Review of Sing "Yesterday" for Me

When I first started watching this show I was excited. I was excited to see an Anime portray adult romance. It’s always a breath of fresh air to see a setting outside of middle school or high school. But I wouldn’t say a breath of fresh air is what I got. Instead I got the pleasure of meeting a cast of mostly supposed adults that act with the emotional intelligence of middle schoolers. Before getting into the nitty gritty the show is average. Do I recommend it? No, not really. The time watching this show never resulted in any great pay off. There’s no momentof real growth or raw emotion that really captured me, which I think is vital for drama or romance type shows. So try it if you’re just absolutely craving a romance Anime, but go in with tempered expectations. I hate to say it but you’re not finding a hidden gem but more like a safety pin in an earhole.

First off I just don’t understand the characters and what the direction and the theme of the show was supposed to be. Are these characters supposed to be like real people who showcase their flaws and learn to change?

Spoilers ahead:

Rikuo and Shinkao are both college graduates so they’re likely at least in their early twenties. I understand still figuring out life in your twenties but goodness both of them are just terrible at expressing themselves and are hot messes as individuals and just don’t make for realistic people who are in their twenties. Honestly these two characters are such headaches and I don’t even want to discuss them. I see Rikuo as basically a typical bland self insert who does the typical unsure of himself then figures out what he wants and that’s it. Shinako on the other hand is just stuck unknowing of what she wants as she leads two guys on. I understand that maybe the show is trying to demonstrate that love isn’t easy and that real people in their twenties can have difficulties expressing themselves. But these two characters never feel real and really just seem like middle schoolers disguised as college graduates.

Then we have Haru and Rou, what’s the lesson here with these two characters? Neither of them really truly change throughout the whole series. Both of them have this weird sense of entitlement to Rikuo and Shinako respectively. Haru’s initial meeting of Rikuo years prior to the show drives her to become pretty much a stalker for most of the series, but it’s ok because she’s cute. While Rou is extremely attached to Shinako and believes it’s his fate to be with her because his older brother was her crush who passed away years ago. Ah yes, because that’s how a normal person would view the girl who had a crush on their deceased brother. But honestly I feel bad for these two characters. At least they’re more adept at understanding their feelings compared to their older counterparts. Both of them at various points in the show also show they’re not ignorant to the fact they don’t have a good chance of getting the love they seek from their crushes.They know it’s probably better for them to move on so they can continue to grow. I feel bad that they never get that because just as they’re preparing to move on Rikuo and Shinako return into their lives. And supposedly that’s a happy ending.

Now here’s the thing, say the message is that it’s actually not a happy ending and the show was supposed to showcase the flaws of humans with love. That’s a good enough message to build a show on but y’know what the show could’ve executed it way better.

The animation is fine. I initially thought that having no OP was really good, they’d get to fit more content in but in the end it never really felt more content was fit in despite having an extra ninety seconds. Instead that extra time was devoted to awkward pauses and the longest four sentence conversations. My favorite part of the show was the show’s first ED song "Kago no Naka ni Tori (籠の中に鳥)" by yourness which belongs in all soft Anime music playlist but other than that I’m not taking much from this show. The characters aren’t great. The pacing is poor. The message they were selling just wasn’t hitting strong with me. And I’m leaving this show in the past because yesterday is where it belongs.