The proliferation of new anime releases has made it more and more difficult for retailers who don't specialize in anime and manga to sort the wheat from the chaff and distinguish the anime titles with real potential.  In the clutter of an increasingly crowded market place, prime properties are often overlooked. Case in point--His and Her Circumstances, one of the most interesting and innovative anime series of the past decade.  Director Hideaki Anno followed Evangelion with this delicious 26-episode romantic comedy that appeared on TV Tokyo in 1998.  Romantic comedy is actually one of anime's most robust genres (think Tenchi Muyo, Love Hina, etc.), and Anno pulled out all the surrealistic visual tricks he could muster including super-deformed versions of the characters, paper cutouts, photographs, live action, split screens, and Greek choruses to liven up this character-driven sitcom about an uptight 'perfect' girl, who is actually a pulsating mass of insecurities barely contained by a mask of demure superiority.  This May, the Right Stuf will issue the first of five His & Her Circumstances DVDs.   Volume #1, which contains five episodes, has a suggested retail of $29.95. The Right Stuf is also selling a collector's box, which will hold all five DVDs, and which can be purchased with Volume #1 for a suggested retail price of $39.95. Tokyopop is also publishing the first volume of the His & Her Circumstances manga collection (srp $9.95) on April 30 so retailers will be able to sell both the manga and anime versions of this property all summer.

Each of the five His & Her Circumstances DVDs includes extras like production notes, storyboards, image galleries, and interviews.  The series is rated 13+ as it deals with romantic situations.  One of the big reasons for the success of previous anime romantic comedies is the fact that these series appeal to both male and female consumers--and this should certainly be true of His & Her Circumstances, which has been characterized more than once as an 'anime Ally McBeal,' but which also includes effects fans will recognize from Evangelion such as multiple on screen texts and contradictory subtitles that twist the words that the characters utter.  Thanks to director Anno, His & Her Circumstances is very much a Studio Gainax series, with all the arty, self-conscious, off-beat charm and quirkiness that characterize other Gainax projects like Evangelion and the unjustly neglected Wings of Honneamise.