Review of Sing "Yesterday" for Me

A story of four painfully average "adults" who have communication difficulties and all of them are depressed. Yesterday wo Utatte seemed similar in spirit to one of my all time favourites, NHK ni Youkoso! , The art and especially the atmosphere felt soft and gloomy. Studio Doga Kobo did a great job animating this series, it will probably appear timeless in the future. The way that they handled sound was my favourite part of this anime, minimal use of music and long silent pauses really punctuated scenes adding to the serious mood. Unfortunately the praise stops there. There is a real lack of material here, that slowbuild up was reminiscent of Steins;Gate, but without the massive payoff. This story pulled back the slingshot until the elastic snapped. The ending felt forced, and rushed.
This could have been a 9/10, but episode 12 ruined it.

I'm not knocking the characters, or even the conclusion. I thought Rikuo's development was perfectly suited to his character flaws. And it was the right way for things to end, but it needed at least another couple episodes of pacing to properly work through those complicated emotions.

I haven't read the source material, but i have a hard time believing that this is the entire story.

It would get a lower rating if it didn't seem so lovingly crafted.