Search - His And Her Circumstances 1-5 on DVD

First love...

Michael Valdivielso | Alexandria, VA | 02/24/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Two kids in high school, one a girl named Yukino Miyazawa who is a hard working student because she loves the praise and attention it gets her, and the other a boy, named Souichirou Arima,who comes along and takes it away from her, by being the perfect boy. Of course, this pisses her off and that's when the fun starts.
Yukino does all she can to plot her revenge, but what happens when he tells her he loves her? And what happens when she realizes she might love him too?
The story is somewhat realistic in the plot, there are no aliens or robots here, just love, hate, need and friendships. The artwork, and music, changes, depending on the inside thoughts of the characters and whose point of view we happen to be watching. Sometimes it looks like something out of a black and white film and other times it makes Southpark look like a classic! But it made me laugh and, a couple of times, almost made me cry. The characters are all flawed, yet sometimes very strong and very real. While they sometimes get confused, they don't act stupid nor do they just let things get worse while they whine. They charge ahead and try to change things for the better, even if things sometimes get really messy.
There are lots of recaps and flashbacks. Also, the reason I dropped a point was because there is no closure. There better be another anime series in the making, otherwise I'll have get the manga to figure out what happens next!
OK for males and females, so guys, buy it too!"

Hm...Masterpiece? definitely!

the_enchanted | OH United States | 07/28/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Yukino is a model student in everyone else's eyes. Straight A, perfect personality, get along with others. Yet, there's another side of her that's yet to be discovered along with the arival of Arima Souichirou, intelligent, smart, kind, athletic, charismatic... everything that Yukino had pretended to be all her life... who quickly becomes a strong competition, like getting better grade than Yukino without trying. At first, Yukino sees Souichirou as her opponant, someone she has to beat. She competes with him on everything, trying to regain the title of "model student." She eventually gets her title back by studying harder and harder. Things are now going well for Yunkino..However..as time passed, Yukino starts to develop a crush on Souichirou. The other side of Yukino, the image of a lazy, selfserving average girl is then accidentally revealed to Souichirou when he pays a visit at Yukino's house. He then starts "threatening" her of revealing her secret unless she does homework for him. Yukino soon discovered that Souichirou is only using her as she gives up her feeling for him and refuses to do his homework ever again. Surprisingly, Souichirou goes after her and tells her that he has feelings for her, and the whole "blackmailing" thing is only an excuse for him to get to know her better. So they starts going out...and more interesting stuff happens. (i dont wanna spoil more stuff)
His and her circumstances is a definitely a masterpiece, it's not merely a romance, it really draws you into the actual anime. I didn't think i would like it at first, because i'm usually into Magic/Romance, but this anime is much more. Let's just say...It gives you like a fuzzy feeling, and you would want to watch it again and again. It also tells you that to always trust your instincts, even though perfect relationship is vague, if you try, you will be able to find it n-n;;"

Fun at first, but then...

Kay Nichelle | 11/25/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Kare Kano started off REALLY strong. The independence and clearly defined personalities of the two main characters (Yukino Miyazawa and Soichiro Arima) instantly drew me into the series. I found the situations, reactions and thoughts between Arima and Yukino very real and relatable. Not only were they funny, but they were also very emotional and sincere.

However, Yukino and Soichiro were the only people that made the series worth watching. I found the other characters within the series to either be boring or just extremely annoying, (with the exception of Arima's best friend, who was hilarious and maybe Miyazawa's parents, who were also very funny and cute in their appearances).

The supporting cast was weak and not nearly as well defined and strong as the two main characters. The episodes that featured them bored me and I just didn't care about them or their situations. One character in particular has a series of very serious episodes, and then completely drops off from the rest of the show. Whenever there were scenes featuring members of the supporting cast, I found myself wanting to fast forward to the scenes with the main couple. Miyazawa and Arima shouldn't have to carry the story all by themselves.

The ending of this series also disappointed me greatly, or, the lack of an ending. The way the series ends, it feels like there is another episode coming. I was looking through the DVD options, thinking I missed something, perhaps a "bonus episode" hidden somewhere? I started to get worried about the how the series would end when episode 25 had absolutely nothing to do with anything that had taken place in the series so far. I was SO sure that episode 25 would start the nice "wrap-up" of the series. The final episode (26) also has a lot of text that pops up and leaves the screen relatively quickly. I had to rewind the DVD maybe 20 times to catch and read everything. But in the end, everything is left very open and ambiguous. Not only are characters situations left unresolved, we're not even told if a particular event is a success or failure.

Despite my three paragraphs of griping, I would actually recommend buying this anime. The relationship between Arima and Miyazawa is dynamic enough to deal with all the other downfalls of the series. Buy it, but don't pay over $40 for it. ^_^
"

Sweet story but cut anime

fauka | Germany | 11/17/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Since that anime wasn't released in my home country (Germany) when I wanted it, I ordered this U.S. box.
I knew the anime before already from fansubs, since I liked it a lot I wanted the real DVDs when they got released.

About the anime itself. It's a sweet story about romance and the maturation of different teenagers facing their true self. Sounds serious now, but it isn't at all. It's an anime full of SD (super deformed) and humour. In some degree rather silly one. Now it sounds like a comedy romance. Well it is, but it also isn't. This piece coming from the same studio and director as Neon Genesis Evangelion, makes one already suspect that there's more to it than a shallow love-love story. If you take out the SD and silly humour you actually have a story that could be written by real life. That's even rare in the romance anime world.
GAINAX messed up the animations in some later episodes. Appears experimental and personally I didn't like it at all. Also the story finds no end in the anime but closes with a `to be continued' line. There's no sequel out yet (but there's enough stuff out to make two sequels).
So those two points (the partly fked up animations, the totally open end) I count to the flaws of it. Also the flashbacks and brief summaries become annoying after some episodes.

The story gets continued in the manga of course. The manga is also worth to read. Personally I wouldn't say that you should read the manga and not watch the anime. That manga is by far not as funny as the anime and didn't touch the emotions the anime did.

I'll now get to the important part of this review, the reason why I actually wanted to write one.
The U.S. Versions of Kare Kano (which is its original name coming from Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou) are cut! When I'd tell you where now I'd have to spoiler (at the moment I can still remember a love-love scene that was missing in the U.S. releases). I was so disappointed.
Beside that the animations itself seem not to be improved. Even the fansubs had better quality when it comes down to HSV (hue, saturation, value) and contrast.
Sometimes the images appear too dark, next time too light.
Good was the on-screen text subtitlestream. Since that anime has a lot of on-screen text I was wondering how a professional firm would solve that. And it pleased me.
Also the plenty of extra stuff on the DVDs was nice and I liked the design of the box itself.

The anime itself gets 4 starts from me. That rating got reduced by one star because that anime got cut, boo-boo!

I must apologize for my bad English, hope it was not too annoying to bother with *sweatdrop* -.-""