Yesterday wo Utatte

This is a show about a bunch of permanent adolescents who whine and bitch about stupid shit they shouldn’t be whining and bitching about anymore, and they do so all whilst acting like the petty elements of their lives which they’re whining and bitching about are actually mature in their complexity and worthy of deep contemplation. Ultimately, this show is either one of two things: a very young, amateur author’s idea of what adults’ emotional tribulations look like, or a cynical ploy by a very intelligent author who knows exactly how to pander to impressionable audiences and trick teenagers into watching a show by presenting ... it as being more high-minded than it actually is. Your ability to relate to the show on any given occasion is predicated on whether or not you’re a fucking crybaby, which would honestly be fine if all the characters were petulant little brats, but they’re not, at least not physically. They’re (petulant little) young adults...right? Is that not the selling point of the show? Because I forgot as it dragged on, and the show refused to remind me, because despite the fact all the concurrent events have the characters in their twenties, every plot-relevant detail to the drama is drama which took place in their highschool and college years—which, if nothing else, is the true marketing genius of the show: giving young viewers adult characters to project themselves onto yet also keeping the ideas at hand simple enough for even a toddler to lament.

The main guy is a loser who never came to terms with being a loser, and seeing as he had no reason to become genuinely, seriously depressed, he just became a gloomy incel who works as a convenience store cashier to get by with his shoebox apartment. Despite having no human worth whatsoever, he still holds feelings for his college idol who’s ninety lightyears out of his league—but wait! Her being above this guy in every way and the two having zero chemistry isn’t the real issue, the real issue is she herself held feelings for someone else, that someone else died, and she can’t get over him and move on. Then there’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a highschooler who breaks down the awkwardness between the two by turning the whole thing into a contrived love triangle where no one is actually in love with the right person because drama. Main Guy likes Tragic Heroine but that can’t happen because she’s held back by Dead Plot Device Boyfriend; Tragic Heroine insists she likes no one despite constantly leading on Main Guy and giving Manic Pixie Dream Girl the idea she has a rival; and Manic Pixie Dream Girl herself likes Main Guy because she borderline stalked him after they had one single human interaction which was so insignificant, he literally forgot it happened between them. There’s more characters, of course, like Seemingly Asexual Best Bro or Anti-Romance Younger Sibling, but if you’re looking for a character which can’t be permanently defined by an archetype you’ve seen too often to count, you’ll find yourself very much out of luck.

The show tries to come across as down-to-earth and relatable by keeping things quiet, but seeing as no character has even the thinnest shred of a personality, the plodding nature of the show just comes across as torturously boring, and that’s not even mentioning how much the set-up itself utterly butchers everything which it’s blatantly attempting to rip-off. If any facet of the concept sounded familiar to you, it’s probably because it is familiar. It unabashedly steals dramatic pretexts from genre staples like Maison Ikkoku and Welcome to the NHK and keeps forcing together this bizarre concoction of unoriginal plot devices out of their bastardized elements until the monstrosity that’s left can actually stand and walk on its own two feet, even if it’s less of a walk and more of a drunken stumble through meaningless interactions, trite conversations, and an absolutely depressing lack of any lasting character development whatsoever. Like, it couldn’t be content with just being vapid, it had to then go and reel people in with dramatic familiarity and unfounded nostalgia only to outright disrespect them, seeing as the price of admission for relating to this cardboard cutout of a show on any given occasion is your ability to project your real feelings onto the fake ones this show instates upon its non-characters for the sole purpose of killing time: both its and yours. A worthless coming of age starring individuals who should’ve already done so which glorifies the fact they have yet to.

Which I suppose is the one and only silver lining to this pathetic realization of a fundamentally hackneyed script, because if you take it to be intentional, you could then make the argument it is, indeed, actually the thematic heart and soul of the work. “The Asuka in your head and the Asuka in hers.” Shinseiki Evangelion described this dynamic ingeniously over two decades ago, and while I think comparisons to one work are not valid criticism for another, I also think watching three uncharismatic assholes project their emotions on one another until they’re all caught up in this maddening downwards spiral of melodramatic nausea and childish misunderstandings which don’t even resolve themselves over the course of twelve full episodes of TV anime is the dictionary definition of hell on Earth, and if that’s your idea of engaging media, then my review will be of no use to you. This show is cold, hard proof the current generation—Gen Z, Millennials, Zoomers, whatever you want to say—is so pathetically coddled, their immaturity has effectively pushed back the age at which teen melodrama can be acceptably portrayed in media. It repurposed elements from more mature and meaningful works as a vehicle to deliver on a product not only inferior and worth no one’s time, but a product which is so mind-numbingly juvenile, the stolen elements cease to even reach their intended audience any longer, and do little more than add to the already towering mountain of melodrama. While it’s easily Doga Kobo’s most beautifully animated project in years, it’s just as easily their most unenjoyable project since ever.

Thank you for reading.

I love seinen and shoujo anime, so when I heard about this one, I had pretty high hopes for it. It felt like it was going to be something unique from this season, and being named after a song by the great musician Paul McCartney? Even better.
Yet, it was my biggest disappointment in this season. I forced myself to keep watching to see if it would get better, but well, it didn't. Giving it a 3 because it wasn't completely trash to be hateful, just disappointing.

The idea of this show, as they said, is to be "slow-paced", but it feels more like dead-paced. The characters ... have no development, their arcs have no sense and the story goes nowhere.

Take Rikuo, the protagonist: He has no will in life, doesn't get over Shinako, whom he had a crush on during college and works on a job he hates. This is a good starting point, and when he got rejected by Shinako and later decided to take Haru's picture I thought his story would be about valuing the people around him. But after 5 episodes (during those we also had a timeskip), what changed? Not his life, nor his mind. We have no further characterization from him, and all he does during this time is mistreating Haru, the girl who likes him.

His crush, Shinako, is equally boring and annoying. Her entire story is about mourning a friend, and that would be reasonable if he wasn't dead for 7-8 years already. And as expected, nothing changes about her besides her hair during the time the story covers. Everything she does is about her dead boyfriend, everything reminds her of him, like Rou, his younger brother and the one who should be suffering the most from his death.

The problem with Rikuo and Shinako is that their stories are too heavy to be introduced so soon. We are supposed to care about them, yet we have no motives for it. The reason why some anime with drama manage to be good (like Sangatsu no Lion, ERASED, Bunny Girl or even battle-shounens like Mob Psycho) is because we first know the characters and their goals, we like them, and then we feel it when something bad happens to them. This doesn't work with two characters who have no personality, no goals nor a reason to care about them.

All we know about Rikuo is that he is childish, annoying, treats people poorly and mistreats his friends, people who have been nothing but kind with him. He is worse than the "Welcome to NHK" protagonist (from where most of the basis of this anime came from) as he is a terrible person. And he is supposed to be a "self-insert" protagonist representing Japanese young adults, and it's ridiculous to think that in real life a girl would like and insist that much on someone that is not interesting, has zero qualities and doesn't have a good appearence either. He deserves way less than the life he is living.

Shinako has no personality. She is not a "punching bag" but a wet cloth, you twist it and tears come out. All she does is crying, all her scenes are supposed to be dramatic, but at the second of the one hundred times it's used it becomes tiring to watch. Every time she appears you care about her even less.

The best one of the main characters might be Haru, designed to be the optimistic, energic best girl of the crew. Her contrasting with the rest of the boring, undeveloped trash cast was one of the reasons I managed to watch it for so long. I was expecting Haru to be the wild card of the series, the one who was actually going to be developed and be a good character. Yet, she ends up having the same destiny as the rest. Rikuo mistreats her for months, yet she continues to be in love with him. She realizes what he does, knows he is a bad person and that she could be with someone better when Minato asked her out, but she doesn't change.

A shame, because maybe if she left Rikuo the story could change and actually progress. She had so much potential, but they decide to stuck her in a toxic relationship, which is also a dead-paced story.

The entire anime has no pace, no progress, all the episodes do a full 360º, they end right where they began.

In other aspects, the animation is good and I have no problem with it. Yet, the character design is mediocre as all the male cast (besides Rikuo's co-worker) have the same appearence. I already had a problem trying to separate Rikuo from Rou from something besides the hairclip, then Rou's brother appeared in a flashback looking exactly like him, and also his teacher, who I first thought as Rikuo. In episode 5 we also met Minato, that is basically Rikuo with a short beard.
There is no OP, but the ED song is great, maybe the best thing of this whole anime.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, not even seinen or shoujo fans such as myself. The flaws are too much to take the interactions and sad scenes seriously and there is no plot.
It reminds me of My Little Monster, as the story there also goes nowhere. People like to say that drama is like this, a dead-paced nonsense full of boringness, but I guess they never actually saw any other drama on their lives, or at least not good ones.

Spoilers for the story’s end in the last paragraph - because everyone deserves to know what a vomit-inducing ending it is.

“What if we took Welcome to the N.H.K. and bastardized it into pure wish-fulfillment? We’ll earn millions!”

