His and Her Circumstances (Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou)

This review has been a long time coming. KareKano (how I'll call it for the rest of the review) came out in 1998, and I don't think many romance shojo managed to get out of their tropes and be as different as this anime was. KareKano is a manga adaptation, and it was directed by Hideaki Anno. Only a year after Evangelion came out so you can definitely pull a lot of parallels. Because the animation budget didn't seem particularly high or sufficient at all, there's a lot of still shots, a lot of manga cutouts, the ending is always filmed with a camera at a random location, a lot of artsy ways to basically say "we don't have the money to animate this shit", there's even a stop motion episode with paper puppets/cutouts lmao. It didn't bother me much, as it's an anime that doesn't need a lot of action to keep you watching. There's a lot of dramatic internal monologues, moments of self-doubt and self-reflection with classical music playing in the background and those specific shots invoking a feeling of isolation, basically you can see Annos influence. Even the episode titles are very Eva like. The ending of the anime is a very controversial topic, and probably the reason why KareKano didn't reach its deserved fame. But on that later.

The characters in KareKano are really something else. First of all you have the two main characters, Yukino and Arima, which on the outside are absolutely perfect students, helpful to everyone etc. Behind closed doors it's a different story, and of course it is! Nobody wears their school face home, you know? It's something I wish anime depicted more often, at least in the manner that it was depicted here. An ocurring theme in this anime is family, or the lack of thereof. Yukino has the best family depicted in anime ever. She has two younger sisters, and a wonderful mom and dad. I truly love how the parents love each other, and love their children. They're all friends and it's something you don't see in anime a lot. They hang out, talk about everything and are really relaxed. One other thing is that the dad is the type of that dad that loves having daughters and you know, even though you'd think we moved from that time, many men still obsess over having sons so it's nice to see. Sometimes it's played up a bit to be almost perverse like, but I'm willing to forgive it because Japan is just retarded like that. He reminds me of one of the more positive sides of my dad, because he truly always seemed thankful for having two daughters, rather, he never seemed remourseful for not having sons. Yukinos parents have their own cute story too, and I mentioned in my blog that they got married really early, but I give them a pass. They were childhood friends, with the dad not having parents and being raised by his grandpa, and the mom not having a mother. After his grandpas death during the last year of high school they start dating and get married some time soon (I don't think it was said exactly when). I think it's bittersweet as they didn't have anyone else, especially the dad, so it was nice that he was able to find family after his grandpas death. I can't imagine having a nice time living alone right at 17/18 and still in high school.

Yukino and Arima are already confessing to each other and dating by the start of the anime (forgot exactly which episode) and basically most of the show is them dating. The "obstacles" you'd expect they meet ahead like love triangles, past loves etc. do not happen even though you're lead to believe they will, instead all the characters representing those obstacles stay their friends and they keep hanging out together. All of their friends have complex family situations too, which I won't go into too much detail about. All of these people help Yukino get to know Arima better as she is vastly different from him, family-wise. He was born into an extremely rich family, however his father was the black sheep. He ran away with money and left Arima to his brother and his wife and they raised him like their own child. However, the rest of this big mega rich family absolutely hates Arima for ??? reason, and also he was abused by one of his aunts. Anyway, Yukino of course can't relate to that shit as her family life is perfect, so she has troubles understanding him. Later on we come to find out Arima is actually extremely posessive and jealous, but ominously so, because as the anime ended, he never got to resolve that issue or bring it up with Yukino.

I love how KareKano portrays their romance as something extremely dramatic and serious to them, because truly when you're a teenager, love is extremely serious and dramatic to you. You're scared to do anything and you always hesitate and second guess yourself, everything is so much more important than it really is. I think this anime captures it well, the grand scale of it all. Despite that, they hug, kiss and get physically close to each other at a decent pace, you don't have to wait for the whole show to just end with a peck on the cheek, thank god. The tension is there regardless, and I think it was done really well. Oh but get this. They have sex, not even at the end of the show. They just... do it lmao. The show doesn't dance around the subject too much, one random episode, at the end of the summer vacation after Arima returns from a sports camp, taller and handsomer than before, he just says to Yukino he wants to have sex with her. The whole episode is spent with them being awkward around each other because saying that aloud IS awkward and even though not too much is said you can see how Yukino is debating what to do in her mind, and deciding whether she wants it or not. Idk, I just think it was portrayed very well and proper for a smart and young high school couple madly in love. The sex scene was not revealing, it was nice and respectful and most importantly I didn't feel like a pervert for watching it. Now I can say with certainty, this was "wholesome". And you know, compared to My Dress-Up Darling I ranted about below, what's the difference? I'm pretty sure the two protags don't have sex there yet it's so much more coomerish and lewd. And the answer is really simple, KareKano doesn't feel the need to titillate their audiences. There's no gratuitious shots, you can't see Arimas raging boner or something (I saw a picture like that from dressup darling, never watched it after ep 1 so don't know the context but it's pretty obvious), when Arima gropes Yukino for the first time they don't do a closeup shot of her breasts being all squished or something cringy like that, there's truly no need for it. The romantic tension is all you need, it doesn't have to be graphic at all. Much appreciated.

Now onto the more controversial parts. First I'll bring up something I don't see others talk about much, and it's the cool-headed, "mature" friend of the group, Maho. Maho fulfils that ice-queen trope many shojo require, but quickly she becomes Yukinos friend. In one episode Yukino applauds Mako for being so smart, mature or whatever and asks her if she has a boyfriend. To that Maho responds her boyfriend is 28, and a dentist. She says he is also very mature and she doesn't want to disappoint him or something along those lines. To which Yukino responds how expected and mature it is of Maho. Yea the word mature got thrown around a lot. I know this is kind of a shojo trope, one KareKano sadly wasn't free of, but it still bugs me. There is nothing mature about a 15 year old girl dating a 28 year old man. However, I don't have issues with such relationships being portrayed in media, or being seen as mature by other kids in that media. Kids are stupid after all. However however, irl, these relationships never, ever end well. Men that date girls are often mentally stunted, as peers their age don't give them their time of day so they pray on children that see themselves as "mature". I would have enjoyed a subplot with some drama on her side, and realizing how she was not so mature after all but it seems that never happens, not even in the manga. And that kind of disappoints me. Different time, I know, but still.

The second issue is the ending. Depending on the source, you might hear Anno dipped around episode 16, 18, 21 and so on. Apparently the mangaka wasn't happy with how comedic the anime was, or something. I don't have any concrete sources to back that up. After episode 19 I'd say is when the show starts lacking. The thing is, it really seems there was no budget, and the ending was just unfinished. You can still read the manga to finish it so I don't see a big problem with that. Most anime is a commercial for the source material anyway. But they chose a random time to end it, is all. After episode 19 a new character gets introduced, and we have a whole school festival plot that never gets finished so you know... It seems like a season 2 soon (tm) kind of ending. It's not as horrible as other people say, I feel like it's a massive overreaction. The last episode was black and white, and animated in the manga style they utilised before. So yeah, it's real bad. The only thing that bugs me, is that they didn't decide to end the show with a scene featuring Yukino and Arima. That's my only gripe with the ending. They're the main characters, yet it ended with Yukino on a picnic with everyone else except Arima, kind of lame.

Despite its flaws, I recommend KareKano to anyone that likes romance shojo, or anyone that wants to like romance shojo but could just never get into it due to how the genre is. Yeah the animation is horrid, but they made the best out of it, it doesn't feel like a constant stream of QUALITY animation like some other low-budget shows are. Maybe I should say read the manga instead but I can't say that for sure yet as I haven't read it. It's still worth the watch, despite the lackluster ending.