Every one of the principals of Yesterday o Utatte is annoying in their own way, no question about it. The tough thing is, I think this series’ take on relationships is pretty accurate as it applies to most people. And most of the time that totally works for me. But there have been weeks – and this was one of them – where I wished for a little storybook flourish. I get that this is really hard, and many people never really figure it out. But can’t one of these people just get a kick up the backside already?
We have to start with Shinako, because this was her week to be especially irritating. I really do like her, but enough is enough. She just needs to get her head out of her own you-know-what and move on. To invite Rikuo into her apartment and then, literally on her doorstep, uninvite him – wow. That was genuinely mean, no two ways about it – cruel. You can legitimately fault Rikuo for being too passive with Shinako (and generally) but this one is on her. What the hell is he supposed to think after something like that happens?
At this point I think it would be kindest for Shinako to push Rikuo away permanently. But she doesn’t – she keeps him around as her security blanket. But that doesn’t stop her from avoiding him after the invitation fiasco, because running away is what Shinako does. She’s been running away from Rou, too, avoiding his house after he declared his intentions walking her home. Shinako’s friend is right of course that it’s silly to expect a relationship now to have the emotional intensity of one in her teens. But that’s not really the issue here – if only it were that simple.
Then we have Haru. At this stage I think she’s officially crossed the line into pathetic. Rikuo has been incredibly patient with her, but he too is at the point where it’d be kindest to formally cut the cord. Rikuo has done nothing to lead Haru on, to his credit. But she’s obviously not the “take the hint” type. She knows the hints are there and chooses to ignore them, and because Rikuo is too nice for his own good, he lets her keep doing it. What we saw at the end of this episode is as close as we’ve seen him come to trying to cut Haru off, but I still don’t know if it’s enough.
This is all, in short, a mess. Rikuo’s career is at least moving forward – he’s full-time at the photo studio now, and seemingly ready to give that at a real shot. It would be best for him to hit the reset button on relationships altogether – Shinako is bad for him, and Haru is a non-starter. Focus on the job, chalk the rest up to lessons learned with scar tissue, and wait for lightning to strike again somewhere down the line. I don’t know if he’s capable of doing that – certainly not if Shinako keeps stringing him along. But it’s probably what he should do.
I hate to say it, but I think Shinako is at the heart of a lot of what’s broken with these people. She wants Rikuo and Rou around, but on her terms. Handy when she needs them, and content in the roles she’s comfortable for them and no more. Her indecision and navel-gazing has frozen both of them in their tracks. For a long time I’ve been giving her credit for having the self-awareness (more than the others) to realize she has real problems in this area. But doesn’t the fact that she does and still won’t change make her even more culpable?
Panino Manino
May 25, 2020 at 2:02 am“But can’t one of these people just get a kick up by the backside already?”
Did you noticed that during the end machine scene, there’s a transition from Rikuo to Haru that is made by sweeping the screen with a… “isekai truck”. What the people in this production have against Haru to make these “jokes”?
Talking about Haru and how she “officially crossed the line into pathetic”, yesterday I finally read the sole translated chapter of the “afterword”. She is the character that I care the most and I feel sad for her. Yes, she is “pathetic”, but it’s because she is starved for attention and love her whole time. Many, many things were cut from this adaptation, but I wonder if we’ll still see a bit more about her backstory. She feels a bit emotionally abandoned by her family and now that she likes Rikuo she really need to feel loved back. This makes her insistence on Rikuo even more sad, because he doesn’t do much effort to give her the care she needs.
water imp
May 25, 2020 at 4:07 amI think the scene Panino Manino is referencing with the truck, cuts between three of Haru’s tells: smile/subscription to her delusion, shock at hearing Rikuo initiating the break, then to putting a bold face on it so she can exit with dignity.
I liked the breakup scene and thought it was done well, but this is 8 of 18, so I’m not optimistic Haru’s arc will follow a desired path. The genki trope seems to smile via obliviousness rather than through hard-won knowledge.
Panino Manino
May 25, 2020 at 5:47 amIf Haru still have a change in this anime, no way well see any of this in these first 12 episodes. We can only expect her have a change in the extra episodes, depending on how the relationship between Rikuo and Shinako goes, because I think Shinako was trying to be brave waiting for Rou to arrive home.
She commented about making to much food, right?
So I believe that she will take some of that food with her to give to Rikuo, and she waited for Rou to make him see this and reinforce that nothing will happen between the two, that she is moving on with another person. So for now on I can only imagine us seeing more of Shinako together with Rikuo.
Bye bye Crow Girl…
Guardian Enzo
May 25, 2020 at 9:40 amYou can’t have a breakup if there’s no relationship (romantic at least) to begin with. This was just Rikuo finally admitting that what he was doing wasn’t working and trying to be – by his standards – direct.
water imp
May 31, 2020 at 6:15 pmTrue, it’s a not. The genki trope coming into collision with sheepishness is usually truck-kun hitting isekai protag. I feel any trope is athlete on PEDs vs a natty. It’s a faithless claim.
dc22
May 25, 2020 at 7:39 pmI mean you wish for storybook flourish but this is not the right series for it. It’s about making it feel real, flawed people with flawed back and forth interactions. As long as you can understand and simpatize with their point of view, none of them are annoying.
There’s already plenty of storybook romance stories available anyway, so I’m glad stuff like Yesterday exists.