Kare Kano an excellent shoujo and an outstanding but simple romance with visuals and sound that craft an extremely cute and cheery style one that manages to be relatable and organic. And the last anime series that Hideaki Anno would ever direct. Right off the bat theres one thing you need to know if youre considering watching this. The final 8 or so episodes see a dramatic drop in quality and are largely considered to be not worth watching at all I didnt watch them. This is most likely because Annos involvement lessened significantly at that point. The show was already plagued with the same time management problems as EVA and this shows throughout the series. HOWEVER. Even considering this episode 18 still offers a perfectly fine resolution of sorts for the main couple. The rest of the characters arent so lucky but they werent particularly developed very much anyway. AND. Even with production problems and a good amount of lacking animation colorless frames and just plain real life footage the animation and art style still shines in many moments. Often characters are given great expression and motion. Overall the good outweigh the bad and the problematic moments probably wont sour your experience. THE MAIN REASONS TO WATCH THIS ANIME The development of the main couple both AS a couple but even more importantly as individuals and the effects that those developments then have on them as a couple and the style. Its pure late 90s shoujo romcom bliss and I instantly fell in love with it. Now to examine some things a bit closer and address some other elements. As the story progresses new characters are introduced. Their greatest contribution is to give conflict and resolution arcs to the main couple and therefore act as plot devices for them. They nearly are able to stand on their own as fleshed out interesting characters some more than others but they dont quite get there. Yukinos seiyou does an excellent job and brings quite a bit to the character. I thought her design wasnt very appealing before watching the anime but Im pretty sure her seiyou alone was enough to completely change my perspective on her. Shes a terrific protagonist altogether. Every moment with her is great. The two leads arent black and white. They have somewhat complicated personalities and histories that lend to great development growth and relatability. Read the summary on the animes page and youll get a better idea of what I mean its basically the pitch of the show. The OST is worth noting because its excellent. It has this really upbeat like 1920sor 1950s? romance vibe to it? It bleeds charm into every other element of the show and only uplifts the animation and the characters Yukino especially. This anime subverts some particularly frustrating romcom cliches. Doing so isnt necessarily a mark of good writing on its own merit but its satisfying and a breath of fresh air. I will say though that KareKanos writing is good and the places where those cliches wouldve appeared in a lesser story there are good characters and conflicts that only become better and more fleshed out. And the relationships these characters have and the ones they build through resolving internal and external conflicts are much more organic and human. And that combined with the silly over the top romcom style is a wonderful combination and reminds me why I even like anime in the first place. The untrained eye could see the over the top style and discount the show for being cheap and shallow and oftentimes with lesser shows this is the case not everyone is skilled enough to craft good characters. Anyone familiar with these kinds of shows the good ones knows this isnt a rule. You CAN have good characters human characters and real conflicts and also have a ridiculous sense of humor. Kare Kano does this well. 3 cliches in particular caught my eye these are a tad spoilery: 1. The beginning of Arimas and Miyazawas relationship altogether. Romance in anime is usually bogged down with the worst of cliches that seem to do everything they can to avoid giving the audience a satisfying and enjoyable narrative and progression. No garbage here. No irritating irrational misunderstandings. No deus ex machina to interrupt key moments. It just flows naturally and the drama is able to come from the foundations the characters are built upon rather than the writers poor plot/drama construction. 2. The jealous girl whos in love with Arima tries to sabotage Miyazawa and make her look mean and rude right when this conflict is introduced Arima shuts it down and sees right through her. This was honestly so cathartic. And the show was still able to keep the conflict of her being jealous without any problems although it was rather minor and resolved quickly and without much consequence. 3. The jealous girl who turns the class against Miyazawa after having given Miyazawa the silent treatment for a while some of the girls are starting to pick up on the fact that their hatred for her is unfounded and unreasonable. Then the most amazing scene happens: they all are gathered in the classroom and they REASON out why it was stupid for them to do and then they APOLOGIZE to Miyazawa and THEN they go to the jealous girl and tell her that theyve seen through her ploy and even though they cant like her now they still wont be petty and give her the silent treatment in return because theyve learned how petty it is. GAH SO REFRESHING HOLY SHIT. Note the characters in cliches 2 and 3 are jealous of Miyazawa for different understandable reasons and theyre very different characters. Okay having said all this as much as I enjoy this anime the story itself is pretty lowkey. Not particularly gripping in the way that Toradora is. But again it stands on its own for the reasons Ive talked about and I believe its well worth watching. Its without a doubt one of my favorite romcoms.