Welcome everyone, to the halfway point of His and Her Circumstances! I have an odd week for you this week as we cover 3 episodes! Though if I’m being honest, it’s really more like 1 and 1/2 because of recaps. Regardless of the why though, we have a lot of content to cover. So lets dive right in!
Jumping right into things, first up is episode 13, “The Subjectivity of Happiness”. This episode is the conclusion to Tsubasa’s family struggles, and my overall impression is that it was good. Circumstances gave us a lot to think about with Tsubasa, continuing to recontextualize her earlier bratty behavior and help us sympathize with her. What’s nice about it though is that it didn’t attempt to excuse said behavior however. Circumstances was very clear about how much of a selfish brat Tsubasa was, both then and during this arc. The way she treated her father, as well as the prospective step-mother, was incredibly rude. But it was also understandable. And I think that’s a really important thing when making characters act like complete assholes. At least if you want us to like them that is. It wasn’t perfect, there were some bumps along the way for sure. But it was good.
Now that we are past the spoiler line, lets talk about why its good. The big thing for me was that we got watch as Tsubasa came around to the idea of the family, for her own reasons rather than someone else’s being forced upon her. The interactions with Kazuma did exactly as I expected they would in giving her a new perspective on things. This realization that she was possessive because she didn’t want to be alone. The fear that a step-mother would take him from her and she would lose him. Rather than see her, and Kazuma, as new people to connect with, she saw them as rivals for what she already had. And Circumstances did a great job presenting all of this. The misunderstanding of age to break the ice, the chat, Kazuma opening up first about wanting a sibling to ease her into it. Great stuff.
If I think its so good then, why did I call it bumpy? Well that’s simple: I wasn’t a huge fan of how all of this started. In fact I still think it kind of sucks. Tsubasa just waking up the next morning, giving up on her own feelings. Accepting that this was the first time her dad pushed back against her spoiled ways, so since that didn’t work it’s her turn to give up. It just felt so… defeatist. Now luckily Circumstances managed to turn this into something good by the end. Rather than letting her wallow in defeat, it used her forfeit to introduce her to Kazuma and get the ball rolling. So in that Circumstances took a pretty “meh” start and made it into something good. As such it’s not a big problem, only a really small bump on an otherwise great episode for me.
Getting back to the good with Tsubasa and Kazuma though, I especially liked the portrayal of their home life. All throughout the last episode Circumstances was showing us Tsubasa’s reaction to Miyazawa’s family. Their small home, busy table, loud nights and fun games. It must have been agonizing for her to sit through all of that, knowing what her home was like. So dragging her out of her big, clean, empty mansion into this small, dirty apartment, connecting and interacting with her, the mother showing her true face at home and reminding her of the Miyazawa’s and how she’s one step away from having something like that… It was great. This is where Circumstances took her forfeit and turned it into something more. Combine that with Miyazawa’s own realization and recontextualization on how lucky she is to have the family she does, and you have a great episode.
Next up we have episode 14, “The Story So Far”. But as you can guess, both from the name and what I said before, this episode is entirely a recap. There’s absolutely no new content in here. So instead I want to take this moment to talk about Circumstances production, and seems to be happening. You see, I took a glance at the episode list after seeing this was a recap. And what I saw… concerned me. Because not only is this not the last full length recap we have, there’s also an anime original filler episode right in the middle of what is apparently the finale. What happens to Circumstances production? What went wrong and will it also reflect in the quality of the episodes we do get? I don’t know. But after seeing this, and reading some comments, I am officially concerned for how Circumstances will end.
And that brings us to episode 15, “What Can Be Seen Beyond that Voice”. This episode was, once again, half recap, which was rather disappointing. However the other half had some good stuff as it picked the story back up with Miyazawa and Arima, shifting us back to the main couple. This was nice! As much as I enjoyed Tsubasa’s stuff, I’m glad to be back with our core romance. And the best part? It looks like Circumstances is going to take what we learned from Tsubasa’s arc and start to transfer that to here. We see Miyazawa admitting to not fully understanding Arima, questioning just how much she knows and desiring to know more. Looking for little things in his voice or how he acts, paying closer attention to him as a person. And most of all? Moving on to the next base.
That’s not the main focus of the episode though, as much as I enjoy it. No, that honor belongs to a rather surprising source: Asaba. This guy has been a joke ever since he was introduced, and an enigma to. How did, after all the trouble he put them through, become such close friends with Arima? Circumstances has never explained it. Just one day he was hanging out, basically living really, at Arima’s house. That is until now. Because it looks like Asaba is about to get his own mini-arc, or at least be the focus for a bit. Again, and I’m sounding like a broken record here, I like this. If Asaba is going to continue to be relevant, I want to know more about him. I want Circumstances to make me care about this character as much as it seems to. And it’s not off to a bad start.
I am of course talking about Asaba’s home life. This was unexpected! It shouldn’t have been since basically no one except Miyazawa apparently has a good home life, but it was. Still, the reveal that Asaba not only lives on his own, but actively dislikes his parents, was a nice one. It instantly made sense why he and Arima connected as much as they did. While it’s for different reasons, both of them hate the parts of their parents they see in themselves, and fear becoming them. Yet at the same time, they see those things in each other as well and were still able to become friends. Asaba seeing the serious nature of his dad in Arima, and Arima the lackadaisical attitude of his parents in him. Circumstances hasn’t taken it very far yet, just introduced it. But I’m really looking forward to when Arima gets back so we can explore it more.
So yeah, I suppose it’s obvious but I quite enjoyed these episodes. At least the parts that weren’t recaps. It feels like I learn something new about the characters every week, rather than learning something I already knew in a funny new way or just watching them exist for an episode. Someone always has something going on, and it’s always expressed in such a way as to be engaging and entertaining. Some of the execution isn’t perfect, sure. But this continues to be some of the most engaging “romance anime” I’ve seen in a long time. Part of that is probably due to it not being 100% pure romance drama bullshit, but it’s all wrapped back around to our lead couple so far so I say it counts. Hopefully the 2nd half can be just as good as the first, even with production issues.
Oh and P.S. I really hope this doesn’t turn into some step-sibling incest crap. Por favor? Also Kazuma’s friends are fun.
