If Rikuo and Shinako were the main characters of episodes 1 and 2, respectively, then it’s only right that Haru got her turn with episode 3. I’d say this installment was the most laser focused so far, with Crow Girl being present in nearly every scene. Only the Rikuo and Shinako ‘sick with a cold’ bits distracted from Haru’s story this week, and they still fed into her failed movie date later in the episode. Honestly, those back-to-back colds gave me the impression that distant chapters were combined in order to achieve this timeline, but maybe late 90s manga just leaned on illness for everything. Either way, the show pulled it off thanks to its measured, dialogic storytelling – in Yesterday wo Utatte, everything falls into place if you put the characters’ conversations at the front of your mind.
It took me a while to realize it, but this show wasn’t modernized like Parasyte or Banana Fish. We haven’t seen any newfangled app machines yet, but there are plenty of those green payphones that appear in older anime. Without the ability to remotely contact people at will, the importance of dialogue skyrockets, both for the characters and the show they inhabit. Haru’s mysterious self-introduction from episode 1 couldn’t be foiled, for instance, by Rikuo finding her Instagram account and doing a bit of sleuthing. That might be why her M.O. of popping into the convenience store leapt out at me here – by her own admission, Haru likes to control where and how she encounters the people in her life. Remaining distant from others is easier in a pre-social media world, but it’s also a lonelier task. It’s a big deal, then, that she reveals her workplace to Rikuo during their reconciliation at the episode’s end. Despite her flighty nature and his broken promise, she still wants him to be a part of her life. The question of why Haru likes him so much has yet to be answered, but we’ll get there eventually.
Let’s back up for a minute, since I’ve just skipped to the conclusion. This week’s main plot revolves around the promise of a movie date that Haru manages to wrangle from Rikuo. To make a short story even shorter, he falls asleep at Shinako’s place after tending to her fever, and misses their meeting time by several hours. The first half of the episode spends most of its time setting up these events, including a crucial exchange near the start when Haru says she “doesn’t have any demands” of Rikuo. In the wake of his broken promise, though, she’s forced to admit that her earlier breeziness was an act, and that his prioritization of Shinako hurt her deeply. I appreciated her honesty in this scene, since the insecurities of MPDG characters usually stay hidden until their stories are nearly finished. Not so with Haru, though – we even got some bonus insight into her childhood and her fractured relationship with her parents. I could spend a whole paragraph on the short scene she shared with her mother, but I have a feeling there will be more opportunities to discuss her family situation in the future.
While Rikuo adopted the role of Big Jerk for this episode, Shinako spent most of it sick in bed. She was active during the very beginning, though, bringing leftovers to Rikuo while he was under the weather. Though she claimed that the original meal was for an older man she knew, a subsequent shot of Rou eating her cooking told a different story. Why would she lie about such a mundane detail? My mind immediately went to Haru’s line from episode 2: “I thought you were keeping Rikuo as a backup.” Outwardly, Shinako appears to have no interest in him, but watching that scene again, she never denied the younger girl’s accusation, opting to stay silent instead. It’s possible that I’m reading too much into an innocuous comment, but I write for a damn anime blog – how else am I going to fill column space?