The isekai LN title of this series would be “I’m the most dull, unremarkable, and devoid of appeal ‘literally me’ MC in existence, yet I’m inexplicably beta-orbited by an underaged manic pixie dream girl and an inexplicably single 9/10 woman in her prime.”
In case you don’t like isekai LN titles and prefer comparisons to the previously seen shows, NHK ni Youkoso! is a perfect one. Imagine NHK. But instead ... of a mentally ill shut-in, Sato is just a nondescript part-timer schmuck. And instead of the troubled characters with deep backgrounds, Misaki and Senpai are just wish-fulfillment waifus. And instead of the bizarre, eccentric and cringy story arcs - nothing happens. In other words, imagine NHK but entirely devoid of depth, fun, or identity.

Yesterday wo Utatte is an insanely frustrating show to watch because it’s not awful consistently. Despite being full of the massive red flags that scream “this is garbage, drop it without finishing a single episode,” it occasionally manages to have a genuinely poignant moment of drama that would be great in a better show not ruined by its awful premise and awful characters. No, “occasionally” isn’t the right word - that’s literally how every episode is structured. They follow the pattern of the first 15 minutes of nothing that leaves you all the time in the world to ponder how terrible this series is and what are you even doing with your life, followed by the 5 minutes of decent drama. Yeah, here is a wise saying: if you mix 5 barrels of wine with 15 barrels of mud you’ll get “don’t fucking watch this show, it’s bad.”

Since the characters are the main issue, I’ll elaborate on those:
Rikuo is what happens when you make your characters out of the TVTropes quotes. Here: “A soulful, brooding male hero, living a sheltered, emotionless existence. If only someone could come along and open his heart to the great, wondrous adventure of life.”
Haru is by far the worst thing about the entire show. You know how some characters, say, Haruhi get called a Manic Pixie Dream Girl just for being quirky and female? Not the case. She fits the definition of MPDG to a “t” - an assertive eccentric girl with wild hair and a pet raven that has no goals, agenda or purpose beyond attaching herself to the male protagonist. That’s unironically her entire character - her life is empty so she pursues the MC just to have some meaning in it (which doesn’t explain why she pursues this particular wet noodle). She’s so awful, the moments where she is being emotionally hurt are by far the most enjoyable moments in the show for me (and there is no shortage of those since Rikuo treats her like furniture). Also, she’s 18 y. o. because this is anime and you can’t have anime without a JK (the MC is 25 y. o.).
Shinako is the protagonist’s former classmate who kinda liked him in the past and now they’ve met again by chance. I wasn’t joking about the whole NHK comparison. And the comparison makes the biggest problem with her glaringly obvious - there is a snowball's chance in hell a woman like this wouldn’t be married or swarmed by dozens of potential suitors at this point of her life. That’s just not how it works. Senpai in NHK was married despite being an absolute mess - because that one is a well written story. Shinako here is not because this one is not. I mean, she has a half-decent story reason for staying single - but that doesn’t explain why every single male acquaintance doesn’t try to ask her out or why she spends all of her free time beta-orbiting a boring fucking nobody.
Rou is basically a male clone of Haru in a sense that they’re both teens unhealthily beta-orbiting a much older person that treats them like a piece of furniture. Outside of that his personality is that he has a safety pin for an earring.
There is also that one flirty shoulder-length-middle-parted-blond-hair-with-a-hairband guy that I swear I’ve seen in 50 shows before, even though I can’t recall his name in any of them. He’s not relevant or anything, I just want to point out a trite cliche.

That’s really all there is to it - the main characters all kinda make sense in a vacuum. What doesn’t make sense is why these 9-10/10 women would be throwing themselves onto this 4/10 man and how fucking dumb the show thinks I am if it expects me to not question this masturbatory fantasy of a premise? Literally just replace the MC of the story with Satou Tatsuhiro (i.e. a loser that is at least distinct enough to tell him apart from a potato sack) and this will instantly become a barely watchable poor man’s NHK, instead of an unwatchable morally hazardous shlock.
And now, the ending:






So, yeah, the manic pixie dream girl “wins” - after the MC first dates the actual woman for a while and then breaks up with her and decides, “Guess I’ll go for the back-up now, it’s not like that tool has anything to do besides waiting until I whistle.” They meet, kiss and the series treats it like a happy end. But not before actually lampshading what a piece of shit the MC is for doing that. Hey, author-san, just because you acknowledge a thing is horrible doesn’t mean you get a free pass to do that exact thing and frame it like a happy end. Go fuck yourself.

2/10 for “degeneracy.”

It's been 3 years since Fuuka Anime happened, and I'm pretty sure many of you remember how awful that anime was. What if I tell you that, Yesterday wo Uttate is almost, the second coming of Fuuka?

I really wanted to like YwU, but the more I watched it, the worse it became. For the first 5 minutes of the first episode, I thought that I was going to love this anime, boy I was wrong. Despite the smooth artsyle and animation, this anime was already doomed from the start. You see, this anime is filled with an alarming amount of tropes I absolutely despise on ... anime. Don't misunderstand me, being predictable or generic isn't a bad thing from the get go, the problem here, it's just that the studio never knew what to do with it's plot and characters, so we ended up on a spiral of plot conveniences, contrivances, infuriating characters and very idiotic events that I fail to see as "realistic".

Let's open the package, we get:
- The dense MC Rikuo, who is in love with a potato he met in college. This guy is a complete retard who fails to say things when he has to, and when he does, he shows his inner stupidity to everyone.
- The Potato Shinako, who is the MC's main love interest. She had a boyfriend who died and now she's stuck in the past (There's nothing wrong with that, until there is)
- The annoying Haru, who claims to be in love with the MC. (I'm sorry to all the Haru Fanboys, but someone's gotta say the truth). Her timing is awful as she almost always find a way to conveniently find Rikuo, as if she were stalking him, blatantly sticking her nose in the business of 2 idiots, "challenging" Shinako into a fight she's never going to win, unless you make the characters retarded.
- The MC's rival Rou, who is cringe inducing. He's only there to spice up the drama. There's nothing much to add up to his character, but the fact that he wants a girlfriend who cooks meals for him lmfao.

Having all that, I already knew what kind of anime this shit wanted to be, and I was hoping that things would end up being different, sadly, that never happened and only got worse.

This anime could have been done in less episodes, if only Rikuo would have made clear that he had no interest in Haru. Instead, despite him rejecting her indirectly, he won't stop giving her hope by fulfilling her selfish requests, which, in the end, would keep hurting her because Rikuo is that stupid. Not just that, despite him rejecting her, Haru would keep pushing her way into his life, hoping that something goes her way. I fail to understand how others like Haru, but if I had someone pushing their way into my life despite showing no interest on them, the last thing I would do is giving them hope by fulfilling their selfish requests. Then we have Shinako, whose pressence is to make things way worse by dragging things up. She's stuck in the past because her beloved boyfriend (who we never got to see what was so good about him) died, and thanks to that, every time she seems like doing a step forward, she gives several steps back. She also suffers from the same thing Rikou does: Not telling things when she has to, prompting others into a spiral of misunderstandings and events that could've been ressolved easily if these characters weren't that dumb.

Thanks to Rikou and Shinako's indecisive being, we got 12 episodes of dragged shitfest full of melodrama and very infuriating events. This is sad because the animation is really good and the visual storytelling this anime has, would have added a lot of value to the anime, sadly, it does nothing when the "plot" and characters have little to no value at all. Animation alone can't save an anime, and we've seen that happening several times. This is just another trashy romcom disguised as a seinen.

If you despise anime where the characters are this infuriating, do yourself a favor and stay away from this.

edit: allow me to point out that like me, others here have written their first ever MAL review solely for this show. If the frustration factor is enough to bring some people out of the woodwork, take this as a warning: first few episodes are totally swell, then it turns to unmitigated crap.

I went into this show with not only zero expectations but zero knowledge. I literally only began watching this because there's a VA I like in this; I had absolutely no concept of what this would be whatsoever. Point being, my review is as much an assessment of the show as it stands ... on it own as possible, free of external bias. This is also my first and probably only review, but I need to vent about the failed opportunity and enraging character choices. This will contain spoilers because it must.

The short version is this: it doesn't go anywhere and it wanders all over the place. It seems entertaining at first, but it isn't. Nothing fucking happens, and characters do things with no motivations. When the motivations are there, you don't know WHY they're there. It's meant to be a serious, somewhat slow presentation of adult relationships and the complexities/problems that arise when these form between people who are or feel aimless and searching for a purpose. That's totally fine. What isn't fine is that the characterization, or lack thereof, becomes insufferable, and this show is about nothing *other* than characters and their interactions. They had one job and they've failed. As such, I will only be focusing on the characters, because in a show like this, nothing else matters.

