Yesterday wo Utatte

I don’t usually give of a review this early into a series, but since I can tell how things will sort of along the episodes I feel a need to give my honest opinion regarding my current and future expectations of what will come out of this show.

Once I saw the Seinen and Slice of Life tags I was hopeful. Finally a show that will approach the unpredictable waves of life, It’s always a nice fresh air to watch something different after a long journey of constant Isekai binge-watching.

Our main character is Rikuo. Rikuo like many people around this times faces a lack of ambition. ... This lack of ambition makes him work at a convenience store, a place where usually part timers, make money for college. He has a degree, but won’t go forward with life, and settles for the routine to keep him from getting hurt. One of his enjoyments in life was his crush, which he never confessed to because he also lacked the sense of worth.

After a while dealing with monotony, his former girl friend crush appears once again on his life, and also a quirky younger girl that apparently knows him from somewhere. Rikuo is faced with the past and the future when he can’t even settle himself in the present.

We later find that Rikuo, Shinako and Haru even though they are in different life situations have trouble dealing with the past. Dropping school, having a respectful job or having an ‘’embarrassing’’ job, no matter how it looks in today’s society, doesn’t matter since we all are human and we all are emotionally scarred by personal fears.

Yesterday wo Utatte set a high bar for me since the beginning. The saturated color palette, the realistic vision of the main character really got to me. I was expecting a rough, bittersweet journey of this show, like a journey of a person finding its meaning on the world. This vision fell down right quick after I acknowledge the deception.

Even though the thematic is interesting, new and rather useful for people who actually can relate with any of the characters, the fact that the romance is the motivation of their change is kind of ridiculous in my opinion. Realistically, it isn’t love that solves your lack of ambition, a grievance or a sense of miss. It may help but, it’s all about how YOU deal with it by yourself.

I don’t like this approach, and I can tell there is going to be love triangles and clichés, which are a turnoff since I am about the age of the supposed adults and they still act like teenagers. I just wished this show went in another direction.

Yesterday wo Utatte is an anime that had great potential, but unfortunately wasted it. When I saw its premise, I immediately felt a strong sense of connection to it. It's been more than a year since I graduated from college, and the show reflects the uncertainty I've felt about the future recently. Not everyone will find their success story immediately once they set foot on the real world. Feeling like you're in limbo during the time between graduation and employment is normal. Perhaps, these are just assurances to comfort me as I’ve been stuck in one place for a while now. Watching the first few ... episodes made me reflect if I made any real progress in life as an adult. It made me root for Rikuo's character, hoping things get better for him eventually. The show could've been an emotionally compelling coming-of-age story about overcoming obstacles that adult life brings. Instead, it ended up being a complicated romance story with mixed results.

Even if the show didn't end up going for the coming-of-age route, I became invested in the romance. Rikuo finds himself stuck between two women that showed interest in him. One of them is Haru, who is the eccentric yet cheerful type that has a massive crush on Rikuo. The other one is Shinako who Rikuo has a crush on ever since they were classmates back in college. To make things more complicated, we also have Rou who's in love with Shinako even though they are childhood friends. The show does a decent job initially in exploring each character's backstory and making the audience understand their train of thought. I honestly didn't care who will end up with who as long as enough time is given to flesh out their characters. The show's focus on romance was starting to get the justification it deserved until it got ruined with one logistical decision that led to its downfall.

As the show progressed around the halfway mark, it started to have a noticeable drop in quality with each episode. They no longer have the same impact as the earlier episodes. It felt like a long period had passed between episodes, and the show's continuity suffered because of that. I soon discovered that a lot of content from the manga were skipped over, and most of them are considered crucial to the story's progression. New episodes would have developments that startled me and made me wonder if I wasn't paying enough attention to the previous episode. The characters' actions started to make less sense, and I still tried to connect the dots despite that. It's almost like Doga Kobo was in a rush to conclude the whole thing, which is a disappointing move that even the extras that are supposed to fill in the gaps couldn't remedy.

I can't help but feel that this anime could've been way better as I reached the final episode. It started extremely well, began to lose focus, and ended up with a conclusion that didn't feel earned. The main characters didn't get the proper exploration that they deserved. Every major decision they make doesn't feel justified later because the show starts to make less effort to help us understand what made them reach that decision. They all feel like the same flawed person they were at the start. They deserve to be more than that because they feel like real people. At least, their interactions made it feel that way, whether it's those moments of awkward silence or sudden outbursts of emotion. If there's anything that I got from watching this show, it made me want to read its manga. I want to know what the story would be like untarnished by the limits of an adaptation. I want to learn more about the characters and understand them better. I want to forget the bitter aftertaste this anime gave me after pinning such high hopes on it.

Really lads, I thought I was going to be able to hold the whole stupid love triangle drama involved between the main characters but I just absolutely had to pull the plug and drop the anime altogether.....

I really tried giving this show many chances but nothing is honestly changing here.. It's just all of them going back and forth with no proper conclusion to happen whatsoever....

I very much rather if it was about the side characters Kinoshita, Minato and Chika. They were actually a lot more likeable than the MCs tbh. I thought I liked Haru but the more I watched the show, the less ... I liked her just as much as the rest....

I had high hopes for this series but yeah I just couldn't stick it any longer. If you like your love triangles then this is for you peeps!

