YMMV / Sing "Yesterday" for Me

• Awesome Art: The anime has some truly spectacular artwork courtesy of Dogakobo. This is especially true with the flashbacks, which have a distinctive art style.
• Awesome Music: The first anime ending theme, "Kago no Naka ni Tori" by the band yourness is a ballad that captures the sadness and frustration of living life in a rut.
• Base-Breaking Character: All of the main characters get this.
  • Rikuo is either seen as a relatable male lead due to his early series listlessness, or a boring guy who doesn't deserve the romantic attention he gets from his love interests.
  • Haru is beloved by much of the viewing audience for being a bubbly presence in Rikuo's life and having less of the baggage the rest of the main cast has. Her honest pursuit also endeared her to people liking her aggressiveness compared to Shinako's passiveness. However, she does have detractors for, similarly to Rou, being a persistent love interest even when Rikuo explicitly rejects her, and her lack of characterization beyond her relationship with the man.
  • Shinako is a big one. While it's understandable that she wouldn't want to move on to a new love as she was mourning Rou's brother, some felt that the mourning period lasted a little too long, given he died while they were in high school and more than half a decade has passed. Some fans also could not forgive her wishy-washiness concerning her relationships with Rikuo and Rou, especially the former when they start dating again. However, there is some sympathy for her since she clearly attempted to draw lines for their relationships with them but both men insisted on a romantic relationship.
  • Rou is a big one as well. His stubborn attitude and need to step out of his brother's shadow, along with his treatment and pursuit of Shinako even at the very end of the series and his status as the youngest member of the main cast, make him a harder character to swallow. He also became rather divisive when he forcefully hugged Shinako from behind in the street, despite her unambiguously refusing the gesture, although he did apologize later. However, he's liked more when he's characterized away from those subplots, particularly when he starts attending art school and gets into a relationship with Rio.
• Broken Base:
  • The series in general is about a group of rather flawed individuals, their struggling to overcome their personal weaknesses (with mixed success at best) and the various missteps they make in their personal relationships. Detractors get frustrated with the cast and lose interest in the series, while fans find the cast members relatable and human, and think the series is a breath of fresh air compared to more typical and formulaic anime.
  • The ending, which breaks up Rikuo and Shinako and pairs up Rikuo and Haru at the last second. Made more jarring by the anime version, which sets these events in the same, final episode. There are three camps- one camp hates the ending, another camp is happy with the outcome but finds Haru hooking up with Rikuo to be rushed, and a third camp doesn't have any problems with it whatsoever.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Kansuke, Haru's pet crow, is rather popular. Some people give him the credit for Rikuo and Haru getting together in the end.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Rou/Rio was a much better received ship than Rou/Shinako among pockets of the readership. They felt especially sore when Rou decided to break up with Rio and began his pursuit of Shinako again.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Near the end of the series, Haru's mother tells Haru that she doesn't need to feel indebted to her for letting her stay with her, since Haru's her daughter, and it's supposed to be her home.
  • Surprisingly, Rikuo and Shinako's breakup in the last episode. The event in question leads to them becoming Amicable Exes and Rikuo getting together with Haru, and both Rikuo and Shinako are surprisingly considerate of their romantic "rivals"- Rou and Haru, respectively.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Singing "Yesterday" in response to the title being mentioned.
  • The show is often referred to as a "walking home simulator," considering how often characters talk while walking home.
• Narm: In one scene at Rou's house, Shinako suddenly notices and draws attention to Rou's arms. For a split second this seems sexually charged, but then she starts crying and talking about how his arm looks just like his dead brother's. It's supposed to be a dramatic scene (and leads to a confrontation between the two), but the fact that she's moved to tears just from looking at a guy's arm (who she sees all the time) is impossible to take seriously.
• Strangled by the Red String: Rikuo and Haru's Last-Minute Hookup (which happens in the third-to-last chapter (manga) or second half of the last episode (anime)) can come off as a bit of a Deus ex Machina. Much of the second half of the series focuses on the Rikuo and Shinako relationship while even Haru gets into relationship troubles with Amamiya, to the point that Haru barely appears and it's made clear that Rikuo isn't that into her. So it comes off as very sudden when they do get together at the end, particularly when the confession scene happens due to a Contrived Coincidence where Rikuo chases her down on the street after she misses the bus due to her crow squawking/the train to get back home. Their relationship has a bit more elaboration in the manga, but many of their scenes together were cut out for the adaptation.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Fans of Haru, who comes across as more fun than the rest of the cast, with her lightheartedness and emotional honesty, found her lack of development disappointing. While Rikuo and Rou both have hobbies and life goals, and Shinako's emotional hang-ups and backstory are explored in depth, we only get hints about Haru that are never followed up on in the anime. The audience never finds out why she dropped out of high school, even though the fact that she did is a source of drama early on. She's also hinted to have an uneasy relationship with her parents, but we never find out why or how. And while the core of Rikuo's character development is him leaving his dead-end convenience store job (and thus his aimless, lazy ways), Haru's similarly dead-end job at a cafe is not presented as a problem, and she shows no goals in life other than wanting to get with Rikuo.