As I said I began watching this show because I like Haru's VA. I saw someone comment on her MAL page "Haru carries the show, hard." Which made me wonder what show, and I found and started watching this, and they were right. Without Haru this show would be worse than wonderbread bland, but that's just blatant opinion, so pardon that. Allow me to explain the groundwork and then the problem here:

Yesterday (heretofore called YwU) is about a guy (we'll call him Guy, I'm not spelling his name a bunch of times) who graduated from college and didn't want to do anything with his life, so he now works at a convenience store part time. A girl, Haru, develops an interest in him and tries to get a relationship between them going. Guy had a crush on his college friend, Shinako, and still does; he was essentially in the friendzone and for the most part still is. Shinako isn't interested in Guy romantically and isn't over a years-old crush on a guy who passed away years ago (who she never had a romantic relationship either). That dead guy had a younger brother, who has a crush on Shinako as well. I find this dynamic somewhat on the weird and creepy side, and there's really not much to it at all either, so I won't be talking about him or this relationship.

As another review or two has mentioned, the mediocrity from this show comes from its frustrating, irritating, sometimes infuriating lack of development alongside character actions or lack thereof. It starts out strong when it sets everything up, it builds the groundwork, gives us fully fleshed characters, backstories, connections, the whole deal. After the first couple episodes it's easy to come away pretty positively thinking "finally, a mature show that deals seriously with adult relationships." Instead, what happens is that everything they establish in the first couple of episodes remains mostly unchanged, and characters consistently make decisions (or lack thereof) that will annoy or frustrate the audience enough to make them want to slap the character.

Haru is great. She's an adorable, quirky girl full of life and energy, and even though things get her down (totally reasonable, as it's usually a result of Guy's rebuffs) she fights through it and somehow forces herself to be positive. She picks herself back up, dusts herself off, and keeps going. Her vibrancy, tenacity and cuteness are a solid positive addition to the cast.

Guy McDudeguy starts off seemingly good. On first impression he strikes you as a reserved man who's disappointed in his choices in life but cares too little to do anything about it. He seems at first to be a charming deadpan snarker and a mature guy who doesn't get his feathers ruffled easily (boy is that wrong). He's pretty indifferent about the things that surround him. He was close friends with Shinako in college and always had a crush on her, but was in the friendzone. Haru is always trying to get his attention in her own adorable way, but he simply doesn't care. And that would be fine, if that's all it was at first, but instead he gets more and more cold and heartless to her for no solid reason, while his attention is raptly held by a woman who is clearly settling for him and "dates" him for months without even holding hands or kissing him. You quickly learn that Guy is actually pretty wimpy, and had so little self-respect that he's perfectly fine with being upgraded from outright beta orbiter of Shinako to beta "sort of boyfriend" by episode 10 and 11. This will of course be a subjective statement, but I'm willing to wager that most people who watch up to 10 will conclude Haru is the far, FAR better option for Guy, yet he's constantly treating her poorly and ironically is insufferably head over heels for a woman that treats him as a Plan B fallback "I'm not really attracted to you" option. The only thing that really changes with Guy is that he changes from a part time job to a full time studio position. Even technically becoming Shinako's sort-of boyfriend changes nothing about how he and her interact. He's an unlikeable moping wimp who gets too flustered too easily and puts Shinako on a pedestal, at one point basically telling her he'll wait as long as it takes.

Shinako could arguably be worse, depending on your perspective. She isn't introduced as anything special and she doesn't have anything that defines who she is, other than being unable to get over her long-dead crush and how everything everywhere reminds her of him. She starts off in the show as bland and generic romantic interest, and gets worse with her meandering indecisiveness and selfish romantic actions. She outright admits to herself that she's selfish (reluctantly) basically by keeping Guy on a friendzone leash and leading him on in other ways. Haru, who is interested in Guy, wastes no time in declaring war to her face (god bless you, Haru), and Shinako, who is NOT interested in Guy (and I would argue still isn't; dude, if a girl is settling for you, she isn't attracted to you) responds by saying she just wants to be friends with him. Haru then retorts that that's not fair; if you're friends you can't "lose" in a romance war, he could be friendzoned forever, and it's selfish of Shinako to do that. But that's what she does anyway. Shinako spends all her time every episode hemming and hawwing over what she should or shouldn't do, rejects a kiss from her "boyfriend" of three months, invites him up to her apartment before changing her mind and apologizing for not allowing him to come in, etc. etc. There is absolutely zero romantic or erotic dynamic between the two of these people, and it does nothing but evoke images of a cold, awkward, uncomfortable and benign "better than nothing" relationship of convenience. One in which one party holds all the interest and the other is reluctant and indecisive about not only whether to have a romantic relationship with him but whether to even do anything, ever, even when in one. Regardless of what the show may later claim is how Shinako truly feels about Guy, her actions and inactions scream far louder: she isn't attracted or drawn to him, and is using him as a security blanket, there to keep her occupied or help her out whenever needed. Guy, equally intolerably, allows her to walk all over him and insists on having infinite patience as though she'll wake up one day and see how in love she is with him. Instead of, you know, telling Shinako "okay that's enough" and spending time with the younger cute woman who actually has passion and interest in seeing him.

Thus far, there's no lesson to be learned here. No one has grown or become better from their experiences, and aside from Haru getting hurt over and over again pushing her towards giving up completely, nothing happens. Even when things "happen" they don't, because nothing changes. Shinako and Guy McBetaWimp still interact in almost the exact same friendzone way three months into their "relationship" as they did at the start of the show. There's no arc. There's no inspiring message. It's one step forward, one step back, with Haru's kawaii genki qualities being the only thing making the show tolerable. It is simply not a good anime about relationships in general, let alone adult ones, and the actions and motivations or lack thereof are complete garbage. I suppose you could chalk things up to a difference in culture but my god if this is a good metric of relationships in Japan, there's no hope for that birthrate :(

Adding insult to injury, a number of characters say that Shinako is a "pretty lady," because they HAVE to, because the art damn sure doesn't make that clear. If I told you she was a plain, boring, 40 year old generic slice of white bread schoolteacher, you'd believe me. Haru, on the other hand, actually is portrayed physically and otherwise as cute. So why does Guy treat her like nothing? Because he isn't interested. Why not? The answer to that question should be the mantra for the show itself: "I don't know."

edit2: Final episode just aired and it's as rage inducing as the previous 11 episodes combined. Knocking this down to a 4. It's like they thought the rationalizations and justifications given in the final episode were meant to be heartwarming and romantic but instead they're just stupid and explain absolutely nothing. "I was over the moon" he says yet this is never portrayed in any of the previous episodes at any point. "I like it when a woman is nice to me" he says yet he's a total dick to Haru who is super nice to him. "We were just confused" he says as if that magically handwaves away all the BULLSHIT that did and did not occur in all previous episodes. Trash. I hope to Christ the manga isn't this unforgivable.

In summary, writing characters like the ones in YwU as they are is fine, as long as you DO something with them. If you do NOTHING with them, and make them meander or make stupid choices or portray decisions with little to no proper motivation behind them, you've failed at presenting an actual story, and failed at actually crafting characters. Even if the relationships change in a few episodes, they've wasted over half a season with no accomplishment, no changes, no morals of the story, nothing actually happening, and no character development along with no motivation.

Yesterday wo Utatte is probably one of the most disappointing anime I have ever seen. What started as a great anime about people searching for their passion and trying to grow up ended up being one of the most disappointing horrible romance anime I have ever seen.

If you are looking for romance that is only consisted of "I love you so love me back" type of story then this might be for you. The characters in the anime all had love interests and I think that was what made go down a bad route. Searching for your passion and trying to find meaning in ... your life which was the original plot was just thrown out of the window and now everyone knows what they want to do for some reason. That was just sad to see.

The characters were decent at the start, each one had his own worries and each of them was trying to overcome it. Some episodes were so good to see with the characters' feelings and development made me feel bad that I should also go out and do stuff. all of the development felt like it was thrown out of the window and they became 4 shallow characters trying to find their love.

The art, sound and animation were great. The directing was fine in the first 11 episodes but the final episode was really bad and rushed.

Overall, I would give it a 4/10. I said it a lot in the review but I was really disappointed by what could have been a great anime.
Wouldn't recommend it even to people that love random romance.

look, i'm gonna be real with you here, you ever seen welcome to the NHK? yeah well imagine that with 2020 animation budget, a mediocre soundtrack and hugely degraded story and set of characters.

it's a soulless, bloodless show with little originality, and clear inspiration from other shows whilst managing to lose the edge. i'm not gonna complain about taking inspiration from other shows, but seriously it seems to have a crisis of identity and a storyline which is both predictable yet simultaneously unenjoyable.

not every show has to be 100% original, or follow some kind of original plot, I understand that this was based off ... of a light novel/manga series from before NHK was even published, but the vibe of the show clearly draws inspiration, as well as some character redesigns and even the directing in certain cases.

i don't think i need to say anymore. it's not a 'bad' show because it follows the formula correctly, theres just nothing that makes it special at all, and honestly it feels like a corporate spoonfeeding of a young adults own emotions.