I'll put it simply. I had high hopes for this anime. A coming of age tale that was a nicely paced slice of life. At least, that's what it looks like on the surface. This anime was probably the biggest disappointment that I've ever experienced. The MC is unlikable to a ridiculous level(Bland attitude to everyone except his love interest, whom he simps heavily for, and acts like a complete prick to the girl who says she's into him), and any attempts at romance in the show are just bogged down over and over again by cliche after cliche. The main character just throws the ... show into the mud, and makes it sad because some of the other characters, like haru(in some cases) or rou, are actually really interesting. And as I keep watching, I can't help but notice the level of Character development drop more and (SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5) in the latest episode, Rikuo is just talking completely normally with Shinako, but then the other love interest walks in cliche literally DESTROYS the scene from something that should be beautiful into something that's cringy. 5 MINUTES LATER, the producer's play the "character being oblivious to the point of anger" card when Minato is coming into the shop every day, and Haru just SOMEHOW doesn't know that he's into her, given their past as well, and STILL decides to lead him on by spending an entire day with him, but rejects him anyways. I hope the anime gets better(Again, I was excited for it), but in all honesty, I don't think it will.

Probably this year's prime example of how the 12-episode format and the hardheaded insistence on it do more to damage anime than to help it thrive. Or even keep it alive, as the case were.

Yesterday wo Utatte is about as common, simple and pedestrian a slice-of-life as a story can be, so if you expect it to distract you from real life, you're gonna be disappointed. The characters themselves are also perfectly normal, everyday people, if some of them a little too one-dimensional; I'm sure many of us can find one or more we easily relate to (or could, at one point or another in ... our lives). There isn't a whole lot of action, as befitting life in general - if anything, it spends a lot of time contemplating the trivial everydays in quiet melancholy. Mind and soul often take center stage, and even when a given character isn't outright analysing a stray thought or a fickle feeling, it's easy to pick up on how things are affecting them and why, almost as if reading all their diaries. Although it relies a little too much on "coincidence", and at a point feels like it'll adapt a wholly episodic storytelling where the side characters appear for an episode and then leave at the end, this seems to go on for a while, and if you like this sort of reflectional work, neither of these details will bother you.


[SPOLERS AHEAD]

It seems to go on like this... and ultimately that sort of becomes the downfall of the story. The problem is it barely (if ever) feels like any of the characters is going anywhere at all. Professionally, maybe, but even that's only the guys: Rikuo moves on from being a convenience store part-timer and finds a job he likes and is interested in doing, Rou finds a goal and manages to pursue it... But that's about the extent of it. With so much self-inspection, one would come to expect some form of growth. Changes to happen as people live their lives - changes that just aren't there. The stalker remains a stalker, the "maybe-but-not-really" couple dances their weird dance around each other, the woman who couldn't cope with the death of her crush never moves on from it... And they just keep hurting not only themselves but each other as well. The side characters seem to do more to push our main quartet forward than they do themselves, which, sure it happens, but not like this. It doesn't help that we're often not sure just how much time passes by between two scenes. There are cases when things are obviously directly connected, but about as many others where there's a gap in time between two events. Worse still is the fact that these gaps are absolutely random in size: they can be minutes as well as months (or more?). Such a generous application of erratic time skips really doesn't help make the story feel coherent at all.

And then we arrive at the last episode. No opening, it picks things right up where the previous one left off, and goes straight for the drama. Then we get a somber, indeed beautifully done and realistic discussion between two people who, seemingly, finally grew up. The end. Except not really, there's another half to it, one that turns everything upside down. There is absolutely nothing to explain or justify anything that happens here, indeed Rikuo himself saying he doesn't know how to explain it is a perfect summary of it. I'm not familiar with the source material - whatever the ending is, it might make perfect sense there. But that's exactly the elephant in the room. There's a huge amount of stuff that never made it into the anime... obviously, and that in itself would be just fine. However, for some inexplicable reason, it seems like whoever was responsible for it was not content leaving it unfinished and ending it on a note that would have made (at least a little) sense in the anime - no, they had to go for what is (apparently?) the original ending. Well, it fits about as well as the square peg in the round hole. Not only does the episode itself upset the whole tone and pacing set throughout the previous 11 episodes, switching to a lot more "action-packed" style; but it also comes off as a case of wanting to have the cake and eat it too.

All in all, the ending becomes the bullet that's shot into the foot. Without it, the anime would be a decent romantic slice-of-life, with some flaws that one could sort of squint at and maybe overlook through rose-tinted glasses while reminscing about their own similar memories of childhood and youth. As it is, however, it amplifies those flaws to a magnitude where they turn the decent attempt into a butchered, disjointed mess, in which if you thought you'd found characters to relate to, you'll conclude that they weren't characters, only certain traits or patterns - and they might actually be more harmful than you figured, too. It's a very unfortunate note to end a series on, and it might even leave a bitter enough aftertaste to discourage people from picking up the manga.

Overall: 5/10, simply because the art and animation were really good at worst and outright beautiful at best, the sound and voices were also well done and contributed a lot to setting the atmosphere. However, the characters having a rather gaping flaw or two at best, and being wholly one-dimensional at worst, with an almost complete lack of growth, plus the lack of any moral to the story in the end really soured whatever enjoyment the contemplations in the first half or so may have offered. And indeed, when you don't really have a "story" to tell, there should be other aspects to make up for it. Here, I guess it boils down to being a victim of this nonsensical anime format.

As a manga reader, this is the worst job they could do as an adaptation.

Rush things is normal and common, but when you just cut everything out and remove all important side character in a SLICE OF LIFE, this just became a mess.

