Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou - Anime - AniDB (2024)

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I'm a bit tortured as to how to go about reviewing this series. Quite frankly, Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou is a near flawless romantic comedy, up until episode 22, when the series suddenly loses it's way. Because of the severe difference between the final 5 episodes and the 21 that came before, I'm splitting this review into two. The official rating I've given is for the first 21 episodes only.

Summary/Outline[/i]: Yukino Miyazawa is the perfect student. Modest, kind, giving, and a straight-A student. However, this is all an act on her part in order to gain praise from her fellow students. Under the surface (aka, in her home life) she is nerdy, outgoing, and wierd. No one but her family knows who the real Yukino is, until she meets Arima. Arima is a perfect student as well, and is leeching off the praise that Yukino believes she has earned through all her hard work and discipline at "faking it". She can't let him get away with this, can she? Thus begins Yukino's plan to destroy Arima, and regain her title as the best and most popular student. However, when Arima suddenly confesses his love for Yukino...

Animation[/b]: I've seen quite a few reviews, calling the Animation to Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou "poor" and "lacking a budget". In this, I agree. However, the poorness of the animation goes a long way in making the comedy in this series work. Many frames are taken directly from the Manga, with the written dialogue and drawing style still intact. While the individual cells may seem poorly drawn, the editing is so frantic that it often escapes your notice. Moving scenes will suddenly be sliced with frames from the Manga, and then another, and another, within the span of a second or two. The sheer kinetic energy from this quick cut animation style carries a lot of laughter with it. In otherwords, I laughed much harder because of the poorer animation than I would have if it were a perfectly drawn series.

The animation style adds quite a bit of emotion to the romance as well. I have never seen an anime that made romance seem so... sexy. There is real chemistry between Yukino and Arima, and their attraction visibly grows as the series progresses. This is in no small part due to the editing of the series. How a single panning frame of Yukino's elated smile will appear on screen for just the right amount of time; Enough to get the feelings across, but not so long as to outlive its welcome. Often times, at the conclusion of a serious romantic moment, we will see a shot of Arima or Yukino's face; an outline on a white background, expressing shock, amazement, or joy. Again, the show will linger for just the right span of time, leaving you with a perfectly expressed emotion.

The editing style of Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou, alternating between frantic and kinetic, to quiet and moving, does an excellent job of expressing the series's sexy romantic appeal, as well as managing to drop the audience into fits of undying laughter.

Sound[/b]: The sound in Kareshi is very good. The opening song is well done, though easy to skip. I did not much care for the ending song, but I'm not a big fan of Japanese pop, so I'm a bit biased. The music that plays during the series, however, is top notch. Comedic scenes are made that much funnier due to what I consider to be deliberately odd musical choices. Sometimes just noticing the music in a scene is enough to make you laugh.

The music during romantic scenes is also spot on. Just when you think you're about to go over the edge, that romantic little piano number pops up, and your eyes start to water. The music in Kareshi will take a seemingly standard romantic scene, and elevate it into something exquisite and moving, all without bringing attention to the music itself.

Story/Plot[/b]: The plot to Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou is episodic, with an underlying theme of romance between Arima and Yukino. Like many Shoujo anime, their romance is very gradual, going from enemies, to friends, to a little closer to friends, to a little closer than a little closer to friends, to maybe perhaps sorta considering the possibility that maybe perhaps they sorta should consider perhaps dating, into... but you get the idea. Stories such as this can be downright torturous in the wrong hands. However, because of the frantic nature of the animation and pacing, Arima and Yukino's relationship feels fresh and original. Without the animation style, their relationship would have felt stagnant and unmoving.

At times their relationship seems like a series of trials, as new characters appear and immediately stir up the hornets nest, so to speak. Each trial (or episode, as it were) is tremendously funny, leaving me near breathless from laughing so hard. They all end the same way, with Arima and Yukino getting even closer. This may seem cliche, but it's what you want to happen, making it all the more enjoyable.

Something I must not forget to mention is the pacing. The pacing is frantic. Truly frantic. It often times felt like the writers were putting in 13 episodes worth of work into each single episode. I found myself occasionally rewinding scenes in an attempt to keep up with the subtitles and the artwork. Kareshi does something unusual with the composition of scenes which I haven't seen before. First, there will be spoken dialogue. Often quite a lot of it, delivered very fast. On top of that, the pieces cut out of the manga will have translated text that you have to read as well. This is not a detriment, since the pacing is one of the main components in the comedy of the series. However, Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou will likely befuddle slower readers.

