2024 REREAD: You know what? I've changed my mind. This shoujo high school romance manga will always hold a special place in my heart, even if I'll never finish the whole series. I'll keep the first volume, at least.
It's a classic.
But what is up with that ending story, 'The Tiger and the Chameleon: A Promise of One Week'? It's weird and sexist, and it contradicts its own message.
Final Score: 3.5/5
Original Review:
In my opinion, 'Kare Kano: His and Her Circumstances' is one of the most underrated shoujo and slice-of-life manga series ever. A hundred years ago I stumbled across the anime version on YouTube by chance, and I've never looked back. The anime was sweet and funny. It had a lot of dark, deconstructive layers to its writing, and a good English dub to boot (featuring actors from 4Kids Entertainment; Veronica Taylor, aka Ash Ketchum, voiced Yukino Miyazawa). Naturally I read the manga as well, but only the first 9 volumes so far - roughly where the anime ended. If I have enough money in the future I'll buy more.
But for now, here's a brief summery of why I love this series:
'Kare Kano' does something that most shoujo romances rarely take a chance on: it sets up a solid relationship between the school girl and boy early, and the rest of the series revolves around the challenges that come with teenage love and how the couple fights to stay together. For example, when the teachers start to get concerned about the kids not performing as well in their studies due to them spending much of their time together. Sex is mentioned and taken seriously, though nothing graphic is shown, as it's portrayed rather gradually and healthily.
The series also doesn't just center on and develop the two main leads: 'Kare Kano' adds friendship and family dynamics to its many layers. When the leads, top "model" students Yukino Miyazawa and Soichiro Arima, learn more and more about each other and help one another overcome their personal egos and psychological insecurities - learning more about themselves along the way - they make an even better couple. Their individual circumstances - hence the series's title - are issues that slowly evolve into things to love, trust and understand in their relationship. But another bonus is that this helps them to socialise better with classmates. Before they met, Yukino and Soichiro were both popular for being exceedingly smart and beautiful, but they never tried to make close friends because of their worries over being discovered for their true selves. People might not like these once-perfect students at first for their longtime deceit, but overtime any heart can thaw. Anyone can forgive and trust again. 'Kare Kano' contains such an endearing and cute cast of characters who each get a development story arc - and who have their individual hobbies and ambitions, including writing, running and designing.
So the series may appear simple and sweet on the surface, but it is surprisingly witty, and a dark take on shoujo drama titles, especially for the mid-to-late nineties when it first came out. It is exactly what I look for in slice-of-life titles as well: what it may lack in overall plot it makes up for with interesting characters and side stories. Each volume cover features a different type of flower to symbolise a character's personality and growth.
What 'Kare Kano' teaches its readers is that people are not always what they seem in public. Learn to look past facades, and love and respect and trust what is inside. Everyone you meet may likely be struggling with life as much as you are, or more so. Be yourself! as lives can improve by socialising and understanding others as a team.
Overall, 'Kare Kano' is a lovely little high school drama manga. To me its humour, relationship dynamics, themes of maturity, and character development make it not only relevant today, but timeless. However, it might be viewed as being too simple by manga readers more used to action-packed stories. It is not for everyone, but it is for me.
Final Score: 4/5
P.S. I have heard that the anime ended prematurely because of creative differences between Gainax and the mangaka, Masami Tsuda, who thought the anime focused more on the comedy than the drama and romance. Ironically, I've always thought it was the other way round: that the manga focuses more on comedy, and the anime the drama. Hmm.
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