Features:
Description:
Smart, athletic, attractive, and popular, Yukino and Soichiro seem like model high school students, but they each conceal a "dark" secret. A psychotic need for praise compels Yukino to work like a longshoreman to attain her seemingly effortless excellence; Soichiro fears he may follow his dishonest biological parents, who abandoned him as a child. Yukino and Soichiro discover the individuals behind their masks--and find real affection. This well-observed romantic comedy captures the doubts, misunderstandings, self-dramatization, and bewilderment of adolescent love. Although Circumstances represents a radical shift in tone from writer-director Hideo Anno's mystical, alienated Evangelion, it displays the same visual imagination, with diverse graphics styles, onscreen commentaries, and Yukino's younger sisters acting as a sort of Greek chorus. Funny, sharp, and sometimes painfully realistic, this outstanding series depicts teenage life with an honesty no American animated program approaches. Rated 13 Up: Profanity, cartoon violence. --Charles Solomon
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