Review of Sing "Yesterday" for Me

There are as many takes as there are humans on how they will react to the same stimulus. This anime seems to be either a miss or hit, with a majority to whom it's a miss, and I can understand that. For myself, it was love at first sight. For that weird girl ? Sure, but hey that's an easy one right ? That alone doesn't deserve a 9 in my books. May we dig a bit deeper then ? As for the story, well it's a story about love, sentiments, shared or not or yet unkown. I probably was more touched by the story than many, because I personallyfell in love for someone who never saw me that way, and ofc it was one of those "fake" friendship for around 5 long years, wher I was a friend for a girl I was in love with. One who told me about her love stories, her hartbreaks etc... ofc it was painful for me, so I very much can identify myself and understand the feelings of some of the protagonists. You can call me pathethic, but in my real life it was as pathethic as what you may discover in the story here. So yeah, many could see that as "unreal" but it may well be more real and happening more often than you think of.

Sometimes love fall on you without any warning, and sometimes it can also grow on you, needing more time to recognise what you may like in someone else that may not have been a possible match. And as time passes, you may slowly realize that that person grew on you quietly, and maybe that's the one, but you were too dumb to realize it, as your heart, mind, eyes, were occupied by that other one way love.

So to me, overall the story is fine. Great ? Deserving that 9 ? Hell nope 7 it is for me.

So wait, I give that anime a 9 ? but neither the story nor the character deserve that note ?
Well an anime is a FULL experience. If I just want a story, I read a book. If I want art I watch any kind of art (pictures, drawing, sculpture, etc) I listen to music, etc.

What many seems to forget in an anime, is that it's a whole experience, just like a movie. You can enjoy a good story in a movie, while it's poorly done artistically, but on the opposite, an average story can be a nice movie due to the art involved into making that movie, like the acting, how it's filmed, etc. But ofc if you are here only for the story, then the movie will be bad.

And that's then where this anime gets better than many of the seinen – romance – slice of life anime I saw.
I don't know how many realised that the manga started in the late 90's, And as thus many objetcs in that anime then are obsolete nowadays. It could have been very easy to get over it, and "rejuvenate" it, but nope... the animation studio stuck with that era and to the original manga, and it works, as the story itself is intemporal. So as an older person who actually grew up with all those mechanic phones and their twisted wires, walkman and tapes, VHR, I ofc recognise all of them in the animation, and I like the fact it gives this "older" feeling, while it has truely no impact on the story.

And that's truely where this anime shines. Not in the character animation, as I would say it's almost sub par, but damn... the backgrounds of this anime are just astonishing. There are so many details all over the place, each minutes of the 12 episodes are filled with details. So detailed that sometimes I felt like it was a picture, reworked to get the drawing feeling. The shadows are greatly done, all the old phones, faxes, etc.
That is a simple 10 in my books. I rewinded so many times just to take time to appreciate what this anime was giving me as far as details goes. And it's very rare that I do that.

I watch most of my anime with a headset. And damn here again the level of details of all the sounds is great. I honnestly can't recall having seen an anime season with that level of work on sounds. A movie ? maybe, but not a season. 10 again here.

Then the ending of the first 6 episodes is simply so poetic that I watched every one of them, while in most anime I simply skip 1:30 every single episodes just to get (if there is) the teaser for the next episode. I was very disapointed of the last 6 episodes ending, but oh well... let it go.

Oh wait, this anime has NO opening, hey that's also a 10 in my book, as usually openings are just full alert spoilers showing you all the characters you may discover only later in the story. Again that's 1:30 less filler in that anime as well, and 1:30 I don't have to skip.

I liked the original voice acting. No annoying voices, nothing overdone, so here again, it's a good 9.

Finally, the anime has a true ending. Like it or not, but at least it's not ending in a way you feel that there is something missing.

I enjoyed every minute of this anime, and if you are looking for a bit more in an anime than "just" a story to kill time, and you are truely involved into actually appreciating the artwork, then it's probably one you should give a chance, despite it's trashed score.

Now if you are looking for a revolutionary story, or a time killer, you may simply pass your way. The story has nothing "special", like many many love – romance stories. It's not worse nor better than many of the other anime I saw in the same vein.