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His and Her Circumstance, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijyou, Kare Kano, whatever you want to call it, there is one important thing you should know about this romantic comedy: not once at all does the male lead accidentally faceplant into the female lead's breasts, nor does he accidentally see her naked when her towel slips off, nor does his hand by chance find its way onto her butt.

Instead, they have sex.

And this is what sets Kare Kano apart from all the other romance anime that have come out in the last decade or two. Those anime are not romantic comedies, they are comedies with sexual tension. ... The romance in Kare Kano is real romance. Yukino and Souichiro's relationship is treated realistically, seriously. They meet, they fall in love, things progress. It has a remarkable authenticity, especially in the early episodes.

The comedy element works, too. Yukino Miyazawa, who obsesses over being the perfect student, gets snapped back into reality by a rival perfect student, Souichiro Arima. But while she is left dejected, he ends up smitten. The comedy is character-based, feeding off the hesitation and awkwardness from the two teens as they muddle their way into a romance. Yukino's family also provides good comic material, especially in the parents, who had their daughters a little too early in life. Other character types are explored: the sassy athletic girl, the jealous girl, the cute guy who's hard to figure out, etc. But these side characters don't get in the way of Yukino and Souchiro's story.

The series is based on Masami Tsuda's manga, and its weakness is its format. Even with the legendary Hideaki Anno of Neon Genesis: Evangelion fame at the helm, the series suffers from a lack of budget and abundance of static images. Scenes that read quickly on Tsuda's pages get stretched as filler on screen. The most annoying thing about it are the episode recaps, which on a couple of occasions approach the three minute mark. That's three minutes that the writers unfortunately couldn't fill. The budget only gets worse as the series progresses, and when we get to the final episode it's almost unbelievable that they go as far as they do. No colors, no animation, just line drawings. No full cast either, just two narrators.

The series ends not even halfway through the full 21-volume run of the manga. What the series does cover it covers quite accurately, so the story itself is as strong as the pages of the book, but Kare Kano, for all the quality they could squeeze out of it, remains rough and unfinished. The anime is enjoyable, but I highly recommend reading the manga.

Kino's Journey has about three or four outstanding episodes. The rest are mediocre with the occasional inspired scene or two. The draw of the show seems to be that it's supposed to be cerebral, the kind of show that makes you think. I have only just recently watched Kino's Journey all the way through and can only remember what half of the episodes are about.

I think the biggest weakness is that while Kino and Hermes are pretty interesting characters, rarely do you get any real interest in the people they meet. I think the pace of the show is too quick. The country of the ... week doesn't get enough time to show itself off. The best episode is The Colloseum, which takes its time so much it's a two-parter.

Mostly uninspired storylines don't help much. There's one episode in which a young engineer is ridiculed for her attempts to build a flying machine. I didn't know people still used that one. A few stories are better than that, though. I enjoyed the final two episodes, though They made me wish even more that Kino's Journey was an hour-long show. Episode 12 especially had a bunch of ideas that could have been explored.