Kare Kano was
originally a shoujo manga series by Masami Tsuda, and was
adapted in 1998 by Studio Gainax and directed (mostly) by
Hideaki Anno and
bizarrely
being released in the West as "Tales at North
Hills High" The show itself is a great watch, bucking the trend
of 90s romcom and being the last great romance before the genre fell
into a gaping VN shaped hole in the 2000s. But in this article I
won't be talking about the contents of the show, but rather the
strange circumstances under which it was made, the backdrop of the
industry at the time and the players involved.
In the late '90s,
Gainax
was the big cool studio. Since the 1980s they had become the
spearhead of modern anime, with their retail store General
Products and their co-founding of WonFes, not to mention
their actual animation department, defining a generation of otaku
with Ota no Vid and the hugely celebrated Evangelion series.
Evangelion had been one of the most ambitious TV anime of all time,
bringing original shows onto national television. But when you
mention Eva, as well as Gainax another huge name in the industry also
pops up. Anno.
A cultural kyojin who all but disappears from the industry in 1999,
which also happens to be during the time at which Kareshi Kanojo
no Jijou was
airing. My thoughts are that this is no coincidence, but I'll
get to that. Basically, hot of the heels of End of
Eva and
his arthouse documentary Love & Pop,
Hideaki
was the king pin of the king studio; the once and future otaking. His
next project was an anime adaptation of Kare Kano, from what I can
tell a highly popular shoujo manga printed in the prestigious
Hakusensha LaLa magazine.
Being
his 4th
director
role in under two years (Death & Rebirth, EoE, Love & Pop),
the man was on some kind of insane roll and ready to implode as he
was already known for doing (see Eva 25/26). These are the actors and
this is the stage, so in the words of Drosselmeyer: "Now show me a
magnificent
tragedy!"
Even
from the start there were problems, with the original manga being
very female oriented, and very focused on girl drama and the romance
aspect. Anno, and the very ethos of Gainax, were at almost the exact
opposite end of the otaku spectrum. Being Tokusatsu, military and
fanservice obsessed: the bombastic animation, left field
story-boarding and bizarro directing of Gainax projects seems like a
strange fit to such a series. The adaptation very much accentuates
the com in romcom, capping the general comedic vibe with quick tone
switches into well placed romantic drama scenes, with the animation
varying wildly and the show being very loose with following the
storyline and keeping scenes in order. The show was fast-paced for a
anime romance, your average show might end a cour of episodes with a
confession at most; and that's if their feeling daring today. Kare
Kano arrives at the hero and heroine (Arima and Yukino) being
officially in a relationship by episode 4, a deviation not only from
the norm, but also from the source material. With wacky editing and a
much more mature feel, all aspects of the relationship are explored
in rapid succession, my balls were basically orange (or whatever the
opposite of blue is). The actual show's budget was never high.
Being non-action oriented and generally more niche than a shounen
show, actual animation cuts are rare, but the mastery of key
animators such as Imaishi, Tsurumaki and Ishida combined with
Imaishi's storyboarding and Anno directing made every frame
appealing, due to it being on screen for a long time, it is the
perfect show for reaction images. As the show progressed this fact
became more and more pronounced, with backgrounds almost completely
being forsaken by the second cour, and even the disappearance of lip
flapping for conversation scenes. There's even one continuous scene
of a game of Uno played by Yukino's family, an obvious ploy to
appeal to the fans of Toei's new franchise, YuGiOh.
According
to third/fourth hand sources (trustworthy I know, but what can I do
as an English speaker), Masami Tsuda was getting more and more
displeased with the adaptation, saying that it was focusing too much
on the comedic side of her series and not placing enough stress on
the emotional scenes. I'm sure she was also not happy with the
story alterations, which is brought to a T in episode 18. At this
point the symbolic animation was reaching evangelion levels of
ridiculous, Anno had once again brought in Bach as the track and
things were heading for something that 90s Japan was definitely not
ready for. Anno had two high school characters in a relationship and
of age, have sex. Yeah I know, lock the shutters and shut the
curtains. The scene was actually sent back to the studio from the TV
company for being too explicit (it really isn't but sure). The TV
aired version just completely cuts the scene, making a bizarre cut
from the two in Arima's room to Arima throwing up in the bathroom
and Yukino having just disappeared, the true, uncut version was later
included in Japanese DVD releases, but only as an extra. The censored
version was also the version released in the US, which is one of the
reasons most Western fans have such a bad opinion of the show's
ending.
Although it doesn't end there. Masami was apparently
so enraged with this, as well as the quickly enclosing TV
institutions, that she brought the case to JC Staff (co-producers of
the show if I didn't mention before) who persuaded Gainax to
persuade Anno to stop being an idiot and direct properly. Anno
promptly quit the show. Three quarters of the way through the show he
just up and left his position as director. I can only imagine the
panic this caused with anime schedules being as they are and Gainax
being possibly the worst studio for times of crisis. Hiroki Sato was
brought in at short notice, a man who had not directed a thing in his
life and hasn't directed a thing since. Hiroyuki Imaishi was also
brought in to try to keep the ship afloat as storyboarder. The effect
was the infamous episode nine. If you haven't seen it the closest I
can explain it is through its obvious similarity to Inferno Cop.
Drawings were kept on the original genga for the most part, not
coloured, stuck onto lollypop sticks and moved around like a punch
and judy show. It's top class Imaishi with scenes that are almost
identical to some in Kill la Kill, a show that is still a decade and
a half away. Despite the consensus, I'm a huge fan of this episode,
crazy practical effects, weird storyboarding and set-pieces that'd
do better in an episode of Ultraman. At one point Yukino grows to the
size of a skyscraper and fights a photograph of a man turning him
into a skeleton.
This whole affair ends with the outro, a live action video of the
staff at Gainax bringing out all of the episode's cel and genga,
putting them into a pile and setting them all on fire. This is
possibly my favourite episode of all anime.
The
rest of the series is very toned down, the animation quality recovers
somewhat and during his time off, Anno apparently
secretly made the final episode's storyboards, which was used for
the season finale, a completely new story to cap off the show with a
reasonable ending. Oh yes, another thing, once Anno had left the
project, he went into hiding and changed his name from Hideaki
Anno to
Hideaki Anno, a
fact shown in the updated OP and ED credits for the show's director
role:
[TR: BEFORE- Director Anno Hideaki (kanji), AFTER- Director Satou Hiroki and Anno Hideaki (katakana)]
Anno has never again directed a TV anime, and left the studio several
years later.
Masami has never again gotten a TV adaptation of her manga either,
with Kare Kano being her most popular work.
And so here we end the story of a insane man and a controlling woman,
two artists who wanted very different things and were both left
unsatisfied.
These were their circumstances.
His and Her Circumstances...