If you haven't read the manga, give it a try and taste one of the best slice of life you'll ever see or just watch this "adaptation" that looks like a different thing.

I'm really sad with this because the first episode was so good that made my hopes go to the ceiling.

It's not DogaKobo fault or something, i know what happens to an ... anime that don't make money and stuff like that. Damn you, producers.

This will be a short review, and will contain no spoilers.

To start, what is there to like about this anime?

The visuals are wonderful, from the very beginning you get to feel the unique and compelling aesthetics the producers are aiming for. The story strikes you as very grounded in reality, the characters for the most part seem like real people. You really get invested in the story, and as this is basically a love-triangle story-line you soon start forming your own ships. For better or worse.


What is their to dislike?

The ending, the ending, the ending. The story in the end felt rushed, key main characters ... don't seem to have evolved as characters or changed in any way shape or form from the beginning until the very end. Depending on the 'ships' you root for you might end up feeling very jaded at the end. Certain characters behavior are extremely unhealthy (in-fact 'toxic') and are rewarded with no self-awareness or self-realization on the part of the characters.

In the end this was a well animated enough, well directed anime with well designed 'complicated' characters who never grow. This will most-likely leave an unsavory taste in your mouth for a while after consuming.

Love is subjective, a senseless emotion. A person can sacrifice everything and work at 500% for the love of someone, but that doesn't mean its gonna get it. The person he/she is looking for might end up falling in love with someone that just discovered or rediscovered, even if its love is not reciprocated. Still, the person that works for it has more opportunities and that's what life and love is about, to use your opportunities.

Story: 5
Just like every other story with the same genres, It's about characters with some kind of emotional problems because of the past.
Rikuo is a person that hasn't found his ... place in life. Disappointed and lacking of ambitions, he just waits for the future to come with whatever it wants (I bet most of people feels identified with him). This changes when a girl comes to his life for the first time and an old crush comes back to awake remaining feelings. What do we get? an usual love triangle.
Yes, the story is cliché, but it always work with this kind of genres because of something that must never fail: Characters.
The climax is to sudden and lacks of development, like if it has rushed half the story of the manga. It's the worst way to end a story, but even if I believe it was poorly developed, the idea is a good way to end this story. I would have done the same thing as Rikuo if I was there instead, falling in love with Shinako just to find out she's not ready for a relationship and because of this losing interest over her, ending up falling in love with Haru, someone that has been waiting for me no matter how hard it was.

Characters: 5
The only one I think is bad is Shinako, not because of Haru or other emotional things, but because her character development was a useless waste of screentime. Rikuo and Haru are fine, even if they are kinda cliché.
- Rikuo: An alive person that lives like a dead person. His personality fits with the average person that likes anime, someone disappointed with life, it's realistic. He gets character development by deciding to find out the meaning of his life thanks to Shinako's indirect support (rejection). In the end he finds out what is bet for him
- Haru: The "weirdo-perfect waifu" of the story, someone that fans will blindly attack for to anyone who "hurt" her, even fictional characters (Shinako). An introvert girl that became assertive for the love of someone she just discovered all of a sudden. Yes, love is a senseless emotion, but I feel forced the way she fell in love with Rikuo, I'm the kind of person that wants good reasons. Even if she's a cliché character at this type of stories, it's impossible not to fall in love with her, that's why she was created for.
- Shinako: Someone living in the past, someone that thinks impossible to live a future without overcoming the past. Maybe some fans wrongly think she's a bad person for "toying" with Rou and Rikou by not explaining thinks clearly and giving them chances, she's not. Most anime fans are used to think all female characters must be perfect, no important problems allowed, that's why when they see one with emotional problems, they don't understand it and if she somehow gets in the way of their waifu (Haru), they will hate her to death.
She stays negligent with her decisions in the climax, something I disliked.
I remember Haru saying that Shinako has the advantage over her because she has known Rikuo for a longer time than her and had more opportunities, but that's not true. Even if Shinako has the "time" advantage, she never used her opportunities with Rikuo until near the end of the anime because she was trapped in the past. That's why Haru won, because she worked hard for Rikuo's love for longer and used all her chances, unlike Shinako.

Sound: 5
Ok for me, background music does its job, but I found negative the lack of opening tbh.

Character design, scenarios, animation: 4 | 8 | 6 = 6
- Character design: Kinda mediocre, but good enough when needed.
- Scenarios: Good, beautifully made and better than the average.
- Animation: Ok, but could have been better. Not too smooth, but not bad.

Enjoyment: 6
Enjoyed untill I reached the climax, then I wanted to drop it.

Overall: 5.4 = 5
I've been a fan of Romance/Slice of Life/Drama stories for a long time because they are the most realistic and human ones, even if they are fictional stories. Yesterday wo Uttate does a decent job expressing what this kind of stories want to be, but not at the level of other stories of its kind like Anohana, Kokoro Connect or Nagi no Asukara. I would rate it 6 or even 7 if it wasn't because of that forced climax, even if I believe that the love triangle ended logically and subjectively correct. Most average of Romance/Slice of Life/ Drama stories usually get bad near the end, Yesterday wo Uttate is another example, just like Glasslip or True Tears.

