Review of Sing "Yesterday" for Me

*spoilers* Under most circumstances I'd probably rate this a 9, but given my current mental state and predicament, this easily won me over with how hard I related to it. While not a bad rating, I feel as 7 is a bit harsh for a show like this. Maybe across most genres it doesn't do anything unique, but within its own genre it perfectly encaptulates longing, regret, and looking into the past. That's what most characters in this show inhabit, constantly looking backwards, never able to move past the past. That's where I feel like this show shines. Both the Shinako and Rikuo are stuck, running incircles, not moving forward. The show slowly pushes them towards their futures, but still leaves traces of their past that they can't get over. Rikuo has moved towards a more meaningful job for him, and is now looking towards building up his career rather than messing around in his own mundanity. Despite this, he can't get over his love for Shinako, but more so a love for his past. Life is mundane as an adult, and often times we look at highschool as the peak of our lives as we struggle to deal with being young adults. We often can't find what we want to do in life, nor can maintain old friendships or relationships, often people leave us behind as we bury ourselves deep in regret and longing. Some say that them breaking up made no sense, that it was sudden, rushed, forced, but to me it made too much sense. While the ending could of been fleshed out, the 3 month time skip and the words spoken at that park bench gives us a look into what is underneath. Shinako is Rikuo's mentality, constantly stuck in the past, reminiscing. He decided to go after her because that's what he's always done... He's always gone after his past. Even after being rejected, provided with Haru as another option, he kept sinking himself further into a reality once gone. Shinako doesn't help with her uncertainty of what she wants.

Shinako loves Rou, not just as someone she wants to date, but as someone she deeply cares about. It doesn't show much towards the ending with them, only showing her to end up at his apartment, startled by the girl that opens the door. Obviously this shows that she wants to start a relationship with him, but not for the reasons people might think. This is more so on the writers end, instead of the characters. The writer here is expressing Shinako moving on from her past, getting over her love for Rou's dead brother, and taking what is in front of her. Deep down she cares about Rikuo, but even after 3 months of dating, they didn't even kiss... This shows her reluctancy to move on from being friends... Realistically, she only started dating him because it felt like what she should do. Constantly being egged on by friends to date him, as well as Rikuo's friends doing the same with him... The relationship felt forced, because it was. When blinded by false realities, we often find ourselves falling for mirages, and that's exactly what their relationship was. Deep down they knew that it wouldn't work.

Rikuo loves Haru, and if this was any other show, it would of had a bunch of flashbacks to show how that makes sense... Rikuo always looked after Haru, even to the detrement of himself. To him he didn't know what love was, to him it was simple, he liked when a woman was nice to him, and he wanted to continue that reality. This is often how young guys feel, we fall for anyone who shows us an ounce of kindness. Not to say this is bad, but we often forget that love runs deeper than that. Continuing kindness is a sweet thought, but continuing deep care for someone is a lot more meaningful. Haru is someone he cares about, and even when spending time with Shinako, when she brings up Haru he instantly gets confused. He is confused emotionally, sprinting forward with the girl he scored, not looking at anything around him. Then when Haru finally leaves the city, his heart sinks deep, the feeling of not seeing her again hurts. Even towards the end once they start dating it shows him looking through the window of her workplace, the exact behaviour she showed at the start of the show with him at the convenience store. It's cute, wholesome, and it shows how now he sees eye to eye with her. He is no longer chasing dreams, but instead is now actualizing reality. Same with Shinako, yet she isn't the main focus of the show, so it leaves her ending up to intepretation.

Shinako I'd say is a bad character, but in the best way possible. She is bad because she needs to be, she needs to lead Rikuo on, she needs to then stuff up their relationship, hurt Haru, hurt Rou... It is by design, she is the catalyst for the moments that push our main character forward, but as we follow her story we realize that her and the main character are one and the same. She is a reflection of Rikuo, vice versa, and that is why they don't work together. Their flaws drag eachother down, and because they share the same flaws, they revel in each others mess. Only once they break up can they truely move forward. I can understand those who dislike this, maybe those that felt as if it was unorganic, some that express the main characters as being dumb and foolish, but if they were smart from the beginning we wouldn't get a story quite like this. This story is for young adults alike, people stuck in the past, unable to move, foolish, stupid, depressed. Life sucks, but not striving to make it better doesn't help.

The anime definitely needed time to express these simple, yet complex dynamics, but I think that if you truely got wound up in this show like I did, it all made sense. I don't casually give a show a 10, for me a 10 is a feeling more so than an analyses. As a foolish young adult barely able to move forward, I thank the author for creating a show that gave me some self-reflection for once. It's truely what I needed.