Myself; Yourself

Information of Anime

Sana Hikada returns to his hometown after five years.  Touring the town shine, he spots a shine maiden watching him in secret.  The next day as he goes to his new school, he sees the girl again & doesn't recognize her as his old childhood friend, Nanaka Yatsushiro, who slaps him in the face.  He only recognizes her when he sees the bracelet on her wrist which is the same one that he gave her during his childhood days.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The show starts off in the past where Sana's friends are holding a farewell party for him.  The show moves to the past as he lives in an apartment unit that his friend's, Aoi Oribe, parent manage.  Although he meets all his old friends & get along with them well, Nanaka acts very coldly to him.  In the process, Sana makes a new friend, Asami Hoshino.  Seeing how close they are, Nanaka gets a bit concern.  The Wakatsuki twins, Syūsuke & Syuri, try to get Sana & Nanaka back together in good terms.  However, Sana would bring Asami at times as the misunderstanding continues.  However, Nanaka would open up to Sana slowly as he recalls all the memories he had with her; making her happy.

However, Sana would have a secret.  Seeing a bloody knife that was used to cut a fish, he would feel sick.  Also, his large sports watch that doesn't get removed from his wrist draws some attention.  Aside from him, there are others.  Syuri isn't happy with her current father's lover, Nanaka's lost memory from an arson tragedy, etc.  The first arc would have a fake rumour made by Asami about Syuri & Syūsuke going into a love hotel together which would result them in leaving town instead of Syuri going to England to study overseas.  The next & last arc would have Nanaka recovering her lost memories where her father actually burned down the house & killed himself & his wife when he found out that he's not the real father of Nanaka as she was from his old high school friend.  As a result, Nanaka would try to commit suicide with Sana saving her.  Here, Sana would reveal that he tried to commit suicide as well when he was bullied in middle school & why he came back.

The show ends ten years later where Nanaka is performing an open door concert in a park with the song that she first wrote for Sana after he proposes to her.  After the ending credits, we hear a young Nanaka saying how she would finish her song before Sana returns.

My Personal Review

Myself; Yourself is pretty interesting.  What makes it more interesting is that the anime came out first before the game.  I decided to pick this up basically because I didn't know what to watch.

Animation

The character designs are quite nice.  However, they are a bit plain looking.  Not much facial features that makes them unique.  The clothing designs are pretty plain as well.  Pretty much down to Earth stuff.

The backgrounds are okay.  Has some detail, but not much.  More attention seems to be put on the character designs.

The colours are mainly on the dull side.  It's kind of lifeless & flat.  I had the feeling that the show was from the 90s.  But it fits the show well.

In terms of the animation movement, it's mainly realistic stuff.  The flow & movements isn't too bad.  It's quite smooth, but there seems to be some slowdowns a bit on the comedy scenes.

Sound

The sound effects are mainly on the realistic side.  Pretty clean & played on cue.

The seiyuus here are ok.  They perform their characters well.  However, none of the characters actually grew to me much.

The music is on the pop & ballad side.  None of songs are memorable though.  I actually don't recall what they sound like or what they are.

Story

The show focuses on Sana.  The story focuses on his problems with Nanaka's attitude & something that he's hiding.  His mother would call him to make sure he's going to school & the fact about the wristwatch & bloody knife makes me think that he was trying to kill himself before & I was correct.  Later on, the show actually gets darker which is a surprise to me.  The problems seem to come from families which got me thinking that the theme of the series is mainly about family, not lover relationships.  However, it was actually a mixture of both.

The characters do seem to reach out to you.  Nanaka's coldness really got to me as I thought her attitude towards Sana was unnecessary.  The show doesn't really explain this much to understand why she does this, but they managed to work things out as the show progresses.  However, I do expect some character development from her & a lot Sana as well.

As for the ending, I was pretty surprised how the show manages to wrap up nicely.  However, the part after Sana tells Nanaka his past seems to be lost.  How happened after he told her?  The show instead jumps to ten years later & leaves us thinking how it was settled.  The game probably gives you the answer in more detail as well as the Wakatsuki twins arc.

Overall Conclusion

Myself; Yourself is an interesting show to watch.  The show is a bit slow though & the character of Nanaka can really drive you angry.  However, the story was dark which surprised me.  It came to me by surprise.

Myself; Yourself gets a 7.5/10.  The show has some interesting plot elements that's focuses on Sana.  However. there are parts that leave you wondering what's going on & how it happened such as Nanaka's attitude.  Plus, the title was misleading as I didn't expect it to go dark.  Also, the ending was pleasing even though it leaves you wondering what happened to some of the people before it got to the ending point.

Last updated on January 29, 2008