#Arima Souchirou

[aishiteru-kenshin]

His and Her Circumstances | Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou ~ Meeting Beneath The Sakura, by Masami Tsuda

[lidatan]

rkgk, Yukino and Souchirou, from KareKano. My favourite classic shoujo!

[ichika27]

KareKano 01

Muse Asia is posting another series! This anime had actually been aired in my country many years ago but I wasn’t really interested so I passed on watching it. I heard that it’s actually pretty good and so since it’s being uploaded on youtube legally, might as well watch the show.

They’re posting one episode each day so I’m not sure if I’d be able to do episode blogs fast enough haha.

This is Yukino Miyawaza - pretty, kind, smart, and popular. She's well-liked by many students and can be relied on when they need help. Everyone thinks she's great and she absolutely loves this! She doesn't voice it out loud and acts modest but she does like being thought of as perfect.

Unfortunately for Yukino, she has to share the spotlight with someone else this time. Souichirou Arima is a good-looking boy whose just as popular and well-liked as she is (and maybe even more) and this irritates her to no end.

After school, we see Yukino at home wearing her middle school sweatshirt and some glasses (as she wears contacts at school). Here she reveals that her perfect persona at school is nothing more than an act as she just really likes looking good and being praised by others. In reality, away from the public eye, Yukino is lazy, stubborn, spoiled, and unmanageable - all of this she only shows at home as acting perfect 24/7 would tire her out.

While her family thinks it's weird she’s doing all this for praises (ever since kindergarten) they also think it’s amazing how hard she works to maintain the perfect girl image: she studies really hard to get the best grades, trains to be really good at sports, and does what she can to make sure she always looks good.

Her sister then points out that she has competition this year and Yukino goes on a rant about how this boy, Souichirou Arima, ruined her plans by becoming the class representative instead of her by getting better grades than her at the entrance exams. She wanted to be the one to give the opening speech so that everyone would know of her but Souchirou Arima got that instead. And on top of all this, the guy is also rich! Cause of this, Yukino has made Arima her rival whom she plans to defeat!

Her sister asked why she can't just let it go and be thankful that Arima showed her how much bigger the world is but she just can't accept it.

Yukino goes to school early morning and look who she sees already in the classroom. The two greet each other politely but deep inside, Yukino is annoyed (she won't show it outwardly as she does have a reputation to protect). Arima is there early cause he has kendo club activities which start at 6am and ends at 8pm. Yukino praises him for being able to do that on top of his studies and hearing it seems to have made him happy.

Arima praises her back as she's amazing and helpful and tells her that he learned the world is bigger than he thought and filled with more amazing people because he met her (lol the very thing she didn’t want to do). Yukino tries to be humble but inside, she's monologuing about making Arima fall.

The entire day though, Yukino sees how much better Arima seems to be. Everyone flocks to him to ask for help with their studies and when it came to sports she’s good but everyone’s attention shifts to Arima when they see his skills. The girls especially fangirl over Arima!

Yukino is upset cause from childhood to middle school, she’s been the center of attention, the one getting the praise, and the person the teachers trusted but now, Arima is getting all of that easily. The experience is slowly making her feel bad about herself as if she’s just a regular person compared to Arima.

Due to studying extra hard recently, Yukino has been sleeping late and now she's about to pass out in the middle of class. She was able to snap out of it before she falls asleep and was worried that someone saw her which could ruin her image. Unfortunately, she does see someone staring at her... and it's Arima.

He was worried about her though and told her to be careful (she had a pen in her mouth when she was about to fall face first on her desk). She's so embarrassed by this lol.

Yukino's younger sisters asked to play with her but she's too busy studying so she can beat Arima (her perception of him is that he’s arrogant and her sisters point out that the one with that personality is her haha).

As time passed with her continuing this, she slowly realized her goal of wanting to be the best to get everyone's attention is getting replaced by just wanting to defeat Arima.

The results are in and Yukino ranked first! Everyone is congratulating and praising her which made her very happy. She imagines Arima suffering the same way she did by ranking 2nd and she’s excited to see his sad face but surprisingly (for her), he doesn't care about all this and even praised her.

This reality depressed her as she realized Arima never cared about popularity unlike her and now she not only felt bad cause it feels like her hard work was for nothing, she also felt low cause Arima is an actual kind and humble person - the image she had been faking her whole life.

Due to the events of the previous day, Yukino is still feeling down and didn't want to even see Arima. Unfortunately, she and Arima are the ones who are always early in school and it was unavoidable that they would have a moment alone when he arrived. Yukino tried running away but he catches up to her.

And he confessed.

Looks like she's back to normal lol. She's feeling pretty good cause she got confessed to, especially since the guy who did so is Arima of all people. To her, this is a win as the guy loves her. She rejected him though cause her real personality might get found out if they're together. Her sisters point out she might regret the decision since Arima is the kind of person Yukino had been trying to be plus he's a great guy. She did think about it for a bit but she doesn't regret dumping him.

(We had those cigarette candies when I was a kid but they were mints haha. How nostalgic)

Sunday morning - Yukino's day off! Her parents are out and her sisters are going to the movies so she's got the place to herself. She planned to laze around all day and relax after working so hard for the exams recently. As she laid on the sofa, she hears the bell ring. She runs towards the door with umbrella on hand cause she thinks it might be one of her sisters who just forgot to take an umbrella.

As siblings do, she planned to mess with her sister by kicking her but unfortunately, the person at the door wasn't who she thought it was and ends up kicking poor Arima on the stomach. Arima decided to visit to lend her a cd and didn't expect this. He still tried to be polite despite what happened though.

(I remember seeing this scene on tv back then.)

--

The theme song is really nice! It’s one of those songs I wouldn’t want to skip.

The story is interesting and there’s so much stuff on screen since there are words/phrases showing up in several places on screen as added information and they’re all translated so I had to pause to read them all. Speaking of subs, I think the subs for this is the official one when it was licensed many years ago cause the theme song has not only the translation to the lyrics but the lyrics itself in yellow text. Muse Asia doesn’t do that kind of subbing.

It feels weird watching a show this old. The character design, the video quality, the video size... it reminds me so much of stuff from back in the day.

Anyways, the last half of the show just went too fast - Yukino suddenly had an epiphany just cause she sees that Arima wasn’t depressed at being number 2 and then Arima suddenly confesses to her one morning. I guess at least it made the first episode interesting. I showed what we’re in for going forward and the last scene just starts the plot from Yukino hiding her true self from everybody to her rival finding out about it suddenly.

The ED video is one I didn’t remember much about so I was surprised it was a live action video tour of what I guess is the school they modelled the setting after. The only other ED I remember like this was Air Gear’s.

Ah! I have something to look forward to everyday, I guess. :)

[hikarua]

Uno de mis nenes consentidos del manga.