His and Her Circumstances – 1/2 [Her Circumstances/Their Secret] – Throwback Thursday

Hello everyone, and welcome to the start of His and Her Circumstances! We have a lot to talk about this week. Only 2 episodes in and it’s already moving at a mile a minute so lets just jump right in to our new season of Throwback Thursday!

Right off that bat I have to say, Circumstances look good. Not in any kind of unique way. We’ve seen this style and aesthetic all over the place, its the 90s and cel animation. And while I love both of those, they aren’t the reason I think Circumstances looks great. No, that honor belongs to the sheer creativity and expressiveness of the characters. The way they completely ignore their models to sell an emotion. Or that flipcard effect with showing Miyazawa’s inner thoughts and feelings vs what she shows to the public. Or the postcard memories, or the visual metaphors, or this or that, the list goes on! To make a long story short, Circumstances is animated gorgeously. It’s different from the modern “drowning in digital effects” of Ufotable sure, but that doesn’t make it bad. In fact, with how consistent and ubiquitous it is, I say this is better

Getting into the show itself, lets start with episode 1, “Her Circumstances”. This episode is all about our lead girl, Miyazawa. And when I say “all about” I mean it is focused almost entirely on her. We learn all about who she is, why she acts the way she does, her insecurities and relationships with those around her. Circumstances wastes no time telling us really anything about the school or town she lives in because none of it really matters. We know what the Japanese highschool anime are like now. Unless this is your first anime ever, nothing is going to surprise you. Even then its just school, you’ll figure it out. So rather than spend 12 minutes on it Circumstances says “screw it”. And I think that’s exactly what a first episode should do. At the very least it got me invested in our lead character right away.

As for specifics? The number one thing we learn about Miyazawa is that she’s to focused on how others perceive her. She cares so much about her highschool debut, about projecting this image of success and popularity, that all of her relationships seem to be suffering. She doesn’t seem to have any real friends, because how can they be if they don’t know the real her, and we even see her family start to fall by the wayside in just a single episode. Multiple times her siblings mention how little time Miyazawa has had for them since starting highschool, etc. It’s still largely played for laughs because Circumstances isn’t that kind of tragedy. However it contributes a great deal towards Miyazawa’s portrayal as a tragic figure rather than a haughty bitch.

And I think, more than than anything else, that’s Circumstances big accomplishment this episode. It managed to take a character type that would normally be an obstacle/antagonist, the popular prom-queen image obsessed witch, and turn her into an empathetic lead character. Miyazawa isn’t some haughty princess who has no idea what she’s doing and just thinks she’s better than everyone. She works hard at it! To the expense of so much else. Instead she’s perfectly aware of what she’s doing, the way she acts, and does it anyways because she thinks its preferable to being her true self. That’s why, for all that this is a rom-com, she at least starts in a tragic place. With her arc no doubt being to accept and come to love her real personality and not be so concerned with the perception of others. It’s like the other extreme of NHK’s issues.

I’m actually really curious just how far Circumstances will take this theme of public vs private selves. Already it’s introduced another character suffering in the same way, our male lead, Arima. Much like Miyazawa, he has a public face to. But where she gets to act out and be herself at home, I suspect Arima has never had the chance to even discover who he really is. Instead being forced into a mold by his highly demanding family. At least that’s what I suspect Circumstances will do. Regardless it adds to this question of personality. Which is the real you? If you act one way long enough, ignoring yourself, does that public face became real? And if so, is that such a bad thing? I have no idea personally, it’s not something I’ve had to deal with. But I’m very curious where Circumstances will go with it.

This brings me to episode 2, “Their Secret”. While we technically met him last episode, this is the one to truly introduce us to Arima. We finally get to hear and see from his point of view, to get more than Miyazawa’s unfounded loathing for him. Yet even this is a bait and switch. Initially we are lead to believe that his private side is dark and evil. This twisted task master who wants to be popular for even worse reasons than Miyazawa did. Only for the end of the episode to reveal that… No, he really is kind, affable and a bit socially ignorant. It was all just an excuse to get to spend time with Miyazawa. That, after seeing her true self, he felt he needed to show her his to. Only to, seemingly, not really know who that true self is.

On the surface its fine. Not the best reason for our lead couple to get together, but it gave us a lot of cute 1 on 1 scenes together so I’ll take it. But the more I think about it, the more torn I become. Because while I like their alone time, they are very cute and compliment each other well, I find it difficult to look past this blackmail stuff. Not just that Arima would do it, but that A) he would even think it was acceptable to begin with and B) She would put up with it. The more I think about those, the more it feels like a purpose built hook to force them together. Which is what it is, don’t get me wrong. But you don’t want to see the strings attached to the puppets. I want to enjoy them as characters. This made that harder.

Finally there’s this love interest bit, the way they seemingly swapped side. Again, not the most believable thing. But with how obsessed with image they both are, I can fully believe they would expect things to change after seeing past their mutual veils. In a way though, and this is part of why Circumstances is working so well so far, it’s like they have met again for the first time. Before this they hadn’t truly “met” each other, only their public faces. Now though they have the opportunity to really get to know each other. It’s like… It’s like Circumstances gave us an in-show reset button. Introducing them and their conflict to us, speed running their relationship, burning it down, then starting again only this time we know more than we did before and can thus appreciate what is to come more. It’s weird, but I think it works.

The only thing I’m concerned about is Circumstances pacing. The show started at a mile-a-minute and only sped up from there. Yet despite the amount of things that have happened, the actual progress really isn’t that much. Now this fits into the whole “reset” thing I mentioned before, so I’m not worried yet. I actually liked it for these two opening episodes. But there’s a possibility that Circumstances will grind to a halt later down the line. That once it reaches an acceptable status quo it will hit the breaks like the rest of the Romance genre. Only now, after having gotten used to this mile-a-minute pacing, that stagnation will feel so much worse. I really hope this isn’t the case! I know nothing about Circumstances going into it, maybe it’s a complete romance, in which case WOO! But if its not… Well lets not act a doomsayer just yet.

So yeah, all in all I think these were two good opening episodes. I have my concerns but they are far outweighed by the positives, at least so far. Miyazawa and Arima make for a very cute couple and I adore their alone time on screen. Meanwhile Circumstances animation and direction is absolutely stellar. And I mean across all of anime, not just for a 90s show! I don’t know what Anno or Gainax were doing back then to make this possible, it’s way before I started watching anime, and maybe it runs out of resources down the line. But for now? For now Circumstances is firing on all cylinders and I’m having a great time with it. At the very least I find myself wanting to watch more the moment I finish writing this. So… I guess I’ll go do just that! See you next week.