MrLincecum: His and Her Circumstances Review

What's up! I am MrLincecum and I am back with another review and this time it's His and Her Circumstances that takes the podium. Before I start, if you disagree with any of the opinions explained below, let's talk about it! Don't be afraid to speak up, reviews are meant to be talked about! Now back to the anime...You know those cartoon shows you used to watch when you were a kid that you loved because of how simple everything was? Well... that's kind of what this anime brings to the table, only it doesn't work as well.

Now that I've got you warmed up, let's dissect this arguable anime.

Plot

Yukino Miazawa is a highschool student who is adored by all of her classmates and all of the girls want to be like her. She lets all the praise gets to her head as she constantly hounds for attention, and she gets it for the most part. But then this guy Arima shows up and he's looked up to as the perfect guy and both the guys and the girls sway completely to his side. Fed up that she lost her attention, she tries hard to beat Arima in all types of areas, but eventually they each learn more about one another than they originally thought, and they begin to become closer...

Jeez, that was painful. It's not exactly the way the plot was executed that was bad, but this is such an overused and cliche plot point, that you can really discard the entire paragraph I just wrote about it and still know exactly what's going to happen. It's a pretty predictable plot, but towards the middle things start to twist just a little, but this anime never seems to escape from the "I think I know what's going to happen" zone.

Genre for this anime is romance, if you haven't guessed already, and it's target audience is aimed at teenagers since some of the humor is based around "the typical teenage dilemmas" [which again, doesn't help it's originality]. But the anime does feel like a cartoon at points which really sways the target audience back and forth, which in my opinion would create negativity on both ends of the age spectrum...but a younger audience would be able to watch it, although missing some of the comedy points and without much understanding to the character's emotions. It is however realistic, which is a bonus for a high school romantic comedy, and the romance aspect is done very well for the most part. I didn't catch many things wrong in that aspect, but again, it was pretty cliche.

Characters

The characters were pretty likable for an anime like this. However cliche the main characters were, they still had their strong points. Yukino always had a way of showing a different side of herself to Arima, while Arima always seemed collected while at the same time, open to comedic effect. I have to say the main characters were okay and you could watch the anime without having too many problems with them. The side characters however were pretty average in my opinion, and not very memorable at all, even those that played a larger role in the story than other side characters. It's just one of those animes that leaves an imprint of the main characters, but not so much the side characters.

Animation

*sigh* Unfortunately, here's where this anime takes some major hits. The animation is sub par and the colors are flushed out a bit in almost every character. I'm not saying the animation is so bad that you shouldn't consider giving it a try, but in some instances it cuts pretty close. If you watch far enough in, you'll see what I mean. Not to mention the fact that this anime dive bombs you with having the low of putting real people in the transitions in the re-cap episodes [Yes, I said re-cap episodes, yea, I said the same thing you're thinking regarding the re-cap episodes right now]. Not to mention the animation at the end was not so good either. All in all, the animation kills major points.

BUT! Me being the English wizard that I am, can actually pull something good out of the character designs. They may look all flushed out, but I feel this may be symbolic since the characters are completely different on the inside than the outside. The colors are all flushed to show the actually simpleness and over normality of the characters despite who they actually are. But I digress...

Audio

Luckily, I can say nothing of harm about the audio. It's good, but not great, it's memorable but at the same time not so much, it's just what you'd expect. There's no one that I need to smack across the face and scream "TALK RIGHT GOD DAMN IT!!," and there's no particular character that I can praise for being exceptional at their role. They all did a pretty decent job, but it's not exactly memorable. In terms of the opening and ending themes, they do get a bit annoying after hearing them over and over again, but for the first few times they're ok. The music within the anime was kind of like the type you'd hear in a children's reality show, which makes it in my opinion, kind of awkward during those not so serious moments. So the music within the anime is a bit of a downer, but everything else is ok.

Closing Notes

This anime is one of those you can go either way. I know some people that love it, and some that hate it because of the animation and predictable plot. Personally, I'm a neutral. I don't regret watching it, but I don't relish in the fact either. There's not a lot of good about this anime in paper, but in terms of enjoyment this anime surprisingly boasts a decent amount. The comedy is ok and even a little bit hysterical in moments, but at other times is a bit flat or uses the wrong topics for humor. For everything good about this anime there's something bad and it makes a cancelling out effect for me. It may be different for you, but you'll never know until you give it a shot.

Final Ratings

Plot: 6/10
Characters: 7/10
Animation: 3/10
Audio: 7/10
Comedy: 8/10
*Genre: 8/10
Re-Watch Value: Low
Averaged Overall: 6.5/10
Personal Overall: 7/10

*New category that is the measure of how much an anime resembles it's genre [How much romance was actually present in this case]