I don’t agree with writing reviews before the season/series is over. Because that review would only cover the first few episodes, and these may not be an accurate representation of the rest of the season. Yesterday wo Utatte, or Sing “Yesterday” For Me, is now my go-to example for that argument. The first handful of episodes are really good, interesting, beautiful, and had characters that had complex relationships and emotions. However, as the series went on, it became more evident that only the art and the animation would stay good. The story is a little irritating, and the characters are very irritating, and the sound ... and art are good. Yesterday wo Utatte was very promising in the first quarter, but quickly turned as the series progressed. 5/10.

*Spoilers beyond this point*

The story is the bog-standard love triangle plot. However, there are two episodes dedicated to the side character’s romantic interests in two of the main characters. These two episodes are a small, but necessary, shifts from the love triangle plot. These two episode side stories are better than the main plot by far. The ending is awful! Rikuo gets with Haru, and Shinako might get with Rou. This betrays the trajectory and logic of the story presented thus far.

Moving on from something that is plain to something good, the art. I like the art style. The colors are dull and dim, and they set the mood rather well. The only place that has anything close to bright or vibrant colors is Shinako’s apartment. This makes a stark contrast between the rest of the anime and her living space. Perhaps it is Rikuo’s perspective. Everything without her is dull and bleak, and when he is with her the world is vibrant. If not, then why is the rest of the world dim when she is bright? If so, then congratulations Yesterday wo Utatte you passed sixth-grade symbolism.

Another thing I liked was the music and sound. There is not an OP for Sing “Yesterday” For Me, and this keeps the story flowing and is a change of pace from all the other anime that have invasive OPs. There are only EDs in this anime, and it is well documented by my friends, and anyone else who will listen, that I love Sayuri’s music. She has the second ED called “Aoibashi,” and it is great. On a more personal note, this song is only used for episodes 7, 8, and 9, while the other two are used for episodes 1-6 and 10-12. They gave six episodes to the worst ED and made the better two split up the remaining ones, but I digress.

A common flaw in many romance anime is that the romance is not believable, or could be solved by simply communicating with each other. Yesterday wo Utatte is the new figurehead for this argument. To name a few examples, Shinako could tell Rou that he doesn’t own her and can’t tell her what to do, Shinako could tell Rikuo that she needs time to be in a relationship, Rikuo could tell Haru that he isn’t interested, so on and so on. On the topic of Shinako, she is a real disaster as a character. She leads Rikuo and Rou on for the majority of the anime, she doesn’t tell others how she feels she just expects them to know what to do or what to say, and acts like Rikuo’s jealous girlfriend, but then turns on a dime and becomes uninterested. When she is uninterested, like with Rou, she doesn’t tell him to stop. Rou unsurprisingly acts like a child. Demanding that Shinako cooks for him even though he is in going into college and could cook for himself. He also keeps acting like a passive-aggressive edge lord. Finally, he demands to know Shinako’s relationship with Rikuo. Rikuo is no saint either of course. I was empathetic towards him for a while. Being a university student I also worry that I won’t get anywhere in life. This was the only good thing about him. He winges about everything constantly, not dissimilar to Rou. He also leads on Haru. Haru is the only good main character in the bunch. She is a bit clingy and pushy at times, but this is what makes her a good character. She is flawed, not awful. I now understand why the vast majority of fanart I have seen is of her. Other than Haru, none of these characters are enjoyable to watch. They aren’t flawed people like in Scum’s Wish. They are awful people who act like teenagers. Shinako’s friend even said, “You aren’t teenagers anymore.” I swiftly responded with, “Then why is everyone acting like one?!” Honestly, the terrible trio of Shinako, Ruo, and Rikuo are all very similar to people I knew back in high school. So, if the main cast is a let down then where can I turn to get good characters? Interestingly enough, the supporting characters, more specifically, the two one-off characters. They have depth, interests, likes, dislikes, and most importantly, they act like adults. When the man was rejected he understands a goes about the rest of his life. When the woman found out that she is interfering with Rikuo’s friendships she leaves. The terrible trio would never do this. They would just sit there and whinge and cry about their lives.

For these previously mentioned reasons, I did not enjoy Yesterday wo Utatte. If the characters acted like adults, used their words, and used some common sense, then this show could have been great. An interesting and emotional walk through the lives of the four main characters showing their highs and lows in their lives. Scum’s Wish has better characters because they were messed up people, but also good characters. Give me a story that is more interesting, adults that act like adults and not angsty teenagers, and a color pallet that is more consistent. With these changes made this would be a better, more enjoyable, show.

If I would have reviewed Yesterday wo Utatte, or Sing “Yesterday” For Me, early I would have gone off about how great the show is and how much I enjoyed watching it. The art, characters, music, and story all ranged from good to great, but as the series went on it started to decline until most of my good feelings soured. Never before have I seen the main cast of any media be so unlikeable. Rou is a child, Shinako is an indecisive tease, and Rikuo can’t act like an adult. Haru is flawed but she is the best character because of her flaws. I would suggest you skip this anime and find one that has a better story and characters. But, if you want to watch this then watch the first quarter, search Aoibashi by Sayuri on Youtube, then either stop watching it or lower your expectations to a sub-par anime. All in all, a 4 for the story, 7 for the art, a 6 for the sound, a 3 for the characters, and a 4 for enjoyment. Coming out to a 5 overall.

