After five eps, I can definitely say there’s an inverse relationship between the amount of Haru in any given episode and my enjoyment of it. The baseline is pretty high, fortunately – even in its worst week this is still the top series of the season for me now that Major is postponed. But there’s no denying that I find Haru pretty annoying. What saves it is that I think she’s annoying in the right way, if that makes any sense. i.e. I just keep telling myself she’s supposed to be annoying and that makes it OK. But maybe I’m just kidding myself…
Rikuo’s new job at KOGA Gallery has caused the plot to lurch forward on several fronts. The director is played by Ohtsuka Akio, which I hope means he’s going to be an important character since any chance to hear Ohtsuka work is a major boon. But for now the most important new character attached to the gallery is Minato-kun (Oono Yuuki). Like Rikuo he’s hired as a part-timer, and (the coincidence is strong with this show) he happens to have been a classmate of Haru’s in high school. Even more, he happens to have been in love with her ever since (as if things weren’t complicated enough).
The first thing that struck me here is that Haru is older than I thought – since Minato is a second-year in college she would be too, which makes her 19 or 20 (that also pushes her behavior a bit away from “cute” and towards “sad” on that spectrum). Minato is a good match for Haru in that he’s annoying and has stalker tendencies, just like her. He’s a rather pretentious twat when it comes to photography (though Rikuo undeniably errs too far in the “whatevs” direction), which sets Rikuo’s teeth on edge. When he sees that Minato is keen on Haru that annoys him even more, even though he really has no right to be annoyed.
Minato is unlike the other major characters we’ve met in that he’s transparently a plot device, but that’s fine – even really good character dramas sometimes have a couple of crutches like that. Minato obviously has no chance with Haru-san but his insistence does force she and (especially) Rikuo to consider their feelings. He does what to Haru what she does to Rikuo – hang around their work and tag along with them uninvited – though she seems less annoyed by it. At first she’s so dense she doesn’t pick up on his interest, then she seems flattered by it.
I’m not disappointed Minato was proactive, and as a result got himself removed from the equation rather quickly. Apart from pushing Rikuo and Haru along I’m not sure he brought anything especially compelling to the mix. The most obvious interpretation of Rikuo’s pique is that he’s genuinely interested in Haru, though I think a big part of this is that he liked the idea that she was into him and him alone. I give Haru credit for worrying about whether she’s just a backup to him, because she damn well should be worried. Given Rikuo’s low self-esteem having a pretty girl stalk him probably feels good, even if his annoyance at her pushiness is genuine. And he also likes the idea that she’s there as a fallback, cruel as that sounds.
The gallery scenario is about pushing Rikuo’s story forward in more than just the romantic sense. There are signs that – despite his irritation at Minato-kun taking photography seriously – he’s starting to take photography seriously. He saves up his money to buy a better camera (second-hand), and enters the KOGA photo competition (which Minato wins). Whether it’s subconscious or not, Rikuo is probably becoming aware that any advancement on the relationship front is pretty much doomed until he figures out what he wants to do with his life.
Moving on is really a constant theme in Yesterday o Utatte, week after week. Minato did it, figuratively and literally, and everyone else is still trying to do it. Shinako is barely present this week (interestingly, she and Rikuo are still holding out on the friendship front), but she indicates that she’s at least aware of how mired in the past she is, even if she hasn’t unmoored herself yet. Rikuo is certainly aware and is certainly trying. Haru, though, seems to have no desire to move on – she still pins all her hopes on an infatuation born of a freak meeting when she was a child. It isn’t painted in the same light as the other major cast members, but Haru is just as stuck in the past as they are – and, I think, needs just as badly to start moving on.
Mus
May 3, 2020 at 5:46 pmI really hate to be that guy, but the anime only shown the bare minimum about Minato’s character and his influence towards Rikuo and especially Haru. He still function as a plot device in the manga, but his presence definitely isn’t limited for romance reasons. Minato is ‘lost in anime’ pretty much (I hope this pun works)
But hey, an anime should stand by itself as you said. If the anime works for you, nothing in the manga will change your enjoyment. For better or worse I guess…
Guardian Enzo
May 3, 2020 at 5:59 pmWorks for me.
A manga this long compacted into 18 volumes is going to have sacrifices like that. I wouldn’t necessarily have assumed Minato was cut off at the knees from the original version if you hadn’t told me, so I think the anime basically sold it pretty well.
lemartes
May 3, 2020 at 11:35 pmher artstyle and personality of Haru reminds me of Noe from True Tears which is not a good sign for a character.
Guardian Enzo
May 3, 2020 at 11:47 pmI think that comparison is perfectly natural, though the series themselves are IMHO very different in terms of focus.
Panino Manino
May 3, 2020 at 11:55 pm“Minato is a good match for Haru in that he’s annoying and has stalker tendencies”
How does Minato have “stalker tendencies”, exactly? Just glance at someone in his classroom is enough to be considered a stalker? Because that’s all he did. Also, I don’t get why people consider him “pretentious”. He isn’t, she just have strong opinions about his craft that he puts in practice. But anyway, even decades after I’m still a bit revolted that Haru lost someone who really cared about her for someone that threats her like garbage.
Despite this I have to say, in this episode Rikuo came out as a much bigger asshole than he should because the anime skipped a whole arc. It was during that arc that he reflected about photography and made the decision to try again seriously. His irritation with Minato makes much more sense when you know that context, specialty during that conversation where Minato speaks about how he deals with photography. This may serve as ammunition for those who accuses Haru of being a “maniac pixel dream girl”, because the anime make it looks like she is the reason why Rikuo is “changing” this way, when in the original it’s not. It wasn’t her that caused this change on him.
There are other cuts, like Kinoshita’s sister and other things that I believe will be reworked into the story.
BlueBlue
May 4, 2020 at 2:36 amThanks (and also to “Mus”) for that additional information. Because to me, watching that episodes, it was clear that something was missing from that Minato guy. Anyway, that anime convinced once again that I will always prefer manga meda to anime adapatation. Asking “butchered” anime adaptation to stand alone will always be weird to me, at least from storywise aspect (poor “Karakuri Circus”…).
Regarding the “stalker” part, I am sorry but a guy coming everyday to a place for seeing a girl and waiting for her outside of her job place, that is a bit “stalker-like” or at least I should say in that case “Haru-like”. But as I consider myself Haru like an irritating stalker since episode 1…
Panino Manino
May 4, 2020 at 5:35 amI’m very satisfied with the anime, because let’s not forget, the manga also have it’s own weakness. For example, there are scenes with Minato cut from the anime that makes Shinako looks “bad”. You gain something, you lose something. All adaptations for better or worse suffer from this, you can’t show everything that happens in the original, every character’s thought that may add nuance to the scenes.
Wait until the anime end and then you can think about reading the manga.