Myself:Yourself Anime

February 2nd, 2008

Seriously, do you think I ought to create categories for Anime or Manga “With Yuri In It?” Anyway, today’s review was written by guest reviewer Hafl about yet another anime I have never watched. Take it away Hafl!

Myself;Yourself is a quite unsurprising series about a highschooler, who returns to town where he spent his childhood, reunites with his old friends, makes new ones and begins traditional romance with misunderstandings and so on. Then the drama starts to happen. (There are some spoilers ahead, mostly concerning exact nature of the drama.)

The characters in Myself;Yourself are all quite normal human beings, with normal reactions to all that’s happening around them. Main character, Sana, is a kind guy, who suffers from hemophobia and that’s all. Then there are twins Shuusuke and Shuri who have their own storyline, showing that a romance series does not have to revolve only around the main character. Then there is Nanaka, who is Sana’s love interest and hides a trauma from the past. Hinako is the show’s obligatory loli, who provides filler for two episodes and later becomes unimportant. Aoi is a clumsy bookworm with glasses and big breasts, who is also mostly unimportant.

Then, finally, there is Asami, who is the character to provide all the Yuri in the series. Asami is a nice, sympathetic and nobody would ever suspect her of doing anything wrong. Which is the reason why she later does.

The Yuri in Myself;Yourself begins in episode nine with some meaningful looks and is fully revealed in episode eleven. Before the beginning of the series, quiet and reserved Asami became friends with lively Shuri. Later she fell in love with her, confessed and was rejected. They were still friends, but Asami started to hate Shuri and wanted her to suffer as much as possible. Her monologue where she explains all of this also reveals that she is not the mentally stablest member of the cast. After this, Asami disappears from the story except for a short glimpse during the end of the last episode, where she seems like a completely normal, well-adjusted person.

That’s all for the Yuri except for Hinako calling Aoi “Onee-sama” which is sure to be misinterpreted by someone. Also, in one of the episodes Aoi said that in love, gender doesn’t matter, but that almost doesn’t count. However, in the last episode Aoi and Asami are seen sitting next to each other, which can also be misinterpreted.

The story in Myself;Yourself is not much. For the first half it seems just like any other romance series, though without most of their annoyances. In the second half, there’s the aforementioned drama, which is more interesting, but also overblown. There is arson, childhood trauma, attempted murder, attempted suicide, domestic violence, animal sacrifice, psychotic old lady, evil stepmother, false accusation, plausibly deniable incest and dying violin teacher all in space of seven episodes. By the end, I was so weary of all the drama that I was laughing whenever the series heaped yet another trauma on its protagonists. I was actually surprised that there was a happy ending.

As a series Myself;Yourself is decent. Despite the drama, the story isn’t really deep and the characters aren’t all that interesting. It is not worth watching for the yuri, as there is too little. I liked the series because the characters were acting like normal people, but overally it isn’t anything special.

Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – 2

Overall – 6

That was fabulous, Hafl- I almost want to watch it for the Psycho Lesbian and unlikely happy ending. ^_^ Thanks for such an amusing review!

6 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:

    “There is arson, childhood trauma, attempted murder, attempted suicide, domestic violence, animal sacrifice, psychotic old lady, evil stepmother, false accusation, plausibly deniable incest and dying violin teacher all in space of seven episodes. By the end, I was so weary of all the drama that I was laughing whenever the series heaped yet another trauma on its protagonists. I was actually surprised that there was a happy ending.”

    I was laughing by the end of that paragraph!

    Honestly though, thank you for a review of this anime- I actually tried to watch the first episode and was so put off by the animation and the so-called ‘harem’ anime aspect that I couldn’t go on. Maybe I should go back and plow through and see what happens.

    Cheers

  2. Rich says:

    Actually, the EPL was one of the most three-dimensional characters in the whole freakin’ series. I liked her twisted logic.

    I gutted that series out, but it was tough to watch. It was like one of those wretched tofu dishes where they take a bland block of tofu and drown it in seasonings to try to get you to think you aren’t just eating a bland block of tofu. They took their bland block of generic anime, and added a bunch of over-the-top drama, but at the end you wind up with just a bland generic anime full of contrived drama, gratuitous large-chested-girl-with-totally-annoying-voice and gratuitous loli.

    But the EPL was a saving grace. :D

  3. Fuyumi says:

    Strangely enough, what bothered me the most about this ridiculous series was that I could not stand the horrid facial expressions one of the main girls often made – I can think of no other way to describe it than to say she made yucky faces. It reminded me screencaps of the facial expressions made by the two main females of School Days.

  4. Puyo LV99 says:

    lol i watched this series, every episode kept getting dumber and dumber. the Yuri aspect of the show actually initiated my wishful thinking, but i was let down. the show tries to be too dramatic, and some of the concepts are pretty harsh, though it was executed pretty ridiculously.

  5. Carie says:

    Hafl is most definitely too kind to the series. I guess it’s understandable as he is obviously a huge harem/non-Yuri fan.

    If ye ask me, this yet another show about a social retard who grew up in a cave as he acts like he has never interacted with human beings in his entire lifetime.

    But since he has the blessings of cupid, tons of girls with the body of goddesses would magically fall head over heels for him all the while acting like bimbos while trying to get his attention.
    Then, rinse and repeat.

    One thing though, I find it funny why Hafl kept harping on the word ‘misinterpretation’ whilst describing some of the Yurish bits? Becasue imo, anything that isn’t set in stone, is *meant* for the audience’s personal own interpretation. A selling point, so to speak.

  6. Dop says:

    Rich mentioned ‘gratuitous large-chested-girl-with-totally-annoying-voice’.
    The thing that got me about that character (Aoi?) was that she was voiced by Tomoko Kaneda, so that every time that character said anything I was immediately reminded of Chiyo-chan out of Azumanga Daioh, which was such a glaring mismatch it was ridiculous and wrong!

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