I think a majority of the anime was good. However, that ending. Well it's really bad. The relationship (part from the end) was believable. They felt like real characters. How they interacted with each other felt real. It does a good job sparking conversation and questioning what it means to be mature or how to handle drama. Unfortunately, getting us to think about that isn't the same as answering that. Although, it did a good job at giving us these questions, that ending undoes most of the leg work put in to resolve it. It's not that I hate the pair that the writer decided ... to take. I'm fine with either pairing, with the caveat of one rule. It makes sense. That heel turn makes absolutely no sense and disassemble all the build up. It really isn't best way to end your story.
To explain what I mean I need to go into spoiler territory. You see a relationship is about being there for each other, working each other's problem, feeling each other's pain, and work to help each other overcome their struggles. The majority of the story Rikuo and Shinako have been doing this. It is extremely believable for me to see that they are in love; they're just bad at it. (Which is understandable considering their personalities.) They are willing to suffer for each other to be together. That felt like love. They stumble a lot and made many mistakes because they have reach peak maturity yet. But that how relationships are. You make mistakes and mature for each other. Haru on the other hand didn't go through this with Rikuo. It felt more like an immature crush. Haru has "best girl personality" and did what considered a favor. Pushing Rikuo to chase the job he wants is a extraordinary favor. But it doesn't bond a person closer in the way you think. It just makes you appreciate them more. They didn't put in effort take on each other's struggle at all. The only suffering being experience is when Haru experience heartbreak or jealously. Rikuo never felt that. He didn't feel her struggles. He just felt bad for her and tried his best to not make it worse. They do support each other. But only in out of nowhere moments that wasn't present through out the series like that break-in thief moment. This is more akin to friends support rather than romantic support. Haru has "best girl personality" which makes her likable, yes. But that's not the same as pairing her up with what Rikuo and Shinako experience together. What they went through together was special. Trading that away for someone with a better personality leaves many viewer feeling empty. I'm not mad at pairing her up with Rikuo. I'm mad at how it was handle. If the author wanted to pair these two up at the end, he needs Rikuo and Haru to go through something special. They need to have a moment where Rikuo sees Haru differently for the first time. Rikuo needs to accept Haru's struggle and he also needs a struggle that doesn't depends on Shinako so Haru can accept his struggle. Since his struggle revolves around Shinako, Haru can't exactly accept it the same way Shinako and Rikuo accepeted each other's struggle. How the author paired up Haru and Rikuo was poorly done and failed to be special like what Rikuo and Shinako had. Haru should have had a different happy ending.
Let's talk about Rou now. Rou whether it was intentional or not, represent immaturity. He would have been the perfect allegory for what all the other character should be trying to get away from. Every character are on a path to maturity. He is the most immaturity character on the show. He constantly lashes out and make create selfish drama. He would have been a great foil if the show used him right. The most logical step for his character is finally mature at the end. If the show actually done that, I would've like his character. Instead, every screen time he gets, we never see him make steps into growing as a person. He remains the same person throughout the story. This makes him my least favorite character. Pairing him up with Shinako was a bad idea. Shinako states over and over again that he is nothing more than a kid brother to her. She cannot see him anything other that. Nothing's changed. Why did Shinako choose him out of no where. It makes no sense. Where did that come from? Yes, she loves Rou more than Rikuo. But it's she over and over states it's because he's like a little brother to her. He is family. That's why she loves him. How is loving Rou more than Rikuo an excuse for the break up? Her relationship with Rikuo never changed. It was stagnate. Nothing happened to change how she sees him. Even if she did love him all this time and never realized it, it doesn't make sense. Why did she reject him in the begin and throughout the series if she loved him back the same way all this time? Why about being in a relationship with Rikuo made her realized she loves Rou. This is never explored. It just comes out of nowhere especially since her perception of him never changed. Although I don't agree with the decision, there is a way to make the pair work. Include a scene that shows Shinako seeing Rou in a different light. Then show a scene where Shinako finally sees him as a potential love interest. I still would like it but it's workable. That at least have some level of working. Her conflict with Rou didn't even resolve. She just kinda says I love him and that was that. Having that be the other half of why Shinako and Rikuo's relationship fall apart just insulted the audience really bad.
At the end of the day, The first 11 episode showed two adults reach the next level of maturity. But then the 12th just plummeted to high school maturity, which is worse than where the show began. That ending was beyond bad. I do still think it's a good anime. It challenges the viewers to question what it means to be mature. Just don't expect it to give you answers because the answers it give are bad. There where much better ways for the author to end with the pair they want. You can enjoy series, but you most certainly won't enjoy the ending.

When I first started watching this show I was excited. I was excited to see an Anime portray adult romance. It’s always a breath of fresh air to see a setting outside of middle school or high school. But I wouldn’t say a breath of fresh air is what I got. Instead I got the pleasure of meeting a cast of mostly supposed adults that act with the emotional intelligence of middle schoolers. Before getting into the nitty gritty the show is average. Do I recommend it? No, not really. The time watching this show never resulted in any great pay off. There’s no moment ... of real growth or raw emotion that really captured me, which I think is vital for drama or romance type shows. So try it if you’re just absolutely craving a romance Anime, but go in with tempered expectations. I hate to say it but you’re not finding a hidden gem but more like a safety pin in an earhole.

First off I just don’t understand the characters and what the direction and the theme of the show was supposed to be. Are these characters supposed to be like real people who showcase their flaws and learn to change?

