His and Her Circumstances – 3/4 [His Circumstances/Her Difficult Problem] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to another (probably late) week of His and Her Circumstances! This week we get into the weeds, as things start to happen and our leads start to truly get to know each other. Is it good? Is it trite? Can it cover in 4 episodes what took Kaguya-sama 3 seasons? Let’s jump in and find out!

Starting off, I feel the need to repeat just how good this show looks. Like seriously, His and Her Circumstances looks absolutely gorgeous. Not because of any high detail models/backgrounds or any kind of interesting art style. Both of those are actually pretty standard for the genre and era I feel. Rather, it’s just how consistently expressive Circumstances is. Whether it be clear and emotive facial expressions or clever visual metaphor’s, it never fails to communicate the emotions of a scene. And despite having so many still frames, it never feels like a static show. Instead all I can remember when thinking back on it are the edits and implied motion from said stills. I’ve been told multiple times, from multiple people, that it’s production falls apart in the latter half, so I don’t want to get to excited. But its hard not to when it looks this good.

Getting into the episodes proper, first up we have episode 3, “His Circumstances”. While episode 2 was the first to really interact with him, it was still mostly about Miyazawa. So that makes this is our first Arima-centric episode. And what a doozy it was! The main thrust of the episode appears to be Arima’s struggle with his private identity, similar to Miyazawa’s in episode 2. But where hers stemmed from a desire for praise and acceptance by her peers, Arima’s seems more like a denial of himself. He doesn’t act this way because he want’s something from people, or because he’s vain or narcissistic. Rather it’s because he believes he has to. That if he is anything less than perfect, he will be spitting on everything his adopted parents gave him. To try and put it succinctly, Miyazawa has expectations for herself while Arima has expectations from his parents.

Now at first I wasn’t very big on this. I thought his history of abuse and this “tragic” backstory was all rather rote. The super intelligent but cold boy with a terrible home life? Seen it before. But Circumstances surprised me here. As rather than having the abusive parents be his current ones, instead he has already escaped the abusive relationship. So his desire isn’t rooted in fear like I initially thought it was, but gratitude. He doesn’t act perfect out of a fear of reprisal, but because he wants to repay them for everything they’ve done for him. To prove they didn’t make a mistake in taking care of him. That’s a much more compelling hook to me! Because now rather than reacting to abuse, Arima is being proactive in his thankfulness.

It’s because of this that his fear of his private self, and the reason Miyazawa set him off, works so well. Until now, he never had any reason to doubt himself. He was perfect and succeeding at it. But Miyazawa showed that you can succeeded while your secret, true self hid away. And this set him off. What if his relatives were right? What if, deep down, he was just like his shitty, abusive parents? And the worst part of it all? What if he enjoyed that part of himself, just like he enjoyed his time without the mask with Miyazawa? I thought this was all great! It’s a completely different perspective on the idea of a “private” self, but one that slots in perfectly with Miyazawa who, despite hiding it, completely accepts her private self. It’s like they are two sides of the same thematic coin.

And we see these similarities in the characters families to! Miyazawa’s family is bright and airy, open with each other to the point of hearing everything they say through the walls. It’s full of laughter, love and joy, with no secrets from each other. Meanwhile Arima’s family is just… cold. There’s no hatred there, they are clearly decent people and want to connect with their adopted son. But Arima has put walls up around himself at home just like he has at school. And because of that, they can’t find a way in. Despite the desire, there’s no true connection there. In his efforts to thank them and live up to their expectations, he’s isolated himself from his family more than if he had just been himself. It’s just really great how much Circumstances was able to pull off from an otherwise standard abuse backstory.

Not to mention, on top of all of that, Circumstances also managed to fit some romantic progress into the backstory. I’m not just talking about them meeting each others parents, though that’s pretty great. And in only 3 episodes to! Rather, I’m talking about their final scene of the episode together. The one where Miyazawa resolves, just for Arima, to throw away her public image and to “Live true to your(her)self”. Not only pulling him out of his slump and mending their friendship from his off week, but deepening it further than it was before. To the point where he reiterates, for the second time, that he loves her. That’s a line that most romance series take at least a season to say. And we’ve heard it twice. In three episodes. I swear to god, if Circumstances tries to “will they won’t they” me at this point, I will riot.

This brings me to our second episode of the week, episode 4, “Her Difficult Problem”. And again, I will admit, I wasn’t a big fan of this episode at first. I spent most of it fearing Circumstances was about to do what the romance genre always does: Get the leads in that perfect “will they won’t they” I mentioned and then never progress past it. Always one step away, despite both of them already knowing how the other feels. And in a way, most of the episode was that. Like… 4/5ths of the episode was just Miyazawa trying to confess and then failing to do so. For a little bit it was funny, sure. But by the end I was praying to god that she would succeed. That Circumstances wouldn’t fuck me like this. However wouldn’t you know, it all turned around with the climax.

That’s right, by the end of the episode Miyazawa and Arima made it… to almost 1st base. I say almost because all they did was hold hands, but it’s what that holding hands means that matters. That silent affirmation that they both cared for each other. That they were indeed, a couple. And the most fascinating part to me is that Circumstances did it without having Miyazawa say the 3 big words: “I love you”. While to some that may be disappointing, and I totally understand why, to me it just means they saved it for later. That Circumstances got all the progress without using up the big confession scene 4 episodes in. Now later on down the line, after some inevitable romance troubles, Miyazawa will still have these words in her back pocket for a big emotional climax. Will it be any good? Who knows, but the option’s there.

Aside from that, this episode simultaneously covered so much yet so little ground. Circumstances got to fully explore how hard it is to admit your feelings for someone. Especially you have hidden your true self from everyone for so long. This isn’t just regular confession anxiety, though that’s part of it. It’s also Miyazawa’s first step in her proclamation from last about about being “true to yourself”. She as to be sincere for once, to really open herself up to Arima. And while that can lead to greater connection, opening yourself up also leaves you extremely vulnerable. And in fearing for that vulnerability, you start to wonder if they still feel that way. What happens if they say no, or it was a mistake, or something changed, or or or. While I think it went on a bit long, the fact the entire episode was from Miyazawa’s perspective really helped.

Lastly I do want to give some credit to all of the little schemes Miyazawa had this week. While I may have soured on some of them by the 2nd half waiting for something to happen, in the first half they were rather amusing. Whether it be trying to get Arima alone in the science lab or finally catching him after school only to be to scared to actually say it. And I especially enjoyed how, once again, the explanation for Miyazawa’s problem comes from the mouth of babes: AKA her little sisters. Just goes to show what a healthy family life can do for you.

So yeah, all in all these were two initially concerning, but ultimately quite good episodes for Circumstances. They started off slow, started off concerning like any other romance show, and then the climaxes wrapped a nice pink bow on them. Are they perfect? No. But they do a fantastic job on selling me on this romance, and the expressive animation is enough to hold my attention while Circumstances meanders a bit each episode. So at the very least I can say that it’s good enough. And as for my opening question about just how much content Circumstances can cover compared to Kaguya-sama? Turns out the answer is yes. Now excuse me while I retroactively lower my scores for those.