Kare Kano/His and Her Circumstances

Review

Pretty. Polite. Graceful. Smart, too. These are just a few words you could use to describe Yukino Miyazawa, a first year senior high school girl. She's an honor role student, is good at sports and is very talented with the piano. Pretty average, right?

When the ceremony accepting Yukino's class into high school approaches, she's all set to be chosen to give the acceptance speech on behalf of the entire class. Her fantasy is soon shattered, though, when a new classmate named Arima Souichiro is chosen instead of her. In the next few weeks, Yukino finds that Arima making her life even more miserable. He's handsome, smart, athletic, rich and stealing her spotlight. So what's a girl to do when the boy she despises tells her he loves her?

Unlike most anime romance series, Kare Kano (the nickname given by the show's fans) doesn't deal with romance triangles or Romeo and Juliet type ordeals, but rather with the idea of growing up, and character development is a major theme throughout the series. We see this later in the series when Yukino opens herself up to the world, and her heart up to Arima. Although Yukino is the main character, the focus sometimes fades off of her and into the life of another character, which does a lot to keep the show interesting.

Kare Kano is one of the best anime that I've seen for quite some time. One of the elements that makes it so addictive is the fact that it is so realistic. The director, Hideaki Anno actually observed and studied many "regular" Japanese school children before beginning his work on the show, in order to make the characters as real as possible. Of course, the reality of the series doesn't take away from the slapstick comedy, which often includes some things that don't happen in many schools. Examples would include jumping off of buildings, kicking cars across the street and spontaneously exploding from being mistaken for a third grader.

Along with this delightful plot, Kare Kano shows off some of the most impressive animation put into a television series. The character's movement is always fluid and the background is carefully done; yet they both show off a certain kind of simplicity which is absolutely charming.