Spoilers ahead:

Rikuo and Shinkao are both college graduates so they’re likely at least in their early twenties. I understand still figuring out life in your twenties but goodness both of them are just terrible at expressing themselves and are hot messes as individuals and just don’t make for realistic people who are in their twenties. Honestly these two characters are such headaches and I don’t even want to discuss them. I see Rikuo as basically a typical bland self insert who does the typical unsure of himself then figures out what he wants and that’s it. Shinako on the other hand is just stuck unknowing of what she wants as she leads two guys on. I understand that maybe the show is trying to demonstrate that love isn’t easy and that real people in their twenties can have difficulties expressing themselves. But these two characters never feel real and really just seem like middle schoolers disguised as college graduates.

Then we have Haru and Rou, what’s the lesson here with these two characters? Neither of them really truly change throughout the whole series. Both of them have this weird sense of entitlement to Rikuo and Shinako respectively. Haru’s initial meeting of Rikuo years prior to the show drives her to become pretty much a stalker for most of the series, but it’s ok because she’s cute. While Rou is extremely attached to Shinako and believes it’s his fate to be with her because his older brother was her crush who passed away years ago. Ah yes, because that’s how a normal person would view the girl who had a crush on their deceased brother. But honestly I feel bad for these two characters. At least they’re more adept at understanding their feelings compared to their older counterparts. Both of them at various points in the show also show they’re not ignorant to the fact they don’t have a good chance of getting the love they seek from their crushes.They know it’s probably better for them to move on so they can continue to grow. I feel bad that they never get that because just as they’re preparing to move on Rikuo and Shinako return into their lives. And supposedly that’s a happy ending.



Now here’s the thing, say the message is that it’s actually not a happy ending and the show was supposed to showcase the flaws of humans with love. That’s a good enough message to build a show on but y’know what the show could’ve executed it way better.

The animation is fine. I initially thought that having no OP was really good, they’d get to fit more content in but in the end it never really felt more content was fit in despite having an extra ninety seconds. Instead that extra time was devoted to awkward pauses and the longest four sentence conversations. My favorite part of the show was the show’s first ED song "Kago no Naka ni Tori (籠の中に鳥)" by yourness which belongs in all soft Anime music playlist but other than that I’m not taking much from this show. The characters aren’t great. The pacing is poor. The message they were selling just wasn’t hitting strong with me. And I’m leaving this show in the past because yesterday is where it belongs.

Made for those of us in our 20s who want something even just a LITTLE more relatable out of the romance genre. Here our cast is split between working adults and college students, and the situations explored make it a perfect getaway from your overdone Festival arcs and Beach episodes.

Sing "Yesterday" For Me benefits greatly from not having a traditional anime opening. The spared runtime alongside the perfectly-executed pacing early on allow each episode (at least the first 4-6) to feel unusually, satisfyingly long.

Unfortunately, the second half of the show becomes a little sloppy. Evidently, this is around the time when a lot ... of content from the source material was cut or extremely condensed. In a 12-episode stint, it is of course difficult to work everything in, but even though I've not read the source material myself, there's an unshakable sensation that the WRONG things were cut/condensed.

The impacts of this are primarily felt in the shows conclusion, but even in episodes prior, the story sometimes seems to wander aimlessly, almost stagnating. No one episode is a complete time waster, but certain sections are stretched too thin, and by the time significant development can occur again, you've found yourself with just 20 minutes left of the final episode.

It is an otherwise enjoyable watch to be clear, but it, at times, seemed to get away from itself after the halfway mark, leaving too small a window to wrap everything up properly.

Sing yesterday to me is a story about people who have stopped moving in life but start to rely on each other to start to move forward again.

Story & writing: Rikuo Uozumi is stuck, the frustration of continually job hunting has led him to working in a convenience store until a mysterious girl decides to take interest in him for no apparent reason, while it is explained later on into the series Uozumi is so flat and boring as a character it makes you wonder if the characters are delusional for seeing anything in him. Uozumi has a crush on Shinako his old college classmate, ... he idolizes Shinako as she has managed to do something with her life, and she has always been pulling Uozumi through life. But Shinko is stuck and straight up rejects Uozumi at the beginning of the series as she has not got over her own personal hang-ups, she is still chained to the past. All this sounds great but the issue with sing yesterday to me is that the is all open to interpretation, meaning a lot of other viewers don’t think of the series like this. Sing yesterday to me only presents the skeleton of a romance story without building on to it while plodding along at an inconsistent pace, introducing characters and then removing them from the story the next episode or even the same episode while skipping certain parts to give screen time to things that frankly don’t matter. The show also puts arbitrary roadblocks such as misunderstandings to create drama. For a show that has adult characters everyone is surprisingly childish.

Art: Sing yesterday to me employs a sort of rough pencil drew aesthetic which can be interesting to look at and flashback sequences prefer to show the characters through manga panels creating as clear distinction between flashback and present-day moments.

Sound: There isn’t anything memorable to say about the sound department the voice acting is solid, and the OST matches the scenes. Although the show doesn’t have an opening theme, but this might not even be noticeable as the show flows so well. Sometimes.

Enjoyment: Another is with sing yesterday to me is that it doesn’t have a core hook. The characters aren’t to interesting to watch and the drama is so forced and predictable you can see it coming from a mile away. Although it’s not too bad but some characters like the fourth ‘main’ character which I have deliberately avoided talking about are annoying to see on screen.

Yesterday wo Uttate was one of my must-watch anime this season and it did deliver.
As an avid fan of the romance, seinen and SoL genres and a big hater of drama, Yesterday wo Uttate was something totally new to me. I am that scared of the drama tag lol.

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead, read at your own risk.