Almost there, going nowhere.

I don't mind a realistic, slow-burning slice-of-life anime, nor do I have a problem with melodramatic teens experiencing love for the first time. My taste nowadays will probably gravitate towards the former, but sometimes you just gotta have some of that seasonal high school angst in your life. A young girl who just had her heart broken and is running home screaming while some classical music is blaring in the background? In small doses, but more importantly, when done RIGHT, it pleases me a lot.

The (main) problem with Yesterday wo Utatte is that it wants to be both... and doesn't succeeds ... in any. It looks like a mature show at first, but upon closer inspection, something is just... off.

It wants to showcase the struggles of real people with real, believable problems while also soaking the whole thing with soap opera nonsense. In experienced hands, I could see that working, as the contrast between two extremes can add to the experience, but Yesterday's serious approach is nowhere near as strong or present as its daily drama vein. Its realistic approach is "well done" to a fault: the experience very akin to watching paint dry.

First, we're introduced to Rikuo, the main character, an empty slate of a person at odds with what to do after graduating from college. He runs away from allumi meetings, stopped searching for a real job, and is satisfied with working part-time at a convenience store. He's a bit socially awkward, but considerate, even going out of his way to feed crows with expired food from the store. Ever been on your smoke break, feeding 'em birds, having thoughts on how life went out? Of course you did.

That's when he runs into another big member of the cast, Haru. Haru is... not as empty as Rikuo, and that's about the most I can praise the character. Her initial appearance just screams of Manic Pixie Dream Girl. And oh boy, if only that was her sole problem... She missed her train, now she and her crippled pet crow (perhaps the show best character when all is said and done) are hungry. Rikuo handles her a lunch box on a whim and she leaves. And then a friendship is formed... except Rikuo doesn't feel like reciprocating, which is completely understandable. In fact, he's pretty bummed out once he founds out it wasn't a random encounter between them and she's hanging out at this workplace almost every day now. Because that's how love starts, right?

(As It turns out, Haru was actually stalking him from the get go, being in love with him FOR YEARS after a five-second interaction between them that happened a long time ago. I'm not making this shit up. It's contrived as hell.)

Rikuo has a lot more on his mind, still having a crush on a friend from college. They meet each other again, but it turns out that person, Shinako, has someone she likes. And she, now a teacher, knows about Haru and her nebulous past (a past so nebulous we don't even get to see it for more than two minutes). It's a sticky situation, a boring one at that, because: a) Rikuo doesn't mind waiting for Shinako, b) Shinako doesn't mind Rikuo waiting for her and c) Haru is there to annoy both because that's the sole reason her character exists.

Pretty early on, Haru declares war on her former teacher, a scene as bombastic as cheap fireworks in the rain. Such declaration came out after gems like "I don't even know who I am", "can women and men be friends?" and (my favorite) "what is love?", so the viewer is already used to all the telenovela dialogue, but it still sticks out like a sore thumb, because the anime just showed us Shinako's backstory, by far the most emotionally powerful thing in this series. To follow that with some brat spewing bullshit is pretty jarring. But being jarring is Yesterday's bread and butter.

There's also Rou, the youngest of the main quartet, who is basically the male Haru, although he is more cocky than creepy. He's more tolerable mainly because sometimes he just disappears for a while and his motivations are linked with Shinako's, so the quality of his character is elevated a little by mere association. Still, at the end of the day, his main characteristic is that his earring is a safety pin.

"Well, now the main quartet is finally established, time to watch it all bloom into something significant!" was my train of thought, but... it doesn't go anywhere. Shinako moves on from a tragic past with a lasting impact on her life to... a hair cut. Rikuo gets a new job, but not the spine to tell Haru off. Rou is, huh... less entitled now... sometimes. Haru still can't get a clue and doubles down on her stalking. Nothing ever changes, no matter the angle you look at. Shinako's actions can be forgivable because of how much she has on her mind, how hard is for her to let go of her past, but it keeps playing that same beat until the end to the point of staleness. It's a character-driven show that fails on the romantic side and doesn't fare better when focusing on other relationships.

There are a few side characters, but they basically come and go without adding much. I found it hard to tolerate our main cast, so there's no reason why I would care for Haru's hipster-ex-classmate or blonde-guy-who-worked-with-Rikuo. Dude goes touring with his band, apparently. Good to know someone in this show had any fun.

This "coming and going" is a thing the show does right, but literally on accident: sometimes in life people stop being constant, and in Yesterday this is showcased well... like, two times. The first would be a spoiler, and the second is on episode 6, when it (re-)introduces someone from Rikuo's high school past (in well-tread fashion - it's basically the same way Haru enters his life sans a crow), and their interactions feel genuine for once. She looks and acts her age, a far-cry from the dumb teens and emotionally-stunted adults. For once I thought the story was headed somewhere, and then... she's gone in a flash like all good things in this anime.

And here's the main question: Are we supposed to care for Haru? Am I just not part of demography anymore so her clinginess and over-the-top devotion doesn't reach me? Her love isn't an obsession - it's nonsensical. She's a stalker, attention-seeking moody young adult whose most realistic trait is having a pet crow. Erase her from the plot and the whole thing is a lot more bearable, down-to-earth. Still mind-numbly boring, but still! Maybe the anime adaptation just butchered a confusing, mysterious character, I don't know. Maybe her best is yet to come, as the show just spun its wheels in place for torturous 12 episodes. I knew things looked bleak when she declared war on Shinako, but when she screamed in frustration while waiting for the lights to turn green (the closest I got to relating to this show, ironically), I had to check if Mari Okada didn't write the script. Maybe she ghost-written it while high on sleeping pills.

Perhaps the better question would be: are we supposed to care about ANY of these characters?! My main problem is with Haru, but your mileage may vary: every single one of the leads are insufferable in their own frustrating ways. Charisma is a word absent from Yesterday's monochromatic dictionary.

The art in Yesterday is okay, faring well because of how dire things look in the writing department. It has clear, crisp animation and a decent budget. I liked the color palette at first (no pink moe hairstyles in sight!), but it starts to blend together in an ugly grey-ish mush as the episodes go on. The places the characters visit are mostly desert, the streets they walk feel empty and cold, which sometimes adds to the experience, but it is so overplayed, it loses its impact very fast. Characters are walking back home in a grey background to a grey apartment. Next scene, it's the end of the afternoon and everything is a nauseating orange. This, but it's 12 episodes. And the grey easily overshadows any other color used, to the point the stunning display of cherry blossoms in the second episode begin to look like a dream. Man, the late 90's were whack. Thank God mankind invented different colors!

The sound is on a similar note. The main trick here is the lack of any background music to add weight to some of the characters conversations. This would be a good thing... if they had anything good to say instead of repeating their doubts and fears EVERY.SINGLE.EPISODE. And when the music and the dialogue stops simultaneously, it's more unbearable than anything you ever experienced in real life, because it also goes on and on and ON AND ON.

Other times, they just go with a cheesy piano noodle here and there, some strings, you know the deal. The show doesn't have an OP (which means an extra minute and a half of awkward silence and sighing every chapter!), but it makes up for that with three decent different EDs. I like the second one's theme (an arcade game - one of the few times the show executes the "vintage anime" aspect well is through videogames) and the third one is wasted on this wreck, its bright colors not fitting the dull experience that preceded it.

Direction-wise, it nearly equals the train-wreck the script is, the staff running out of ideas on how to handle scenes so equal in action and tone. They had to adapt a long-running manga with 11 volumes and they just decided to fill half of it with filler in the form of silence and the characters looking hurt/sad. It fails to build any sort of atmosphere.
Were you to create a drinking game where you take a shot every time the characters are staring at each other in silence or sighing, you probably would end up in a hospital bed halfway through it.
Oh, and as the anime draws to a close, they ditched the organic-if-boring approach to one sprinkled with cliff-hangers. Pathetic, cliché ones at that, and so out-of-nowhere that you wonder what was the point, it's like the show is AIMING to be tone-deaf. These cliff-hangers stand out not because they're shocking or well-placed, but because they are one of the few things not repeated to death in the anime. They're there because the previous 23 minutes didn't show any progress, so these final 10 seconds need to.

Some of the cinematography shines, though (Shinako's flashbacks, Haru's hanging out with the hipster), but mostly in the beginning, because as the repetitiveness of the show comes crashing in, it's hard to keep adding new spins to another stalking/walking scene. The last episode has some interesting camera shots and perspectives, despite the content.

Yesterday grabbed attention for being a seinen with adult characters past high school, but with the way it is written, it fits better with the adolescent crowd, and honestly I don't see it faring well against recent high school (melo)dramas, with even flawed titles like O Maidens In Your Savage Season showcasing more depth. The discussion surrounding Yesterday in anime forums simply boils down to "exciting" shipping wars - although I don't see this one being remembered for very long.
Compare Yesterday with, say, Welcome to the NHK (adult life struggles + zaniness) or the more recent 3-gatsu no Lion (where a contrast in tone succeeds) and nothing remains. As a cautionary tale for a younger audience, its messages ares all muddled -- "teens will be teens"? "moving on is hard to do when what you need to move on is yourself"? "focus on individuality, romance can wait"? None of these felt earned or properly addressed. Perhaps "life is boring and grey" is more fitting.

