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Miyazawa Yukino thought she had it all coming into high school: beauty, brains, and enough charisma to fool her classmates
into thinking that she was absolutely without fault. In fact, she would've succeeded had she not met her match in another
freshman: Arima Souichirou. He alone saw through her guile and found out the truth behind the shallow masks she wore at
school. Yet as the competition between ratchets up in class, could love be blooming between these heated rivals?
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In a somewhat radical departure from his previous work, Neon Genesis Evangelion,
Anno Hideaki once again performs admirably from the director’s chair in the anime
adaptation of Tsuda Masami’s manga hit of the same title. Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou,
or Kare Kano as it is more commonly known, stands head and shoulders above a
plethora of titles under the same genre. Its seamless mix of comedic and dramatic
elements coupled with effective and entertaining visuals make for a must-see for all
anime fans. Yet despite all of the accolades that this title garners for itself, it
must be noted that there are also a couple of serious faults that prevent Kare Kano
from becoming the timeless classic it had the potential of becoming.
Visually, Kare Kano is nothing technically amazing. The cel animation
techniques used all throughout the series occasionally exhibit a slightly bland
palette of colors that failed to catch my attention. However, other aspects of
the animation more than make up for this slight shortfall. Intermittent usage of
pencil sketch style stills help accentuate emotions and add certain flair in key
scenes. Character design and animation direction provided by Hiramatsu Tadashi
work to great effect, especially in comedic sequences and provides hints of
future work, most notably in another GAINAX great, FLCL. In this case, the
strong aspects for the audio work done for the series does not stem directly
from the use of music. While the background pieces do excel in augmenting the
onscreen activity, it is probably prudent to give even more credit to the great
seiyuu work recorded for this title. Performances given for much of the main
cast were particularly memorable and demonstrate yet another plus for Anno’s
skills at the project’s helm.
As admirable as his decisions were for Kare Kano’s technical production elements,
it seems that Anno stumbles a bit when it came to plot flow and execution.
Many of the episodes contained recap elements (some were nothing but recap) that
eventually became quite tedious to sit through. Compounding these erratic traits is
the placement of one of the most disappointing cut-off points in an anime that one
can conceivably experience. The conclusion of the series leaves of in one of the
title’s more engaging arcs and the rest of the story is left for the viewer to
follow up by reading the ongoing manga. This was a bittersweet choice on Anno’s part
that only slightly recovers with the use of poetic onscreen text that was possibly
tailored to pique interest in either the manga or future Kare Kano
work that never materialized.
Overall, Kare Kano is a solid piece of work that only finds serious fault in
its disappointing conclusion. The journey to the final arc of the series by far
ranks near the top of both Anno’s directorial and Studio GAINAX’s overall
accomplishments. An unfortunate rift between Anno and Tsuda’s vision for the
interpretation of Kare Kano’s plot resulted in the death of any future work that
GAINAX could have pursued in the title franchise. Despite this, the completed
work as it stands today should serve at least as a great springboard for those
willing to continue the plot via the ongoing manga.
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