Review of Sing "Yesterday" for Me

"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.