For those that want something similar to this show but done extremely well, look no further than Honey and Clover. It's a stellar show that executes the end of adolescence and the start of adult life with perfection, with one its main characters being very similar to Rikuo but with actual payoff. It even has romance if that's what drove you into Yesterday in the first place. The anime adapts all the manga in two seasons, too.

What I got from this in the end is the following: it's a mediocre show with average-to-downright-terrible characters, severe pacing issues, a glorified walking compilation not worthy of its pretty visuals. It's just a very basic soap opera that occasionally paints a realistic portrait of grief and loneliness, but instead decides to focus on artificial creepiness and over-reactions. It's a love triangle/quadrangle between two different age-demographics where everyone acts as kids, a coming-of-age story that doesn't really go anywhere. It makes any other love story with the slightest bit of characterization and proper storytelling look better in comparison.

Yesterday is now tomorrow and I need a break - here's hoping I don't run into a stalker with a pet crow.

Don't waste your time - NOTHING happens here. Just some mundane people doing mundane things. No character development, no sweet love moments, no cool twists, even the drama is not up to par! Nothing. The two main female characters behave extremely inadequate and disrespectfully towards the male characters. I swear, if someone treated me like that - constantly changing their mind and giving me false hope - i would immediately kick them out of my life, rather than feeling bad AND CLING TO THEM!! I really don't know why I kept watching - probably was hoping for something to change, but then came the finale ... which was downright cringeworthy.
That aside, the animation, music and overall setting are on point - a typical slow-paced slice of life anime. I read here that the manga is good and I feel bad for the people who was looking forward to the series.

There a lot of long reviews out there that conveys my feelings so I'll keeps this short.

Anime started out nicely, after setting the main characters we saw some of their old acquaintances. Everything going average till this point but the last few episodes are where things start to go downhill. While the author may have tried to present that adult romance is like what is shown on the anime between Rikou and Shinako, it is not. They are not adults per se, they are just human garbage. Rou and Haru shows their emotions and expect an answer while these two supposedly adults think it ... is ok to just play around. This isn't realistic this is just extreme selfishness that makes you a human reject in my opinion. I don't for a second think that it is ok to show this as normal, adult relationships and shove it off later by calling it confusion.
Do yourself a favor and skip last few episodes.

TL:DR

Shinako is a human garbage.
Rikuo is a human garbage whose only redeeming feature is that he makes Haru happy.

Haru and Rou deserve much, much better than those garbages.

Everyone reaches crossroads in their life. You have nowhere to go but forward, but you hesitate. Which road will you take? Who will you meet at the intersection before moving on?

Rikuo Uozumi is stuck. A college graduate with no future goals and a dead-end job. His friends have begun their lives as adults, leaving him behind. Throughout Sing Yesterday for Me, he encounters other stuck people. Shinako, his old friend from school and now a full-time teacher, struggles to move on from a loved one’s death. The two reconnect when she comes back to town for a local job. She seemingly always had a vision ... for her future, Rikuo admires that. He conflates his desire to find purpose with his unrequited love for Shinako. After he confesses to her early on, her choice to just stay friends is for the best because until Rikuo figures himself out. You’d expect them to both grow as people and come together, but that was not the case. There is no real growth, and what we get is artificial at best. Sing Yesterday for Me is a trainwreck moving at 5 miles per hour.

Then there’s Haru, an eccentric high school dropout with no future goals, only her love for Rikuo. They’re both so dysfunctional it’s easy to picture them sorting through their problems together like the nuanced romance in Welcome to the NHK—this is not the case with Yesterday. What we get is miles less interesting. Yesterday’s outlook on the world is bleak and hopeless, similar to that of an immature teenager struggling with adolescent melancholy. “The world sucks, I hate everyone. No one gets me.” Although the use of symbolism to convey this mood is commendable, it’s skin deep and juvenile. I must not be in the target audience because everything about this show made me want to take a permanent nap.

Rikuo immaturely believes he can’t find meaning in his life without a girlfriend’s help; This is the logic of a high schooler. Shinako has what he lacks, but if you enter a relationship expecting your partner to give you what is missing, you will be disappointed. That’s just not how life is. For a man in his mid-20s, Rikuo has more in common with a neckbeard manchild. He’s bland, frustrating, and he has less spine than a jellyfish. In response, you may say flawed people can be good characters—that’s sometimes true, but in this case, it isn’t. Rikuo never learns what is wrong with his outlook towards finding a goal. He never grows up by the end. In his own words, he is “high on the idea of being an outcast.” He is indecisive, he rarely commits to anything, he makes terrible decisions, and his behavior is inconsistent. We’ve all been there, but people change. They grow up.

One moment Rikuo will be frozen with awkwardness while Shinako talks to him, but in the next moment, he will smugly shrug off his coworker, asking who she is. Like any blank slate character, he is completely apathetic. If you can’t self-insert into this manchild wish-fulfillment fantasy, you have no reason to watch it. Despite still being in love with Shinako, he continues to lead on Haru. He is well aware that Haru is in love with him, yet he still hangs around her because he needs a backup option. Anyone who treats potential love interests like this is the scum of the Earth. If you genuinely relate to this man, consider that women aren’t objects.

As Shinako spends more time with Rikuo, inevitably, Haru gets thrown under the bus. For the latter half of the show, she becomes an afterthought. She’s proud to be his side-hoe. I’m not a fan of Haru, but it’s infuriating to watch Rikuo lead her on and treat her like a dog. Rikuo never commits to his feelings for her. However, I understand his aversion to her. Haru is supposed to be adorably persistent. Instead, she comes off as irritatingly persistent. She appears at the most convenient (or inconvenient) times. Rain or shine, night or day, she finds her way to Rikuo’s doorstep or his job, always unannounced, to intrude on his mundane life. She follows him during the night, observing him from a distance, appearing when he is alone to comfort him with reaffirming attention. Like a stalker, she always seems to know where he is. Does the writer think this is how real women act? The majority of Haru’s scenes are spent with Rikuo, talking about him, or thinking about him. With a change in music and framing, this could have easily been a horror story. For some reason, the show never calls her out on being a creepy omnipresent stalker, so we’re just supposed to accept it. Good luck getting a restraining order, Rikuo. Characters like her get created to teach the depressed loner protagonist to appreciate life and all its adventures. Her secretive past and present prevent her from being developed. The more I learned about her identity, the less I cared. She’s just not interesting. Despite Haru’s curious personality, with her pet crow perched on her shoulder, she never becomes more than an archetype. An accessory to Rikuo.

“Rikuo is an asshole. He doesn’t think about how I feel. He thinks I’m settling for being the backup. I hate that bastard!” She looked at the guy once, then fell and love, and now he treats her like a plastic bag. I’m a believer in love at first sight—this is not love. By design, Haru is a Mary Sue existing only to shower the hero with unconditional love. It’s generic, cheesy, and boring. Haru proclaims she is Shinako’s rival in the battle to win Rikuo’s heart. In that one moment, I related to Shinako. We both looked at Haru and wondered, “This girl is batshit crazy.” In the awkward conversations between Haru and Shinako, in which their words are implied rather than spoken, their awkward glances say more about the writer’s uncertainty than the characters. Neither of these characters has a personality outside of their confusing love for Rikuo. These cringe-worthy exchanges, repeated ad nauseam, are enough to embarrass any self-conscious director.

Shinako. What’s her deal? Why can’t she make up her mind? It’s been six years since her boyfriend died, and she’s still crying. She hangs around his little brother Rou, and he now has a crush on her, so it’s no wonder why she hasn’t gotten over her ex. There’s not much to say about him. Rou is possessive of Shinako. He comments about Shinako wearing make-up, suggesting he believes she might be interested in a man. When he finds Uozumi talking to her, he becomes enraged and confronts him while he’s at work. His desperation to protect her is just bald face misogyny mistaken for romantic interest. He’s a normal kid, and he develops predictably. Shinako’s indecisiveness to move on from Rou and her ex is frustrating. Her desire to help Rikuo stems from her need to help herself, which is evident to anyone except her. Her problems are of her own doing. I will sum up her entire character arc in two sentences: “It’s not you, it’s me” and “I think we should just be friends while I figure myself out.” We have all seen this archetypal character countless times, and this ancient 90s manga adaptation did nothing original. Why does Rikuo love someone so generic? That’s easy.

Early on, Shinako says, “You give the impression of someone who needs to be taken care of.”
“That might be why I like her,” Rikuo monologues. And isn’t that every man’s dream? A relationship with a woman that takes care of you for life.

There are a few background characters who furnish the scenes in between the love quadrangle interactions. They exist to prompt the main characters to exposit their life story and current feelings towards their love interests. A few side love interests pop into the show for a single episode to shake up the Love Quadrangle. After they get their miniature character arc, they’re gone forever. It’s the laziest way to get rid of a character short of randomly killing them. You’ll quickly realize their existence was just a distraction from the main plot akin to a filler episode. The script also suffers from what I call “Cafe-syndrome” in which the writer uses a cafe/restaurant whenever he needs to spoon-feed exposition to the audience. After all, this is a love story about children, except the characters look like adults to seem mature. I hate this new trend of anime about “adults” when they are indiscernible from angsty teens. Take away the cigarettes, give them school uniforms, no one would bat an eye.

The script is so artificial and contrived that not even the talented animators at DogaKobo could save it. Although, it would’ve helped to be less faithful to the manga art. The background art is drab and uninteresting. Characters’ apartments appear sparsely decorated, but the art quality is crystal clear. When the artists can design pretty backgrounds, like a grocery store, they use real photos with a gaussian blur creating a hideous effect. It’s supposed to feel artistic, but it just looks lazy. The story would’ve been more suited as a live-action adaptation because it strives to be realistic. The loose line-work on the character designs worked against this. As a stylistic choice, it made no sense. Animation requires a level of suspension of disbelief, preventing you from immersing entirely. With live-action actors, they could have captured the subtle character responses the script needed. The animation medium has done less than nothing to benefit it.

It’s not always an ugly show, but it’s always poorly produced: Rough editing, distracting staging, and an endless stream of plot contrivances that you can predict to the moment. Scenes are stitched together with too much breathing room or none at all. Within seconds the scene will change multiple times with different characters, times of day, and location. The production is incomprehensible, yet the writing is incredibly simplistic. Invariably, musical cues get used to direct the audience on how to feel. As a last-ditch effort to save the script, the music hardly elevates it beyond mediocrity. Most egregiously, to underscore pivotal moments of romance and regret. Aside from those moments, the score gets scarcely used. Awkward pauses plague the script, devoid of music as if the director was uncertain what emotion they were trying to evoke. Other times musical cues will signalize humor where there is none. Given this was adapted from a 90s manga, the comedy is pretty outdated. Exceptional audiovisuals could’ve enhanced this faux-intellectual story. Instead, the entire show felt like one long elevator ride to nowhere.

As popular as this animated mundanity has become, it’s trainwreck ending is likely critic-proof. Designed for self-insertion, an infinite number of reasons will get fabricated to excuse the vapid writing. If I can convince just one of you to look beyond the milquetoast characters and vacuous script of Sing Yesterday for Me and watch the infinitely better Welcome to the NHK instead, then my hours of boredom will have been worth it.

So I just finished watching the show to put it simply. I'm not gonna make this long, so I'm gonna keep it short. This show clearly shows that love is complicated. And sometimes we have to realize that some people are just. They are for a space to fill in and I'm saying this. I think it taught the difference between love and friendship.And just because you're a strong friendship for someone doesn't necessarily mean that it's gonna push towards a better relationship. Not to say that friendships don't turn into co relationships in the future. But this show clearly just it was a ... tear jerker. And honestly I can't say was completely horrible because it definitely kept me watching each episode. It was addictive and it was very dramatic.




I personally feel the authentic data. Really good job, keeping the audione more. Why in the find out? How bad this is going to get was a slow pace on my dad. Was it very boring? I didn't really mind it. I think What really irritated me the most about this show was the fact that it was Confusing Frustrating and very vexing. And I don't know why the purpose for the anime was to get the viewers to wait till the last episode for them to get their s*** together. Well for the main characters to get this s*** together. 11 hole episodes gas. The most irritating part. It took 11 episodes for them to get it together. So I couldn't say it was horrible because I kept watching it because it really? May be I really want to find out how bad was it going to get? The at the just finishing news.I'm gonna put it to you very simple or even a monkey can understand.



If you want to watch the most dramatic dramatic frustrating rollercoaster of the anime between 2 main characters that obviously don't know each other that well to be in a relationship. And won't get mad until the last episode. Then I say watch it.

But if you're expecting a happy ending isn'the game is just run just run. It's not going to be a happy ending. It's gonna make you extremely mad. And it's gonna make you feel like why in the World did I waste my time watching this started off great piece of shit anime!!!!!!???

Story 5/10: Even though it's nothing new or complex, each of us who had been watching it each week became so invested in it enough to be eager to the next episode. You would root for one or more characters. In itself it didn't stand for much; it was rather 100% supported by the apparent complexity of the characters, and you know what happens when a support fails. Also the Drama genre is not bad per se, but it needs to be properly dealt with, with proper pacing. Some say they rushed the story too much (it was supposed to be 18 episodes long instead ... of the current 12) so it would be fair to say a lot got lost in translation and and the COVID factor affecting animation studios didn't help.

Art 4/10: Could've been better but it's still watchable. It doesn't really enhance the viewing experience nor does it contribute enough to any scene.

Sound 6/10: Only giving this a very high rating due to the flawless performance of voice actors (because other than that the soundtrack didn't contribute anything). I mean, who doesn't love Legosi? And Hanazawa-san is our top 1 seiyuu in MAL.

Character 2/10: Sadly here is absolutely no character development. No one grows up, no one overcomes difficulties, no one learns a single lesson, no one changes. What could've easily had been and was IMO the show's biggest strength was what actually turned a lot of us off. They failed in this department and it will most likely be the source of low ratings. Again, maybe the fact that they cut down on some episodes is what didn't leave room for the characters to evolve though I'll be surprised if it the site-wide score stays above 7.

Enjoyment 5/10: When I decided to watch this show, after 2 or 3 episodes I was already bored since it didn't offer anything interesting. The show's score started to slowly climb up and I picked it up again around a month later and I started to become engaged with the characters, wanting to know what would happen to them. The show built up all this dramatic tension yet it never delivered it's climax. To be fair you could say it was as anti-climatic as real life or maybe less. Fiction has such freedom to be creative with stories but after having watched the entire show, I believe real life is more entertaining.

Overall 3/10: Overall it was a let-down of a show. It had so much potential. Many fans argue that adding 1 or 2 more episodes will make it all better, but I feel more would be needed (maybe the original 18). I don't even wanna recommend it unless you are a fan of making critiques of bad shows.

Yesterday wo Utatte is a combination of mind-numbingly stale dialogue, unlikeable and uninteresting characters, non-existent romantic chemistry, and a hatchet job of an adaptation that shreds the source material to pieces.

The dialogue is so dead and barren that I can barely believe that these people love each other. Or that they think about anything beyond their immediate surroundings. Or that they have well-defined personalities to begin with. For a romantic drama, you need some kind of chemistry between the characters. Well, apparently not here because here we have the characters stand around saying nothing of relevance. That simply doesn't work. No matter how slice-of-life your ... story is, no matter how artistic the visuals or sound, you need to actually weave some words into it. In Yesterday, sometimes the events in the plot advance, sure, but the characters barely ever contemplate the motives behind their actions with any real precision, so the events simply happen.

First, take our protagonist, Rikuo. He likes Shinako, but why? They went to the same university and hanged out a lot and... that's it. He can't even put it to words why on a basic level. What is it about Shinako's personality that he likes? I don't know, and I bet he doesn't know either. Even after he is rejected by her, he still clings to her indefinitely. And this problem goes beyond the romance itself. Rikuo is really averse to explicitly thinking about things. He goes with the flow and doesn't do or say much. No matter the topic, this guy has nothing to say. For instance, he is stuck in an unrewarding, monotonous job at a grocery store despite having a university degree. What does he think about it? Nothing much. He just does it out of apathy and neither praises nor criticizes the situation all that much. If it is society's fault, eviscerate it. If it is your own fault, berate yourself. Take some stance on something, please. Anything else? Seen anything interesting on the news lately? Apparently not. Any semi-witty jokes to deliver? Nah, none.

Why does Haru like Rikuo? For reasons that are also poorly established. What is it about Rikuo's personality that she likes? I have no clue. They had barely even met before. Now he even purposely neglects and ignores her, and she still doesn't give up for whatever reason.

Shinako can't get over her previous love interest, who died many years earlier. (They never actually dated either, mind you.) This is the main defining trait of her character, and almost all of her dialogue revolves around it. She has friendzoned Rikuo in a half-hearted manner while still giving him just enough hope to cling to. She has even less to say than Rikuo.

Rou is the brother of Shinako's dead love interest and believes that he is the best option for Shinako simply because they knew each other as kids. In fact, he is upset at the very notion that she might date someone else. How dare she! His entire character revolves around Shinako. Of course, I don't know what exactly he likes about Shinako's personality either. She has friendzoned him too (or family-zoned him, I guess), but he clings to her anyway.

Some of the ending songs are nice, but that is obviously not enough to save this. The visual design for the endings is also pretty good. For most of the anime, the technical side of visuals is solid, and it can be artistic at times, but many of the designs still look unimaginative. I know it is meant to look realistic, but even so.

You may have noticed a theme in this review, and it is that I was bored out of my mind and quite frankly should have dropped it earlier. But here we are. My main motivation for watching the last few episodes: morbid curiosity about how they would screw up the ending. And without going into spoilers, disastrous it was, as it was a rushed ending that was missing build-up and justification. With all the changes, it is fair to call it an anime-only ending as well. I really need to emphasize how terrible the adaptation is. They cut out much of the content, entire plotlines, and even many side characters who were important for the plot and were able to at least shake up the status quo a bit. With all this cut, the ending feels all the more rushed and jarring. That said, the manga was already flawed. The dialogue was still often stale, and many of the feelings of love still seemed poorly justified. However, the adaptation efforts do matter because instead of a “meh” or slightly bad show we have an unmitigated trainwreck.

Actually, no. Trainwrecks may actually be interesting in the sense that you can't turn your eyes away from them. This is more like boredom incarnate.

There is a particular pet peeve of mine that only recently has surface because there have been so many good examples of it. If I could describe Yesterday wo Utatte with it, the word would be "Pretentious."

That is not to say everything about Sing "Yesterday" for Me was bad—in fact quite the opposite, but it's that exact reason that I want to breakdown exactly why I find YwU ultimately lackluster to what it could be.

To start off I want to define what I mean by pretentious and explain why YwU fits that mold as well as it does. Ultimately a pretentious anime is a show/film ... that thinks it's way more deep and complex than the writing actually reflects. A show can look as nice as it wants but if the writing is ultimately juvenile at best then what's the point? A show like the Monogatari series can use avant garde style directing and composition and it can work seamlessly because the writing takes itself seriously enough to treat its audience like adults and allows the viewer to interpret what certain actions by the characters mean.

Something like YwU on the other hand is simultaneously trying to be "deep" as well as easily understandable to the general masses. This makes sense, it was originally a seinen manga not a novel. The problem is that YwU thinks it's really deep and is trying to be this somber SoL tale, but it doesn't trust it's audience enough to pick up the slack.

Something you learn fairly early on in creative writing classes is the classic rule "show don't tell." I personally do not believe this has to be cardinal law, you can explain ideas without patronizing the audience, but YwU doesn't do that. Instead, it proceeds to explain the major traits and flaws with the core cast with clinical precision, not allowing for the audience to interpret for themselves. This behavior is seen even with the first episode and if a series starts out as insecure as it does then that's usually a bad omen. normal people don't spend time psychoanalyzing each other and themselves so when it shows up in a narrative it's extremely irritating for someone like me who already got the point. I mean it's an extremely slow moving SoL drama, I don't need to be explained the main characters' issues with moving forward in life after you spent the last 22 minutes projecting through visuals and dialogue. And this wouldn't be a problem except it happens every episode for most of the show, so it's not something I can just overlook, this is simply how Kei Toume writes. And there's really only three main characters despite what the poster might make you believe, so there is only so much one needs to understand. For example, the main character is summarized so perfectly by their bio on MaL, you could easily predict where their arc is going to go from that alone.

And as evidenced by the fact the MC could be described in two sentences means the characters in this show aren't necessarily that complex in the first place. Rikuo is kind of bland all things considered, seems like a bit of an audience stand in which isn't uncommon in anime but with a series that is trying to be "deep" it comes off as wanting your cake and eating it too. Haru is where things the characterization shines the best because none of it is explained directly but makes sense from what we see from her life for the most part.

To talk about more positives, the directing of Yesterday wo Utatte is genuinely fantastic. I honestly came back after episode 3 after I constantly told myself I was going to drop it over and over simply because every time I started an episode, I got sucked in again. Yoshiyuki Fujiwara clearly read the source material and tried to make what would be an extremely slow and tedious series normally as engaging as humanly possible and he largely succeeds. I could probably count on my right hand how many times I slightly lost interest which is a sincere accomplishment for a show like this. The cinematography felt clear and precise; and the animation, especially in the beginning, is phenomenal. I don't know what kind of favors the director called in but wow it shows. There's Disappearance of Haruhi levels of smooth and that is a big compliment coming from me. The soundtrack, while nothing unexpected for this kind of show, perfectly conveys what each scene is trying to accomplish. If the digital backgrounds weren't inconsistent I would've said YwU is one of the most well made shows of the year. (The most well made is Ishuzoku Reviewers, obviously)

Which only makes it hurt more when things like the writing turn me off and break the immersion I so remotely experience with most media. And the lack of an OP with 3 ED's in a one cour show makes me feel like the show is trying too hard to be seen as special. Which it doesn't necessarily need, the anime takes place between 1997 and 1998, which in my opinion is part of the charm. It's a period piece, and despite the surreality of the main characters being old enough to be my parents if they were real, nevertheless gives it a charm that very few shows can claim. In fact the narrative only works at certain points because of the time period it's trying to portray.

*Skip to the end if you wish to not read spoilers*

The ending itself I'm quite confused about, so I think the theme is that love is not just getting the attention of others but understanding one another. That's a great message but I don't think that was communicated very well. Haru waits around the entire show for Rikuo to finally notice her but the point I thought was going to be made is that Haru is still a kid and Rikuo is a college grad, not only are their experiences vastly different but he kind of treated her like garbage for most of the show. Ultimately outside of no longer avoiding her family, Haru didn't learn anything. It's ok to follow a guy around you barely met and put on a facade of a manic pixie dream girl if it means the guy will eventually like you. And is Shinako now going to get with Rou? That entitled baby b**ch? WHY? If not the show didn't communicate that very well.

I get what the author was trying to go for to a degree, I just think the ending would've been vastly more poignant if she had committed to the realism seemingly initially sought after by the beginning. Rikuo and Shinako finding a comfortable distance and understanding what their true feelings are is great and I love that the show took that route. It just got caught in the parachute right before hitting the ground, it didn't die but tarnished an otherwise respectable feat.

*End of Spoilers*

Overall Yesterday wo Utatte is a disappointing experience that could've been remedied if the writing over the course of the show substantiated the tone the work so effectively communicated. I will say running a serialized story over the course of almost 20 years is no small feat and I highly commend the author for doing such, I just wish they had planned things a bit better. I wouldn't be able to recommend this show to anyone because of it, it's too slow and artsy for the kind of audience that the writing would resonate with, but the writing is too weak to ignore for anyone who would appreciate the sheer craftsmanship of the work. More than anything else, that is the most disappointing.

Now time to end my overly long and pretentious MAL review, just what this show needed.

When I saw the slice of life,seinen and romance tag in the anime, I had high hopes for it. But was utterly disappointed.

Story: (2/10)

It’s basically about romance and life choices. The story doesn’t progress much. The same thing repeats itself over and over again. It was boring up to episode 3 and became extremely boring after that.

Characters: (1/10)
One thing I like about slice if life/seinen is the development of the characters. But here, this anime let me down. Throughout the anime, the characters remain more or less unchanged. The presence of the pet crow does not add anything to the plot.

Art: (8/10)
The art was ... actually pretty good. The anime had a calm and relaxing aura.

Sound: (4/10)
The ending songs were soothing but it’s not worth to remember.

Enjoyment: (2/10)
I personally didn't enjoy it as I couldn't relate to any of the character.

Overall: (2/10)
To sum it up, “Yesterday wo Utatte” is an anime about useless, immature, confused people who took at only face value. It had a predictable ending with zero-character development.

I want to start off strong. What a disappointing end for an otherwise beautifully colored anime. I'm only basing my reaction from the anime, and boy I have to tell you why I was so unsatisfied. But first, I have to be generous.


Art Style 7/10:
The anime is very beautiful. There are a lot of wallpaper-worth shots here, and it certainly got my enthusiasm. However, it hurts to see some wacky animation frames, even in scenes that are supposed to be dramatic! Still, it definitely improves the atmosphere so well (but it's not enough for the atrocity of the rest...).


Sound Design 8/10:
Very immersive, I must say. ... I can only criticize the last ED choice, which is ironic since it sings the anime title itself. Apart from the song choices, the background music can be quite uplifting. It does carry a good weight for the anime's mood and atmosphere.


Character 3/10:
Here is where things fell off hard. The audacity of the anime to introduce so many heartfelt characters only to butcher the developments (even the most minor of such for what could have been the best characters) and plaster a terrible and pretentious open-ended conclusion. The pacing started off with gentle steps on the side of the road then it crashed on the river beside it, only to flow so fast along the raging water. Why?! Why ruin such a good setup of characters and conflict and "resolve" it over a measly face-value approach to the reality of things?

