kill your mother to see Kare Kano. You will realize that shoujo, when done right, can be an art within itself.

Who would I kill as a favor to whoever made this:

Your Mother

In other words, I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Ahh, she's blushing.

NotHayama: 4.5 stars. Probably my favorite love story of all time, and I hate love stories. If you want to get someone hooked on this series, just show them the popsicle stick episode and see if they're not converted.

Lianne: 4 stars. Bad beginning, bad ending (anime), and not great morals for the kids all the time, but the rest was astoundingly good.

Amethist: 4.8 stars One of the few anime titles that makes me excited about studying. Very pretty and unique story. It looses 0.2 points for 10-minute recaps every freakin' episode.