This series is also known as "His and Her Circumstances," which I also turned into "His and Hers Situations." I think I've also heard it called "Boyfriend/Girlfriend Circumstances" or maybe "situations", but I'm just doing all this to get your attention. There are barely ANY English pages on this anime. One of the few stated there were three; I can believe it. I discovered the series at A-kon (and saw parts of two episodes); had I known how much I'd like it, I could have provided myself with a number of pencilboards, but I didn't know. Damn. Anyway, my efforts at information have turned up....
Gainax's KareKano Page - The English version... interesting stuff here. I borrowed all my images from here, too.
P=X: Thea's Kare-Kano Webpage - I would call it the best available English page on the subject.
Down With Arima - I had some problems navigating it, but it does have episode summaries.
Japanese Title - The official site for the manga.
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For my personal info on it: The main character is a girl named Miyazawa Yukino. She's pretty, popular, and an excellent student. This is at school. At home, she lets herself relax and stop performing; she ties her hair back, wears sweats, and puts on glasses instead of contacts. She doesn't let anyone see past the facade if she can help it. Arima Soichiro (in what seems to be the norm, she's popularly referred to as Yukino, her first name, while he's always Arima, his surname) becomes her nemesis when he beats her out to get the top score on the entrance exam to the high school they both attend. The story, from what I've gathered, starts with them both entering high school, and the all-important entrance exam is the start of their rivalry. The rivalry seems to be mostly maintained by her; when she gets a better score than him on the midterm, he tells her he loves her. And that seems to be in the first episode. At one point, she becomes convinced that he's been manipulating her, and feels very betrayed that he knows so much about her that she tries to keep secret. (Like her look when she's in sweats.) He later opens up to her as well.... |
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From the two episodes (probably 2 and 3, or three and 4, or possibly 2 and 4) that I've seen, they appear to have a really cool, if somewhat thorny, friendship with an undercurrent of more. And there were many cute pencilboards with one or the other blushing over something, but I was stupid and didn't buy those. Sigh. |
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The series, at least the first part, is directed by Hideaki Anno, the director of Eva. If you're like me, you saw the little blurb for it in Animerica long ago, remembered vaguely that it was about popularity, high school, and love, and that the Eva people were making it, and that was it. It's quite new, only recently stopped broadcasting in Japan and is only now starting to be fansubbed here. No word on a commercial distribution, either. However, if you want to pick up a fansub, try here: Fushigi Anime. They're working on it currently. When I checked their page a few days ago, they were nearly done with Vol. 2 and working on vol. 3. This page is more or less a service to those who are already interested in the series, rather than meant to attract new fans (yeah, I could do so much for that with my traffic). But if you haven't seen the series and just came here because you were on my page for other reasons: The show is funny, cute, and really good; I can't wait to see what else happens as these two are forced to let their guards down.
