DVD rerelease - His or Her Circumstances

"His & Her Circumstances" eases anime watchers with touching teenager romance, even if the animation quality declines at the end.

Rightstuf secretly rereleased the box set in September of last year. This series has suffered from mixed reviews throughout its run. Director Hideaki Anno, known as the director of "Neon Genesis Evangelion," helmed the production of this series. However, the series literally degenerated as the director fought with Masami Tsuda, the original manga artist of this series.

For anyone unfamiliar with the manga, "Kare Kano" is about a girl named Yukino Miyazawa. She is a talented, beautiful overachiever who strives for perfection. She's frustrated with having to compete with Soichiro Arima, a boy who is also one of the top students.

Unlike Arima, Miyazawa is a spoiled slob at home who studies endlessly to maintain her grades. Arima discovers her alter-ego when he arrives at Miyazawa's house to return a Brahms CD he borrowed from her. At first, he threatens to reveal her secret facade by forcing her to do his work for the student council for a few days. However, their feelings gradually deepen for each other. After a small argument, they begin to care for each other.

"His or Her Circumstances" takes a closer look at the complications of high school romance. It also looks into the deeper problems of Arima's own family conflicts. His own parents were blackmailers, who deserted him because of a huge debt they couldn't pay off. Although this series tends to ramble during some episodes, it never loses its charm until the director of the series quit working on the series.

Certainly this series has its flaws. The ending sequence is a boring motion sequences with a live camera in a Japanese high school. Parts of the series were taken out of the DVD because of arguments between animation studio Gainax and the manga artist. The last story arc of the series remains unfinished.

Yet the series never loses the charm it retains in the opening sequence. "His & Her Circumstances" easily has the best opening animation of a shoujo series ever. The theme song, "Tenshi no Yubikiri" (translated as "The Angel's promise"), is a lovely ballad as charming as an American Motown song. Viewers will be even more impressed by Anno's ability to mix the psychological elements of "Evangelion" seamlessly into a romantic atmosphere.

Overall, "His & Her Circumstances" is a must-buy. The warm relationship of Miyazawa and Arima is worth every penny, no matter how you may argue about the unfinished ending. Everything, from the beautiful character designs to the touching anime shading, is too wonderful to pass up.

Image courtesy of photobucket.com

Review - Welcome to Kanon, world of amnesiacs

Based on what I've seen from volume one, "Kanon" is probably best compared to the sleeper hit anime "Haibane Renmei." Like that series, nearly all the characters are amnesiacs who only recover their memory in their dreams. Thankfully, almost all the girls in the anime remember the male lead, Yuichi Aizawa. They are all somewhat related to Aizawa. And they all seem to like Aizawa.

Aizawa moves to the mysterious snowy town, meeting his cousin, Nayuki Minase, at the train station. He hasn't been in town for seven years, and his own memory is sketchy. Nayuki is very close to Aizawa--she shows him around the town and introduces him to her friends. While Aizawa is waiting for Nayuki at the supermarket, Tsukimiya Ayu suddenly bumps into him. She grabs his hand and runs with him to a restaurant to hide.

She was hiding from a street vendor selling taiyaki, a small fish cake. She took the cake, but a cat nearby ate a cake from the vendor. Ayu was scared and she ran away from the vendor to bump into Aizawa. Fortunately, Aizawa took Ayu back and apologized. However, Aizawa remembered a pinky promise he made with Ayu when he was young.

While this entire anime is an adaptation of a dating video game for the PC, Playstation 2 and the Dreamcast, this isn't a typical romance anime. The entire town is a mystery. Almost all the characters are amnesiacs--they cannot remember their past. The most shocking image appears in episode 4, when Aizawa sees one of the girls, Mai Kawasumi, standing in a classroom holding a sword. Only in the preview for episode 5 do we discover that Kawasumi is a demon hunter.

For mystery fans, "Kanon" is a very intriguing series. Although this was released early in 2008, it could turn out to be one of the most interesting anime of the year. The white snow also contributes to the subtle mystery of the town, in the same way that "Fargo" featured plenty of white snow. While "Kanon" is not as good as "Haibane Renmei", which also featured an nearly all-female cast, "Kanon" is still fascinating nonetheless.