Kare Kano, by Masami Tsuda

In Masami Tsuda's Kare Kano, it follows the life of a fifteen year-old girl, Yukino Miyazawa, about to start high school. Throughout her life, she has been the perfect model student and works hard every day to achieve that number one spot. The reason why? Well, Yukino is actually really, really vain, and loves to hear people praise her. She always believed that she'd breeze by through life and get the praise she always wanted. But when Yukino goes to high school, she is finally upstaged--by Souichiro Arima, who scores better on the entrance exams and instantly snatches the attention of the class. By accident, Arima finds out that Yukino is just pretending, and this starts off a series of events that lead to Yukino and Arima falling in love. They then have to cope with a lot of obstacles in their relationship.

His and Her Circumstances, as it is known in its English version, is one of the best shojo manga I've read in a long time. In Masami Tsuda's work, although it was 21 volumes in total, it didn't fall prey to complicating the character's lives by adding unnecessary drama. Unlike other shojo mangas whose supposed "relationships" were solely based on a series of misunderstandings and riddled with plots, such as the heroine lying to her lover under the justification of him lying to her about himself. Although Arima and Miyazawa in the manga did the same thing, what made the relationship refreshing was the fact that they were mature about it and they both actually sought each other to fix those problems. After hearing about Arima's past, Miyazawa sought him out instead of hunting down other people to tell her about it. Even when love rivals came in between the couple, they persevered and were truthful to each other about the people who made advances on them. Also, the book focused on the other character's relationships and that added further depth to the work, because you could really connect with the couple more. The reactions of the other characters to the couple was more believable because the author gave real personalities to them through providing other stories. I loved how Miyazawa reflected on life after realizing how petty her facade of being a model student was. Instead of sulking about it and worrying about her initial rival, Arima's, reaction, she decided to be honest with herself and show her true colors. She didn't need someone to tell her what to do and that's an important moral lesson in my opinion. To have the ability to be self-reliant and to be honest with oneself.

Reviewed By: Jacqueline L, Grade 12
Central Library