Manga Max #6 from June/July 1999

His SECRET, HER Secret

The camera hangs on a series of close-ups. Images of urban Japan. Road markings; overhead powerlines; a sidewalk; a far cityscape. In the distance birds make a melancholy noise. A tension builds. It could be a scene from 'Evangelion',but it's not. The show is 'His Secret,Her Secret' and it has the fingerprints of Hideaki Anno and GAINAX all over it.

Anno's adaption of Masami Tsuda's school romance strip left many industry observers scratching their heads in bewilderment. After the runaway success of 'Eva', people expected something more commerical. Could the laddish GAINAX team,masters of the robot series,tackle something as hearts-and-flowers as 'His Secret,Her Secret' ?

Never fear. The resulting show is as ground-breaking as anything they've ever done. Writer/Director Anno sticks tight to Tsuda's original strip. The Story is about two straight-A high school students, Yukino Miyazawa and Soichiro Arima, who harbour secrets. To an outside observer the secrets are no great shakes,but in the student;s self-absored teenage world, they mean life or death, Yukino and Arima step all over each other to become the head of their class by any means possible, all the time mainting their studied masks of politeness. However,the masks eventually begin to slip,secrets are shared,and the couple start to fall in love with each other. All of the while,Yukino's madcap family link the show together with a running commentary,like a manic Greek chorus.

In the production of 'His Secret,Her Secret' there's a sense that GAINAX have taken a traditional genre,the high-school comedy romance and decided to shake it until it's teeth rattle. They are pushing the envelope and don't miss a trick. There is the measured pacing through the use of stills and montage; the widespread employment of graphics and typography; the representation of internalised dialogue through captioning. Photocopied images; vignette illustrations,split-screening; the use of on-screen countdowns; they are inventing and improvising an entire visual grammar for the show. Whether this would translate at all to the West is a cause for concern; for example,the captioning is so dense it would be difficult to subtitle.

The series is as funny as hell and GAINAX wastes no effort in extracting the full comic potential of the story. Yukino is a petty, obsessed creature whose private reactions to every social slight are depicted as extreme,mutating rages,while all the time her 'public' face remains sweet and unflappable. Anno has a ball showing the two-faced hypocrisy of Yukino,whilest at the same time generating genuine sympathy for her. This is no mean task. On the face of things she is a dislikable teenager; but she is also a bundle of the Nineties vunerabilities and neuroses. Her slowly- growing on-and-off relationship with Arima is delicately drawn,a heart-rendering trip through the teenage psyche where the tinest nuance in a relationship can have seismic consequences. Teenage behaviour we can all recognise.

If there is a failing at all it's in the casting. 'His Secret,Her Secret' is not so much a drama as a monologue carried by Yukino,and newcomer Atsuko Enomoto has insufficent rage to adequately portray the depths of the character as well as her superficiality. However,Chiharu Suzuki makes a decent fist of Arima.

The music by 'EVA' composer Shiro Sagisu fills the background with jaunty covers of Seventies J-Pop hits. And,most startling of all,the end credits are filmed in live action,with a 'Love & Pop' -style peek-a-boo 'Anno-cam' swooping creepily through the deserted corridors of a high school. Chalk Up another winner to the GAINAX team.