Summary: >

Yukino Miyazawa is a girl who is adored by everyone at school. She is the model student and is seemingly the perfect girl. But it's actually just an ACT and she's just an ordinary slob at home. But what happens when the girl who seeks to be the best at everything is usurped by a guy who is even BETTER at being perfect than her? Well her other side is not only being a slob, but also evil mastermind at plotting her vengeance! It seemed like such an easy plan; to plot the downfall of someone like Souchiro Arima... such a good boy that had even professed his love for her. That is until he learned her secret!

Her master plan was then turned against her and she became his homework slave. But eventually she could bear it no longer. And that's when something strange happened. She realized he was neither perfect, nor like her - he had his own reasons for his appearance. And in an even more bizarre twist she realized that during her ordeal as his "assistant" she had fallen in love with him.

Two students who were strangely driven by forces to have perfect appearances had managed to uncover the truths about each other. But in fact both of them will come to realize what that had cost them. But perhaps through it all being in love and working through it together will allow them to grow from their former shallow lives into a more happy and fulfilling existence. Well sometimes anyway. I mean this is an anime about high school. There's more than enough drama for everyone! =P

Thoughts: >

I have a lot of different thoughts that go a lot of different directions on this title. So lets start out with the first thing: animation. You may say that my score is pretty damn low, and I have to agree. Especially since the animation at the beginning of the series was at least average. I debated on the score, but then decided that if South Park was the denominator for 1, then this title did indeed need to be scored that low because even South Park at least moves! I'm not going to make a big deal out of it because it's obvious their budget went into the gutter during the middle of production and they did the best they could. Even so, by the middle it's like you're watching a slide show with an audio soundtrack. And from there it gets even worse when (and I kid you not) they have paper cut-outs wiggled in front of still photographs! I mean where does this end, freaking sock puppets?!? It does start out and end with okay animation so it dragged the score up by 0.5

Then there is the "recaps". At the beginning of EVERY episode there is a recap of the story. Fine. But the recaps can go on for like a half to 2 minutes. Oh and if this recap every episode didn't help jog your memory, there is not ONE recap episode - Haha - No, the recap episode streeeaches for 1.5 episodes! Needless to say, when I'm 80 and have Alzheimer's I'll have to pick this title up again, because it may be the only anime I'm able to follow...

The story started out strong, vibrant and interesting... then sort of lost its way. It grew introspective and away from the core relationship between Yukino and Souichiro, but drawn out at the same time. Everything seemed fine until around... episode 11 where the series went into a downward spiral. Along with the animation, or lack thereof; I found myself actually board at times. Then suddenly at episode 20 (the one after the cardboard cutouts) the series stepped back into the game in both story and animation.

So while I blast this anime in some respects, it's also quite good in others. It's not the 'rose pedals and emotional overload' that tends to plague most shoujou anime. It's introspective yet lively at the same time. Some aspects were a bit weird. Souchiro's dependence on Yukino is sort of scary in a way. One of the girls mentions going out with a 31 year old guy and no one things this is odd? And although it's called HIS and Her Circumstances, it's mainly hers with a few perspectives from him. I sort of wish that it had a more balanced view, but realistically if you try to pander to both sides you'll gain neither so I'm willing to accept what this anime delivered. On the dubbing side (yes I endured an entire episode dubbed) I found Arima's character to be quite good. Yukino was... average. From there it was the usual array of things about dubbing which I don't like. Just thought I'd mention that the guy did a good job.

So here's my take. Volumes 1 & 2 (episodes 1-11) are very good. Volume 5 (episodes 22-26) are ok as well. The rest of the series is nearly a waste. The big dilemma here is that it this anime picks up at volume 20-21, right after the cardboard cutout episode. So I'm not sure what to recommend on volume 4. In summary if you cut out the junk in the middle this series is good. Just watch episodes 1-11 and 20-26. And well in all honesty, I'd only go for episodes 1-11 myself and skip the rest. And that's why I'm scoring this title as good. Because I honestly thing episodes 1-11 are quite good... and I'll just sorta pretend the rest doesn't exist.

Screen Caps: >