Let's start with the Cons:
Animation & Budget
This anime did not receive enough budget to maintain a consistently high level of animation quality. In the first episodes of the series the quality is good and the variety of animations is numerous. However as the episodes progress, the budget decreases more and more and the episodes suffer a little. There is even an entire Recap episode, and also the infamous last 7 episodes (which I will talk about later). Fortunately there's Hideaki Anno who manages to effectively exploit the budget and the number of animations available and manages to keep it a valid series through his style and his technique (Anno's style is often characterized by flat layers in parallax, the use of text, the cutaway shots of lightpoles/stoplights, the use of images from the manga itself). It is no coincidence that he managed to do the same with Evangelion in the last 2 episodes, and the 53-seconds elevator scene is an example.
Episodes 19-26
Episodes 1-18 worthily conclude the narrative arc of the 2 protagonists. In my opinion the biggest problem, besides the production/scheduling issues of episodes 19-26, is the questionable choice of introducing new characters and stories that are initially developed, but are interrupted ex abrupto in the last episode. However it is a very effective way to entice you to read the manga, because you want to know how the story ends! (Speaking of which, the anime adaptation is very faithful to the manga, and at the same time manages to make the exact same manga scenes even more funny).
Let's move on to the Pros.
Kare Kano has a common setting that has already been used many times (2 high school students fall in love with each other and decide to get together). On the other hand,is almost certain that for any story someone writes today, a similar one has been written or that part from the same premises; but the key thing is HOW a story is told, and here the anime does it great.
The first part of the story tells of how the 2 protagonists manage to get together. Both wear a mask, and this is what makes them move away from each other and at the same time bring them closer: he falls in love with her fake personality and when he discovers her true personality he loses interest in her, while she falls in love with him only in the moment she finds out who he really is. Even if they are aware that they are wearing a mask, they still have a hard time understanding who they really are, and they need the help of each other to acknowledge the inability to fully understand oneself (it can be better understood from the way Anno gets into the characters' psyches and accentuates the moment with his directorial techniques).
The second part instead talks about their relationship, interspersed with the stories of secondary characters that are equally interesting. Sometimes in a story, when two characters get together, occasionally that represents their point of arrival as if they have reached the maximum of their maturity, and they stop having any relevance within the story. What Kare Kano realizes is that the engagement is not an end point, but a starting point: They must face together new challenges, problems and difficulties that were not there before. The characters are all real, with their flaws and fears, and obstacles to overcome: there was at least one moment in our life when we found ourselves in the situations of each of the characters, and for this reason it is very easy to empathize with each of them. To conclude, the fast pacing of the story and Shiro Sagisu's music make it all the more memorable.
Final Thoughts:
KareKano is an anime with real characters lacking something they can only find in someone else, and with a story full of details that make it a hidden gem; a hidden rough gem, due to the inconclusiveness of the last episodes, but which contains an enjoyable experience that is worth having.