Now diving into the anime, we have Rikuo, our protagonist, who is your average college pass-out. He is lazy, he is unambitious and he has a terrible luck in love. He has a long-standing crush on his college friend Shinako, but is too shy to propose her. Sounds ... just like me, huh? Things are moving uneventfully for him, when boom enters Haru, a short, young and pretty(?) girl who has a crush on Rikuo.

You must be thinking, ah here’s another of them BS love-triangle anime where the MC is a blockhead and two pretty girls are after him. Well, you’re wrong, partially that is. Rikuo is too kind of a soul to hurt any of the girls (what an absolute idiot imo) and keeps Haru’s hopes alive while trying to propose to Shinako. Also, there’s this boy called Rou, who happens to be the little brother of Shinako’s first love, and has a crush on Shinako. Love-quadrilateral? This is some real nerve testing drama shit.

Story (7/10): The plot’s well-paced and keeps you hooked up alright. But sometimes it becomes a bit predictable, nothing boring tho. You get a good look at the lives of 4 normal people, nothing extraordinary and overblown like most other romance anime. The best part is that if you’re someone normal (like me), you can relate a lot to the story. But Good Lord, that ending. Who in their right mind could even direct it. Destroyed the whole anime.

Art (9/10): The art is amazing. I am a big fan of the art-style. Daga Kobo did a great job with the art, specially the light effects and cityscapes. I love it.

Characters (6/10): If there’s one beef that I have with this show, it’s the characters. Don’t get me wrong, the characters are very much real-life like and well designed, but I cannot help myself from hating Haru and Rou. Why you ask? Because I am an unashamed shipper of Shinako x Rikuo. Personal feelings aside, the characters are amazing and you’ll find yourself thinking about your life every now and then (unless you are an extremely successful and happy person). There’s a lot of character development here and the emotions they express feel very much real. Also yes, fuck Rou and Haru

Sound (7/10): I am really not a sound guy, but the OST is good. I am specially a fan of the first ending theme, it was really soothing and calm. The little music that plays every now and then really sets an ambiance to the show and feels perfect.

Enjoyment (6/10): Now comes the real part. Did I enjoy the show? Hell yeah. Will I recommend it to others? Hell yeah again. Do I have gripes about the show? Yes, and there are a few specific ones. First of all, drama anime/manga always tests my patience and Yesterday wo Uttate made me want to punch the screen a few times. Specifically, I wanted to punch Rikuo a few times. How big of a dunderhead can someone be smh.

Overall (5/10): Why 5 you ask? Well, don’t get me wrong, Yesterday wo Uttate is a great show(until episode 11 that is) and I’ll recommend it to a few people, but that’s it. It’s not the best romance anime that I’ve watched and definitely not one of the best SoL anime too. Is it a good drama anime? Absolutely, and that’s why I rated it a 5(sorry :P). I would've rated the show a good 7, but episode 12 killed it for me. They rushed the whole thing, destroyed all that I loved about the show and made me want to erase the last episode from the mind. Also, I feel like 12 episodes didn’t do justice to the anime. The characters could have been fleshed out a lot more, and the fans could have been rewarded with more enjoyable moments. MAL did me a major angry after it edited the show from 18 episodes to 12, BOOOOOO

So do I recommend you to watch it? Absolutely yes, watch it till episode 11 that is. 12 is a clusterfuck and ruined the entire show.

Damn, this anime started off so well. I was in love with the sounds, the setting, the feeling. The voice actor for the main male MC was just phenomenal–it's the same one who voiced the wolf in Beastars. That voice is almost iconic now. For the first couple episodes, this anime was 10/10 all around.

And then I'm just not sure what went wrong. Maybe it was the show trying to focus on the four main characters instead of the just the three in the first triangle? Maybe it was how even at the end, 2 of the 4 characters were just not redeemable in any ... way? I guess it's just hard to like an anime when the characters in it are just not nice, for the lack of a better term. Disappointing.

I had so many conflicting emotions while watching this anime. I started off loving it because they featured a lot of my favorite seiyuu, and the animation was great, as well as the music. I love a slice of life that features adults! (Spoilers ahead).
However, once I hit episode 7, my feelings toward the show changed. Funnily enough, it felt like I was being played. Why would they present Haru as the main love interest, if they were going to treat her that way? I kept asking myself, "Am I being led on too?" I think they spent too much time on the "relationship" between ... Rikuo and Shinako. At one point I hated the couple for how they were treating their admirers, especially Haru.
Also, I don't think the show did a good job of /showing/ their developing feelings toward their admirers. So when the ending came about, it was underdeveloped. It felt like they quickly wrapped everything up, and the viewer was supposed to accept it.
It's wild how I went from loving the show, to absolutely hating the storyline, to feeling something akin to "Well.. okay". Regardless of that, I think the show was alright and I don't know, since I had such a strong reaction, perhaps that's good sign? Perhaps not.

This anime gives you anguish and hopes that follow a spiral to despair.
You can't like any of the main characters, they're all a pain in the ass. I'm not saying that it would be good if people were perfect, but the level of imperfection here is absurd.
The secondary characters are more interesting than the four protagonists, but they are not well used by the anime script.
The end of this anime seems like it was made to run an entire marathon in 25 minutes, there are events that clearly don't make any sense.
What is the reason why anime has this name? we will never know. Bad ... ending. Indigestible characters. I wonder why I watched this. This season was not very good, anyway. After all, this anime was above average for the rest.