One one of the most intelligent decisions on the part of the director was to never let the situations in Kareshi get too serious. There is drama, yes, but nothing that drags on forever, leaving you feeling empty and sad for episode after episode. (Revolutionary Girl Utena comes to mind, as well as Noir) Instead, we get intelligent and logical conclusions to most situations, due in part because the characters themselves are logical and intelligent. While watching Kareshi, you will never find yourself yelling at the screen as a character does something stupid or out of character. Situations are generally handled in the way you expect them to be.

For example: Your boyfriend is angry. You were late to a date, and he's been imagining terrible things happening to you. Do you:

A) Scream at him to grow up, storm out, and cheat on him
B) Get angry yourself, say something cruel, and break up with him
C) Give him a hug and a kiss, explain quickly and softly why you are late, and apologize for making him worry.

This may seem like a matter of common sense, but I can't tell you many movies and series I've seen choose A or B. Whenever situations like these occur in Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou, they are dealt with in a smart and intelligent way, because the characters are smart and intelligent people.

Kareshi has one small failing which I must address, and that is that there are quite a few recaps. Most episodes start with a minute or two of exposition about what came before, and there is an entire episode and a half of recap around the center of the series. This was a bit annoying, since I watched Kareshi in only a couple of sittings, and thus did not need to constantly be told what came before. However, Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou was originally a weekly series. With it's extremely fast pace, filling each episode with heaping amounts of information, these recaps would have been essential to keep all but the smartest among us from getting lost.

Characters[/b]: The cast of characters in Kareshi are fleshed out rather well, thanks to a crazy pace that can cram in a ton of character development into a very small space. We get bits and pieces of history for all of the supporting cast, and a very extensive history of the main characters.

The voice acting is perfect, from the manic personality of Yukino, to the solemn desperation of Arima, to the childlike glee of Tsubasa. Each voice actor does their job beautifully, expressing just the right emotions at just the right time, never ringing false.

Yukino in particularly was always enjoyable to watch. Since this is a shoujo anime, we see Yukino torturing herself over every little decision. Every movement, glance, or development will be heavily scrutinized by Yukino, partly because she is smart, and also because she is a neorotic wierdo. I gotta tell ya, I loved her immediately. If done badly, this kind of neurotic behavior can get rather annoying. In Kareshi, thanks to the animation style and pace, it will often toss you into fits of laughter.

Enjoyment[/b]: I loved this series. Loved loved loved it. I'd watch it again right now if I wasn't sitting on a pile of top notch and unwatched anime. I laughed, I cried, my heart melted again and again and again. Comedy and romance blended together beautifully from scene to scene. A wonderful feel-good series, perfect in almost every way, except for...

The Last Five Episodes[/b]

Animation: 4
Sound: 5
Story/Plot: 4
Characters: 8
Enjoyment: 6

The animation I so highly praised does nothing for the last 5 episodes. From the look of things, the budget became virtually non-existant at this point, leaving us with poorly drawn images that add nothing to the humor, the romance, or anything else. It's just badly done. Instead of the frantic style of the first 21 episodes, the series devolves into slowly panning still frames of the manga while the characters talk.

The sound also seems to have undergone a budget cut, with very little music or audio at all except for the voices on top of the still images.

The romance all but gone, there isn't much of interest going on in the last 5 episodes. Yukino and her friends are trying to put on a play (which we never see, since the series ends rather suddenly) while Arima... basically walks around feeling jealous for no reason. I say no reason because there really IS no reason. It's out of character for him, and when the time comes, why he is jealous is very badly explained as well.

If I remember correctly, there is another entire episode of recap in episode 23 or 24. Unlike before, this seems entirely out of place, since the series is coming to a close and we don't need to know EVERYTHING that has come before.

Thankfully, my love for the characters remained largely intact. The voice actors continue to do a superb job, and Arima is the only character that seemed a bit contrived at times.

The last episode, while being a bit boring, and ending literally in the middle of nowhere plot wise, was an interesting watch. The animation and audio break away from the previous 25 episodes, and instead plays out like the manga, with most of the dialogue being written instead of spoken. It doesn't quite work, but it's something I haven't seen before, and so it earns a higher mark than I would normally have given.

Final thoughts: Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou