Rikuo Uozumi has all but resigned himself to a bleak future, aimlessly working at a convenience store in Tokyo after graduating from college. His monotonous life is interrupted when the peculiar Haru Nonaka makes a lively appearance, frequently dropping by his workplace to befriend him. When Rikuo learns that an old college friend and crush, Shinako Morinome, has moved back into town, he reaches out to further their relationship. Unbeknownst to Rikuo however, Shinako is carrying painful memories from her past that were holding her back from accepting his feelings. Meanwhile, as Haru continually opens up to Rikuo, he discovers that she, much like him, is living by herself and wants to step out of her comfort zone into an uncertain future.
The past lingers long in the mind, and the future remains elusive. At a crossroads along their intertwined paths, these three experience what it means to let go of their feelings of yesterday and embrace the change that tomorrow brings.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
SingleH
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 presentingit 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.
dlxuniuniu
Life is complicated, especially when it comes to love. Who do we have feelings for, are they enough for a close and familiar relationship or is it more of a friendly nature? This anime focuses on these aspects and presents them in everyday situations that can also be imagined in real life. Yesterday wo Utatte was one of the most hyped series for the Spring season in 2020, so let's take a closer look at it: STORY: Friendzone or more? Many of us have already gotten into this situation. If the feeling of love is only one-sided, even friendship is in danger. Our protagonist Rikuo is also affectedby this and experiences how difficult and uncomfortable it can be. Initially without big goals and dreams, he continues to develop with the help of his friends. He really loves his old college female friend Shinako but she had a sad past and lost the person she loves the most. She isn't sure about her future...in the meantime we also get to know Haru, our energetic and happy girl. She loves Rikuo and is willing to do everything for him. Also Haru had a hard past where she dropped out of school even. But in the end it doesn't matter how hard or uncomfortable the past was, whether old love reappears, the most important question is how the future looks like. Where do I get the motivation to change my life? Our protagonists must also ask themselves all these important questions.
CHARACTERS:
The characters play an enormously important role for love relationships, they are the absolute main aspect. Without being able to understand their thoughts and actions, this anime would not have succeeded. The nice thing is that you can put yourself in the role of the characters. We can understand their joy and their pain very well. We experience how they develop, set new goals and all of that step by step. Love relationships are complicated, but every person wants to love and be loved.
ART:
The environment gives you a very idyllic, but also realistic feeling. Every single scene was presented as it could be in real life: from the houses, buildings to the decoration in the rooms, everything was very well thought out. The expressions and emotions of the character also come out well. Not even the smallest detail has been forgotten.
SOUND:
Nowadays we experience not many animes that do not have an OP. "Yesterday wo Utatte" is one of the few exceptions. After a short opening scene where we normally expect the opening song, it is left out. In the beginning maybe a little unusual, but suitable for this anime. During the episode everything was well thought and even the smallest detail are presented perfectly: We hear quiet engine noises during a dialogue in the background, we can hear their emotions from the characters' voices, even the pouring of water sounds like in reality. Perfect ED songs complete the whole thing. The lyric of these are suitable for the feelings and also the music is tuned accordingly.
ENJOYMENT:
After the first episode, this anime got my full attention. The everyday situation, a complicated love affair, all of this captivates the viewer. Everyone wants to know what's going on. Where does the journey of our characters go, who gets together with whom ... the anime answers all these questions a little more with each episode. One or the other will probably ask herself/himself what she/he would have done in such a situation.
BUT!!! Without spoilering anything, it can be said that 12 Episodes is definitely not enough to cover the whole plot. A rushed ending can give you a very unsatisfying feeling.
All in all, I recommend everyone to give this anime a try, even if you might not like such genres in general. With all its good aspects, "Yesterday wo Utatte" will surely get your attention.
BlueKite
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 fewepisodes 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.
ExemplarCayman
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 insteadof 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.”
Marinate1016
I lost my dad when I was 15 to prostate cancer. Growing up without a father during some of the most important times in a boy’s life is hard. Whereas most people would turn to their fathers for advice and help with relationships, life, decisions, etc. I instead turned to anime/light novels/manga. One of the mangas that has been the most influential in my life and development since my father’s passing was Yesterday wo Utatte. A tale about unrequited love, the struggles of adulthood, the pain of loss and learning to accept the way things are. Needless to say, when I heard that the animewas in production I was ecstatic. DG have always been a favourite studio of mine due to their success in the CGDCT department, but they’ve also made more serious shows that taught me life lessons like Plastic Memories.
YwU is another impressive entry into their already solid line up with stunning visuals, life like animation and masterful direction that makes you forget you’re watching anime and feels very real. In fact, speaking of removing the anime-y feel, the series has no OP which I believe was a great touch and enhances the experience.
The story is a relatable one. We’ve all had crushes in uni/hs and wondered how things would go if we reconnected with them. We’ve all had unrequited love, we’ve all done things that go against our best interest, and we’ve all felt lost in life. These are very human things. We are by nature, irrational. YwU does an amazing job of capturing the complexities of human emotions and crafting an engaging narrative.
The seiyuu castings for all of the characters are perfect as well. For me, seiyuus are quite important. They can make or break my experience with a show and in this case, they made it. The older I get, the more I struggle to deal with the traditional high pitched squealish anime voices and much prefer the deeper, more realistic tones which this show features.
To avoid rambling(I could go on and on about how much I love this), suffice to say YwU was, in my opinion, anime of the season. While it takes some rather large shifts from the manga, the story remains every bit as emotional, educational and thought provoking. For me, a masterpiece. Yesterday wo Utatte gets 10 crows out of 10.
CrimsonWanderer
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 onanime. 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 dunce 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 braindead.
- 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.
RPWPA
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 inyour 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.
Hollweg
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 succeedsin 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.
apc243
"You're not making sense to me...You seem pretty evasive about life. Do you think you'd look dumb if you were a tryhard? You're just being self-deprecating to give yourself a way out, aren't you?" For an understated and reasonably well-made and interesting show, Yesterday has earned itself a lot of controversy over the course of its short run. A lot of people were attracted to this show as it started, and many of these fans were seriously put off by how the series progressed, particularly over the course of the season. Having an understanding of why this show is polarizing to its fans is important fordeciding whether or not to pursue watching this show.
I agree that there are some significant problems with this show, particularly with how it was adapted and published. In June 2020 the community is understandably peeved as the season ends, as the nature of the 6 "extra" episodes was miscommunicated, at least to the English-language market, leading basically everybody to realize that instead of the 192 minutes of plot and character development left in the season, there was really only 48. This was an extreme exacerbation of a core problem the series had all along - the source manga is a bit too long for 12 episodes to begin with, and 18 full-length episodes would not only be original but appropriate. Even if we knew all along that 12 episodes were all we had, the pacing was going to be a bit of a mess.
Consequently, the story, character, and relationship development in this show is rushed, skipped, implied, and maybe just flat missing, particularly in the second half of the series. There are huge (months-long?) and invisible time-skips. Sure, maybe "nothing happens", but this is a slice-of-life romance show. We're here because we want to watch nothing happen in romances. The story earns a solid 3/10, at least in this adaptation.
I did not care for the story, but I also did not much care about the story, because it was never the strength of this show.
Photography and still art are a major motif in this show. Uozumi is a photographer, Hayakawa is an artist, and flashbacks are often "animated" as still manga panels. In a medium defined by movement, this focus on still art as a capture of a memory or an unchanging moment in time drives the theme of looking backward hindering forward progression. What is holding these characters back? When we see these pictures, can we see what they see?
Likewise, for the show itself, its strength is not in its narrative, or the development of its plot or relationships, but in the specific moments of reflection it creates. It effectively and artfully delivers powerfully relatable emotional ideas several times per episode in every episode. This show is incredibly consistent and uniquely understaded in its mood, tone, art, and acting, as well as with its delivery of these moments. Clearly, the production decision to condense as many of these reflective moments into the anime was to the detriment of the story, but I also think that this was the correct decision.
Although this means the show does a poor job in changing the characters through events that occur during the show, this focus on moments and ideas of importance to them means that every major character is developed deeply based on what has happened in their past. They don't act like each other, they don't act maturely, and they don't act perfectly, and all of those differences are motivated and interesting.
This creates a hidden strength of this show - whereas most shows have the "3-episode rule" for a viewer to decide whether or not a show is for them, 1 episode is more than enough for Yesterday, because it starts handing out these little photographic moments right away. If you're like me, and you got walked over by the scene where Kinoshita undresses Uozumi's idea about being fine as a loser, then I can wholeheartedly recommend this show, because these little-picture moments never stop until the very conclusion of the show.
This show is not for everybody: the dueling-love-triangle setup can accidentally suck in and disappoint a lot of people who are in it for the romance, comedy, and drama of the waifu war. But a lot of people also feel stuck, like they're fine being a loser, or like their romantic inexperience is symptomatic of a toxic personality that needs to be cured, or like they don't know whether to pursue or drop an unrequited love, and they wonder what it would sound like for someone to attack their vulnerability. This show is not shy about using the relative experience and intelligence of its main characters and the tool of shifting perspective and point of view to expose and dissect these emotions, and the show's artistic decisions, skills, and quality make these uncomfortable emotional positions easy and even enjoyable to take in.
I really like this show, and I may even love it - time will tell. I don't like the same thing in every show, but usually I will choose to value a show based on what it does differently or well. Because of how it spoke to me early in its runtime, these little-picture moments were what I looked forward to every episode, and they never stopped coming, and they never stopped impacting me. The way the show realistically, artfully, and honestly attacks the brokenness and weaknesses of its characters reminds me a lot of OreGairu and Charlie Kaufman's movies, which I love as well.
I don't think this show will be seen in the future as a pivotal or groundbreaking work, and if its rating continues to fall, it may not end up even being popular beyond a season where 3/4 of everything else was canceled. So if you read some reviews or watch the first episode, and decide that it's not for you, or you're not sure how much you like or identify with the characters, just skip the show, you won't miss much. On the other hand, if you read some reviews, watch one episode, and feel sucked into the "2meirl4meirl" vibe, this show is a must-watch.
TZUN4I
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 finalewhich 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.
antuary
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 itis 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.
RebelPanda
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 visionfor 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.
KoraxCatalyst
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/filmthat 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.
tomizawa
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 insteadof 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.
GabrielSinTierra
This is yet another person writing their first review on this site just to warn others not to waste their time with this title. I read the premise of this show and I immediately thought it was worth the shot, specially since I've always appreciated productions that use 'normal' people as characters that manage to tell a compelling story. The first episodes actually made me think that this series actually had some merit until we get to the midseason. Two characters are introduced but they are absolutely irrelevant to the rest of the story and offer no further reactions to the main cast, even thoughbasically two episodes are focused on these new characters.
Even if it isn't necessary for supporting characters to have big impact, the main reason why this seems like such a waste of screen time derives from the fact that both the male and female lead are so devoid of personality that anyone with common sense would think that these episodes could've been used to nurture these two NPC's. It's amazing how even though they haven't done anything bad, it's really hard to be empathetic with them or to be genuinely interested in their so-called problems.
I'd say the worst part of this title resides in its last two episodes. We see that the male lead actually works things out and realizes that his high school crush was just that, a crush that was basically fed off his teenage desires and his frustrations as a young adult. He makes the right choice and decides to end on good terms with her. Surprisingly enough, she also decides to start acting as an adult an reciprocates this decision, these two adults in their mid 20's, after 10 episodes of acting like teenagers in spite of two actual teenagers requiring answers and guidance from them.
If "Yesterday" had ended in this episode, this would have been decent. But sadly that wasn't the case, for some reason they thought that the male lead deserved a happy ending, not taking into account that this would mean throwing all character progression down the drain. The main victim ends up being the teenage girl who was actually the only character that one might end up caring about, since her infatuation seemed to be a little more than that and objectively, she was in a much more vulnerable position family-wise than the rest of the characters.
To conclude, I would just like to point out that you should disregard any other review that compares this title with Kuzu no Honkai (Scum's Wish). KnH might not be perfect and it has its own flaws, but comparing it with this title can only be taken as an insult induced by a severe lack of proper appreciation skills.
BlackHaze71
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 wasactually 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.
HeartsUneasy
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 lotof 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.
yellowheartren
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 inour 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.
dogman12345
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 atear 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!!!!!!???