Quick reminder that there will be spoilers ahead

So, what made me watch Sing ''Yesterday'' for me was a youtube clip of the last episode, of Rikuo confessing to Haru. I found the moment cute, liked the art and was like ''hey, i can give it a shot, i can appreciate it even more knowing the context and the characters''. The problem is that the opposite happened: having watched all 12 episodes, it made me dislike the scene, even though the couple i wanted to see together happened.

In truth, Sing ''Yesterday'' For Me is an anime about the romance between Rikuo and Shinako, something that ... makes the ending couple Rikuo-Haru shallow and totally out of the blue. We get twelve episodes of Rikuo not giving into Haru's advances and making it clear that he doesn't reciprocrate her feelings while trying to get closer to his actual crush, Shinako. After managing to do that, the two of them break-up when they were finally starting to grow-up, for no apparent reason. At the ending scene, we see that Rikuo says that the way he is approaching Haru looks like he is ''just going for her because Shinako dumped him'', but it doesn't ''just looks like it'' it is literally it. His feelings for Haru appeared out of nowhere except for a single scene of jealousy in the middle of the anime. Literally what was supposed to be a cute scene about Rikuo finally being the one to reach out to her instead of the opposite, with sparkles on top, became just plain fake romance.

As the story is merely the characters developing relationships between them, i wouldn't judge it differently from the characters themselves... the problem is, the characters doens't develop any relationship at all. Rikuo and Haru don't leave the ground they stood in the first episode until the very last minute of the finale, to the point it, like i said before, looks like Rikuo liking her back seems plain false.
Rikuo's relationship with Shinako gives the illusion of development, but in the end they behaved literally the same way they did even before the story started, in their days of college, with Shinako using him so she doens't get lonely and Rikuo being the blank slate that he is and just nervously going trough
And the relationship between Rou and Shinako shouldn't even be of note. They don't change at any moment, Rou continues to be infatuated by her from beginning to end, and she continues to let the cycle of ''QUO-fight-separation-reconciliation-QUO'' go on, without any of the two moving forward from anything

I really expected to like the characters after seeing episode 1 and, until Rikuo stood her up, i actually liked Haru. After she simply forgives him (even tho he literally did nothing) i simply stopped caring about her, that was the only character in the show that i liked. None of them are really captivating nor anything that would make them likeable. Rikuo is a boring blank slate that only does what he likes to get a girl, suddenly knowing what he wants in the last episode. Shinako is literally the same character from her backstory to the point where we left her, meaning she is a broken girl who ends up hurting others because of her indecisiveness. Haru goes from interesting to a side character that Rikuo just puts up to within a few episodes, whom the viewer (me included) just get sad for because her love is doomed to be platonic (until would you look at that, it's not). Last and least, the only thing that i manage to say about Rou is that i like the musics that play when he is on the scene

For some reason, I enjoyed the show until the 2-3 last episodes. I didn't cared about the side characters that were just appearing and disappearing or being thrown away without any deeper connection with the main cast and I didn't found awful how the ''love triangle'' happened, mainly because i knew that Haru was going to end up with Rikuo. The problem arose when, three episodes left to end the anime, Rikuo still didn't see Haru as more than a nuisance. I started to say to myself ''maybe we will get some backstory for Haru, maybe we will get an arc of her and Rikuo getting closer to one another, maybe...''. Of course, none of that happened, and at that point was where i thought to myself that the anime was actually... bad. And it pretty much is. I only put it high on the ''Enjoyment'' cattegory because I didn't had an aneurism watching it confusely and harshely wreck itself to pieces

A lot of content was cut from the manga, wich would expalin the shallow and stale relationships ''developed'' in the animation.

*FINALE SPOILER*

When you try to cram the plot of a 113 chapter manga into a 12 episode anime by cutting out 90% of the romantic drama, you get a very noticeable problem: wack pacing. This anime started off an 8 and ended a 4 (if I'm being nice), so I'll give it a 6 overall.

The beginning few episodes highlighted the feeling of living aimlessly, which I felt was executed well and arguably relatable. However, the way they cut off so much of the manga just didn't allow you to see how the characters developed over time; rather, it seemed more like the little tidbit of ... romantic drama they introduced in the anime was somehow enough for all the characters to mature by years (even if you do argue that it was enough for Rikuo and Shinako to realize their flaws, the anime left no room for the development of characters like Haru and Rou).

Also, (and this goes for both the anime and the manga), as for the story itself, it just left Haru in the dust until the very end, when Rikuo realized things didn't go as he had ideally planned and just turned to Haru. This was pretty jarring and even inconsiderate.

Story aside, the artstyle is warm and picturesque, with textured linework that makes some shots look almost like paintings. Also, the 1st ED is just phenomenal, even if the anime was disappointing. I keep finding myself going back to it, and its longing, nostalgic tone makes me feel something.

What a potential show at first but then turned out to be a lukewarm mediocre romance. Maybe because of the rushed pace to squeeze the whole story into a 12-episode show, some characters seemed too shallow and hard to relate to. That's why they ended up annoying the hell of me, especially Shinako and Rou.

Generally a vague more-than-friend-but-not-romance relationship is frustrating. Imagine there isn't just one of that, and without any good writing to back them up. That's this show. Haru is the only character that can save this anime, but that's too much for her to do.

To be fair, the art and the ... music are pretty decent. It fits well with a slow-paced romance anime like this. I appreciate the three different ending themes, a rare thing to see in a 12-episode anime.