Review of Sing "Yesterday" for Me
"Relationships are just illusions." I wanted to see this series when it came out but the more time that went by where I didn't see it, the more I heard that it was average so those were my expectations going in. The visuals are pretty beautiful, I like the animation, it's not too bold, the lines have a nice purplish tint to them to resemble Kansuke, the character designs are on point, I almost got some Tsuki ga Kirei vibes from it. The music blends together with everything pretty nicely. Haru is eccentric but the story isn't exactly goofy harem antics, it keeps its tone and I kindof like that, it makes it seem less prone to filler opportunities and more just a platform to experience a story.
It explores themes that I find personally relatable to myself especially right now, it's very much a thing that is a right place, right time, kind of anime and it hit me right when it should've. I've been dealing with issues of fantasizing relationships that I just stand on the sidelines. Do I reach out or do I try not to be invasive, what would I say? Old friends, new friends, people that made more of an impact on you than they realized. All this is explored in this show and I'm so appreciative of it. The characters are likable and aren't annoying, they start to open up from the start, they know who likes who, and there's a clear drive without trying to get you to root for two sides after the same goal simultaneously. They learn and mature with each other over time, going through their arcs.
All that is towards the first half, as the series goes on however, they introduce new characters which I was fine with because it introduces new situations to learn from and they normally leave after an episode or so but then they focused on each main individually and the others that weren't involved started taking the bench and they'd play touch and go. It's like they wanted to get you invested in the original characters from that beginning then just change their minds and go a normal route, what happened to that raw potential? I assumed that things happened a bit faster and that's what supposedly made this anime different from the descriptions I saw. It was like a GPS to me. "Ok, we missed that turn but that's alright, we can just make the next right-here!" Then they pass that one too, I gave it plenty of opportunities to show me a reason that they chose the route they did but it just kept going and it wasn't getting better. Part of me wanted to blame Shinako because if she wasn't there then the story would have no choice but to circle back and be what I wanted it to be but Shinako has potential too so that's removing too much of the story.
It teases what the outcome will be from the start but makes the characters go in reverse which seems counterproductive, tease it and follow through or don't do it at all. By the last episode, I felt like it was too little too late, I like some of the scenes that were saved for the ending but again it's the last episode, I actually wanted Rikuo to get beat up by that point. The ending does appeal to a certain type of person but it just wasn't for me, something I couldn't exactly relate to but know people older than me probably could. To which I have a new tagline versus my opening, one to match the ending and second half as a whole.
"Overthinking"