Short breaths. Sometimes, it felt like only two characters are legitimate (even in their being stubborn). Sometimes, it felt like only two characters are reasonable. Then there were the frustrating parts where it felt like only two characters are given proper spotlight. I get it. It severely lacked a satisfying character progression for the size of cast that it showed. There was even an episodic take early on to explore the main characters further. Then the pacing, as demonstrated earlier, suddenly jumped to a mess. I felt like the anime only suffered from introducing multiple perspectives. There are strong quotes even from just the 1st episode, but it's the pacing (especially for a strongly character-centric anime and genre) that went up and down in a very disappointing way. I feel like it is a massive disservice to the characters and their reflections of actual people.


Story 3/10:
I rarely feel a strong and direct Visual Novel vibe from an anime, specifically due to the recurrence of specific points. This is not a complaint. I think it actually improved the immersion, and it could have allowed room for a smoother pace and better focus on the actual weight of the material. However, the anime managed to step on the good qualities of the anime by its sudden shift in progression. I hate to rehash previous points, but overall, I feel like the anime needed 24 episodes to be more convincing.



Notes:
Will I recommend this anime? Sure. Simply for the aesthetic. If you have an
ounce of respect for immersion with characters, please do not give this a shot. I wish I did not project so much personality to the characters that overrode the level of the actual presentation. And I will stand by this thought. It is not petty. The least amount of thing you can do for a slice-of-life and romance anime (that is serious in nature) is to be considerate of the characters and the reality of their progression. This anime broke my heart. I entered into its world without any ideas, found myself feeling affection for the developments, then ended up with a terrible conclusion. I wish no one will get this feeling of disappointment for a once beloved anime.

Okay, I guess I know what the author tried to transmit with this story; love is confusing and all that stuff. However, I think that the very ending of the last episode screwed it up.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

I don't know what people see in Haru. Don't you think she is a bit of a stalker? After being rejected by Rikuo several times, she keeps going after him, waiting for him at his work and house.

In the last chapter, I kind of understand why Shinako and Rikuo split up at the end; they are confused and trying to understand what love is. But then, Rikuo goes after ... Haru (who APPARENTLY seemed to finally give up on Rikuo) and all of a sudden he says he loves her. Honestly, I don't understand.

This was a major disappointment for me. The art looks great, the mature tone is adequate and it looked promising, when I still had hopes for a good character arc for the main characters. Sadly, there is not. The characters don't really change or learn anything and the flow of the episodes gets to a dead point in the second half.

Up until episode 7, I was enjoying this anime quite a lot. Things seemed to be progressing. But from episode 8 at the very start it all begins to go down. It starts with quite many events that, although they are not a big deal ... they are depicted in a somehow more realistic tone than the usual, and they were important for the characters. There are a couple of scenes that show determination in some characters, and I was hoping the rest of them would learn from that and also have their moments later on.

Too bad I was so wrong. The characters don't advance at all from episode 8. The episodes are filled with pauses, contemplation of the nothingness, and repetition of the same situations (the boring ones) we already saw. When something appears to change, it immediately doesn’t. Most of the times due to the extreme shyness, laziness or whatever craziness the main “adult” characters have in their heads. I feel like the show would have been so much better if Haru and Rou were the main characters. They know what they want and they work for it even if it means to suffer from it. Completely the opposite of Rikuo and Shinako…

The worst characters are the main ones, Rikuo and Shinako. Both are so empty of drive that look just as bored as the audience. Haru is more interesting, but the whole thing of "crow girl" that gave her an interesting introduction doesn't really lead anywhere. In the end the reason she is so madly in love with such a useless guy as Rikuo is completely empty. Plus, we don't really see her much in the second half of the show. On the other hand, we see quite a lot of Rou, but it doesn’t really add anything new to what we know in the first half.

Side note for a thing that particularly bothered me: Rikuo gasps, breaths and sighs more than he talks. It drove me nuts. It perfectly shows how passive this character is. At some points it was just too ridiculous.

The plot is so limited that it completely relies on the characters, and the characters don’t hold up. The only way I think someone can enjoy this is watching it in a couple sessions top, so that the “power” of the initial episodes lasts until the end.

First 7 episodes: 8/10

Last 5 episodes: 2/10

Note: Check the date when reviews were posted. This anime finished (1st season, in case there ever is a second one…) around the 20th june 2020. Some positive reviews were posted way before the downfall of the anime.

i wasn't a romance fan before this, and i don't think i am after this

let's start the positive, the animation, and art direction en general was nice, it had a good vibe, it was pretty to look at

okay, now with the negatives
i hated the 4 main characters, but one less than the others, let's star with my less hated character, and heart of the show:

Haru: she's a 18 year old, school drop out, that has mega crush on rikuo for some reason (i know love it's complicated, but give me a believable reason, not that she just fell in love with him just because) even ... tho he's an asshole most of the time, because clearly he doesn't want her near him, but she's gonna do everything in her power to make him fall for her, even tho again, he doesn't want her, she's very naive and insistent to the point where she's kinda an stalker, waiting for him to late night hours, just to see him, you coul say that this is not weird, that she's just givin her best to see the love of her life just for a couple minutes, and you know what, if they were a couple, i would congratulate her, but they are not one, so this come off as just some creepy behavior, and i'm kinda worried about her, because she's so young, and rikuo it's her first love, but for most of the anime he's an asshole towars her, so i don't think rikuo being her first partner it's something good for her, moreso because it looks like that even tho rikuo it's older than her, he doesn't seem to know what he wants in his life.

Rikuo: he's bland, i don't like how he doesn't have the courage to be honest with the rest, he had me scraching my head most of the time becuse of the stupid things he did on screen, like dude be honest, clearly haru it's annoying you, but you don't want to be rude (even tho he is, most of the time) so he let her stalk him freely, he told her a couple of times that she's not gonna get something good outta him, and you know what, i agree, at the beggining he's working at a mini market because he doesn't know what to do with his life, later on he gets a job at an art gallery, and you know what that's cool, he's working for his dreams, but he doesn't change as a person, he still let haru be arround him, because apparently he likes the attention, but he's so weak man, he treats her as a second option, in case things with the teacher doesn't work out, haru would still be arround him, because she's young and stupid and would forgive him easly (which she does at the end), so i don't like his lack of spine and courage, like i don't have nothing against shy and introvert characters, but rikuo its the kind i hate the most, the dude that lacks the ambition to change and grow as a person

Shinako, what could i say about her, more that if it wasn't for rou, she would be my most hated character on here, if rikuo exaspated me because of his lack of spine, shinako it's worse than him, she's super shy, she like to keep things to her, rather thank talking them, she rejects rikuo at the beggining, because she's afraid of open her heart again, after the death of her last love, and you know what, this souns interesting, but then, they reveal that hear love died like what, ten or so more years ago, and they weren't even a couple, she loved her in secret because she's that inhibited, when they revealed this i was shocked, 10 years and she hasn't been able to move on? like, i know move on from the death of someone you love it's hard, and it requires a lot of work from you, but she doesn't seem to try at all, i hate how she brings the death brother to conversation everytime she's with rou, like lady, you're the main reeason rou it's as fucked up as he is, you never trying to move on, and comparing rou to the deceased one it's like the most toxic shit you could do, thanks to you, rou it's no himself, he tries waaaaaaaaaaaay to hard to be like his death brother, because you never tried to move on, and other thing, she doesn't know how to put boundaries, she's a teacher for fucks sake, what do you think could have happened if one of your students saw you being hugged by rou in the middle of the night? don't you think that would get you in troubles? put some boundaries my god, and you know what's the worst about her? that she was so scared to tell rou about her relationship with rikuo, because she didn't want to ruin the friendshipe with him, motherfucker, it's because of you and your lack of boundaries that rou thinks that he has a chane, i hate her like you would't believe, they're like "awww she's so shy, so adorable, she's been dating rikuo for three months and still hasn't kiss him she's so cute", i don't know if the final was implying that she loved rou or that she was trying to fix things with him, but i don't care, she's the most annoying character i had seen recently.

and finally, the worst character of the show for me, Rou; rou it's the little brother of shinako's childhood crush, at the beggining of the show i kinda felt bad for him, because shinako couldn't stop compare him to the death one, so he's trying his best to fill the shoes of his death brother, don't you think how fucked up that is? he's not a character of his own, he's trying so hard to replace his brother in shinako's life, mind you, he's like what 17 at the begining? so i thought that this was just a silly cruh that he had on her, you know, like most of us have in some point of our life, but no, he's very serious about her, he loves her, why? i don't know, beause death brother, they never give you a legit reason he just loves her, because apparently his brother loved her too, i hate how toxic this mf is, asking questions that doesn't concern him, like when he found shinako and rikuo, he asks "what's the meaning of this?" like dude, you're a kid, what the adult does shouldn't matter to you in the slightest, go to sleep or something, isn't way past your bedtime? what could you offer her? realistically, also out of the for, he's the most inmature, he likes to make whims when things don't go his way, and he's to pushy and very phisical too, like a lot of times shinako looks kinda uncomfortable.

so, as i said at the beggining, i'm not a romance fan, and i don't think i will anytime soon, if this is the best that the genre can offer