His and Her Circumstances

Synopsis:

Yukino Miyazawa, a freshman in high school is the envy off all her classmates for her good grades and immaculate appearance. At home though she is a completely different person, a stubborn, rambunctious, and... slob of a girl. But, she maintains her 'miss perfect' facade at school simply to win the praise of everyone. However, the new boy in her class Soichiro Arima begins to steal Miyazawa's limelight with even higher test scores and a warm and welcoming personna that everyone likes. Miyazawa considers him to be an academic enemy but Arima is completely oblivious to her one sided competition and pays no mind. Arima has different thoughts towards Miyazawa and instead confesses his love for her which she immediately turns down yet somehow slightly regrets her choice. Thinking that she is no back at being number one in her class with nothing to worry about her armor is quickly destroyed when Arima pays Miyazawa a visit at home to loan her a CD but is greeted at the door by a very plain looking but loud-mouthed girl in a pair of worn-out sweats and glasses. Now that her flawless exterior that she has maintained for years has been destroyed with a single glance, Miyazawa agonizes at what Arima will do. But the next day Arima doesn't mention it nor has told anyone about what he saw... just what are Arima's intentions?


Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 26


Review:

Well, this anime sure did "jump the shark" in the first couple of episodes. You get a confession and everything not leaving a whole lot for the story to go on after that and, let's not be stupid here, of course she accepts his feelings after a couple of episodes. So what does this anime do? Turn to comedy, this anime decides to make the audience laugh instead of using much of a story and to my surprise I found myself laughing at this rather than looking for a plot. You get perfectly timed slap-stick comedy mixed with a wafer-thin plot that Miyazawa might actually like Arima after all. But this isn't really the main focus of the story but more of how Miyazawa tears down her own walls of falsehood and even with this she still retains her friends and even gains a few in the process.

But now let's take a look at Arima. He is not without his own dark past though, so in the process of indirectly helping Miyazawa in accepting her true identity she also aids him in coping with a rather unpleasant childhood that he hides behind with a smile. This is all done through listening and understanding his untold pain and suffering not realizing she is the only person that has been capable of subsiding his personal demons just by being with him. Now by this time the series is about half over and there doesn't seem like much to go on and you're right. From here on this anime just seems to rely on slapstick comedy, flashbacks, and annoying recap episodes. It's as if the anime didn't know what to do and was rushed to present at least something of an episode but all you got was a shallow plot rehash with little to no new content.

As this goes on I found myself getting bored or skipping by all the "remember when" sequences but luckily the shows hilarity only made me want to watch even more. I found myself laughing at the stupidest shit but that's probably not saying much because I'm easily amused. Another thing that I would like to point out is the randomized artistic style. From black and white slide shows, chibi-styled presentations, fade-in and out panaled stills, His and Her Circumstances doesn't stick with one particular type of animation giving it somewhat of it's own style of individuality. But, even all this can't save this anime from the horribly inexpicable and abrupt ending. Right when somewhat of a story comes back into the picture with Arima starting to look like an over-obsessive psychopath the show stops... it just fucking STOPS!! What the hell is that all about? Did they want me to read the manga to continue it? Fucking hell? Do they think I have time for that shit? I guess I'll never know what happens because I can't rent manga and I sure as hell can't afford to be blindly buying it so screw it, on to the next show...

In the end I must say that it is a good series. It's very amusing and had a unique presentation and even the supporting characters other than Arima and Miyazawa held their own screen presence but their overall affect on what little story there is, is very minuscule. It's just so unfortunate that the ending failed so hard that you're left with the big nothing and you'll never really know what happens. It's sort of hard to recommend it because nothing is ever resolved but I still liked His and Her Circumstances regardless of it's multitude of short-comings.

His and Her Circumstances (opening)

Recommendation: |Average|

Media type: DVD
From: Right Stuf International
Spoken languages: English;Japanese
Subtitles: English

*Note - HOLY GREAT WALL OF TEXT! Hope I didn't bore you too much with this one but there is one thing I'd like to point out. I'm a subtitle viewer and when it comes to corporate subs one fact has always remained... they look like shit, read like shit, and will always continue to be shit. But Right Stuf is the only corporate subber that actually puts care into their subtitle track and His and Her Circumstances is a prime example. Everything was translated, every sign, on screen text, and background conversation. Not only that but Right Stuf also color coordinated the subs to match the on-screen kanji all the way down to the same text style. To me, this was an amazing feat to pull off from a DVD player and it shows that with some effort that these anime licensees really can give you a decent subtitle track. Then again, maybe this is the reason for Right Stuf's excruciatingly slow release schedule.

It's just too bad that Right Stuf's effort was wasted on an anime that feels like an unfinished product.