Review of Sing "Yesterday" for Me

I've really enjoyed watching this chronicle of the lives of four your people trying to move on with young adulthood in the Tokyo metropolis. The story at times may appear slow-going and a little buried in routine, but this is meant to capture the reality of how their existence is felt by the protagonists. One of the interesting developments is that although these four main characters, involved in a love quadrangle, are not all at the same age and stage of their professional and personal life, they all seem to perceive their situation and daily routine as quite similar. The exploration of personal feelings, contradictions, strugglesbetween different desires and aspirations, choices to make is both delicate and searching. The characters appear warts and all, and this makes for some quite realistic storytelling.

Rikuo is a recent college graduate in his mid twenties who at first doesn't seem to figure out what to do with his life. Of all the characters he is perhaps the most indecisive and the story sees him, slowly but none too surely, begin to overcome this detrimental side of his personality.

Riuko is in love with a former college classmate of his, Shinako, who has become a high school teacher and unlike him, appears to be set on a fine career path. However, Shinako remains rather aloof from Ruiko and other suitors because she is still grieving over the loss of her first love, who died young.

Rikuo is also the target of the affections of a rather forward and eccentric younger girl, Haru, 18, who had dropped out from school, has a bit of a troubled home life coming from a recomposed family, and has decided to live on her own with her pet crow, Kansuke. Haru used to be a pupil in Shinako's school and she is brave enough to challenge Shinako into a competition to win over Rikuo.

Shinako's doubts of whether to settle with Rikuo are also fueled because she has stayed close to her former boyfriend's family, and is very fond of his younger brother, Ro, who is studying art and wants to be considered by Shinako as a grown up man rather than the little boy she used to mother a bit. Ro has yet to get into college and faces the challenge of loving Shinako, an older woman whom he knows better than anyone else to be still devoted to his deceased brother.

Although the story centers on these four characters trying to figure out with whom they will end up (and this remains in doubt until the very last episode) there are several nicely drawn supporting characters who make appearances with more or less lasting consequences for the four protagonists. They too appear a bit in drift but swiftly make decisions to move on seriously with their lives, and they can point out to the four main characters that they, too, can ultimately make it.

I was particularly fond of the treatment of Shinako and Haru as characters. The older young woman is shown as not necessarily wiser, though perhaps more delicately concerned with preserving the feelings of either Rikuo and Ro. Her great kindness and her struggle to honestly figure whether she may be mistaking deep friendship for love make her quite likable when one might get annoyed with her for indecisiveness. There is also a nice parallel drawn between the form that her grieving for her former boyfriend takes and that of Ro for his big brother. Haru is funny and bubbly, determined and intrepid though perhaps in need of a little maturing, to become as considerate of others and prudent as Shinako is. At times her energy appears to give her much more personality and presence in the story than any of the other characters (particular high marks to the end theme sequence during about half the episodes that features Haru as the character of a video arcade game struggling to pass obstacles to secure Rikuo as a "treasure" before Shinako comes along!)

This isn't an "action" story in any way, but focuses on psychological and personal development, so I'd only recommend it to people who like these themes. It also deals quite heavily with the way the past, either in the form of reminiscences or fantasies, can impact on later lives. Each character must learn to deal with their past, either free themselves of its too great embrace, or else manage to use it as a force for experience and future progress. It's also not typical shojo either because there are some grim realities (poor employment prospects, limited perspectives, untimely illness and death) that weigh on the story and its characters. The ending is pretty open and could leave the perspective of further episodes and development of the stories. At the conclusion, the characters have finally made some choices and progress, but will they keep going, that remains to be seen.