"His and Her Circumstances" starts out with an interesting premise: competitive-streak overachiever girl meets calm overachiever boy, and his academic prowess sparks her to want to ruin him; but gradually they learn to see each other - and themselves - for who they truly are, and they fall in love.
At its best, this series tells a tender lovestory. Early on, it focuses on the girl Yukino, showing the image she works to present to other people while giving insight as to *why* she behaves as she does - it's a mature character drama, giving surprisingly real motivations behind her actions. Arima, the boy, gets somewhat less attention from the script, but his levels of depth are also explored. When the two of them are together, there's lots of innocent blushing going on, and it's sweet to see.
And it's obvious the animators had fun with this series. Characters are drawn in all styles from realistic to chibi to fit the mood, and the animation is exaggerated and sometimes wild when called for. Visual humor abounds.
The problem, however, is that beyond the first few episodes, the series begins to fall apart. Far too much time in the beginning of most episodes is given to recapping the entire series up to that point; a whole episode and a half in the middle of the series is devoted to recapping again, and the second half of episode 24 (out of 26) is nothing but replays of recaps from earlier in the series as well as another run of the opening credits. The main characters become less important in the series, and later episodes focus on secondary characters and other people brought in to support the secondaries. The relationship between Yukino and Arima is never resolved; Arima himself doesn't appear very often towards the end. The final episode is a strange low-budget abstract thing which ends the series abruptly without tying up any loose ends.
It feels like, near the end, the production staff stopped making an effort; and that's just a shame.
At its best, this series tells a tender lovestory. Early on, it focuses on the girl Yukino, showing the image she works to present to other people while giving insight as to *why* she behaves as she does - it's a mature character drama, giving surprisingly real motivations behind her actions. Arima, the boy, gets somewhat less attention from the script, but his levels of depth are also explored. When the two of them are together, there's lots of innocent blushing going on, and it's sweet to see.
And it's obvious the animators had fun with this series. Characters are drawn in all styles from realistic to chibi to fit the mood, and the animation is exaggerated and sometimes wild when called for. Visual humor abounds.
The problem, however, is that beyond the first few episodes, the series begins to fall apart. Far too much time in the beginning of most episodes is given to recapping the entire series up to that point; a whole episode and a half in the middle of the series is devoted to recapping again, and the second half of episode 24 (out of 26) is nothing but replays of recaps from earlier in the series as well as another run of the opening credits. The main characters become less important in the series, and later episodes focus on secondary characters and other people brought in to support the secondaries. The relationship between Yukino and Arima is never resolved; Arima himself doesn't appear very often towards the end. The final episode is a strange low-budget abstract thing which ends the series abruptly without tying up any loose ends.
It feels like, near the end, the production staff stopped making an effort; and that's just a shame.