Myself; Yourself - At a Glance
October 6th, 2007 by Shirukii
Superb cake >:3
Whoa, sorry for being so late with my first impressions on this series, I downloaded it but completely forgot I had it until I was doing a bit of file sorting of my anime folder.
Myself; Yourself looks like generic harem/shoujo, but for some reason I’m really interested in it. It’s going under the radar for a lot of people, with good reason, seeing as its concept is something that’s been done an innumerable amount of times before, but for some reason it’s caught my attention. It’s probably just my love for generic shoujo coming through, that and I’m really digging the character designs.
The series starts off with a flashback five years prior to the present. A group of friends is having a farewell party for their close friend, Hidaka Sana, who is moving away soon. They all take turns giving him parting gifts, Oribe Aoi is up first, with a cake in the shape of a lion’s face which she made with some help from her mom. Wakatsuki Shusuke (Shuu) gives Sana a fishing lure and his twin sister Shuri gives him one side of a mitten, not having been able to finish it on time. Finally, Yatsushiro Nanaka has made an original violin composition to play for him, but unfortunately she couldn’t complete it, but promises to have it ready by the time he returns and begs him to wait until then, which he agrees to with a smile.
Flash forward 5 years to the present time, Sana is on his way back home. When he gets back to his home town he spends a while walking around, reminiscing about how similar things are to the time he left, but slowly realizing that not everything has stayed the way he left it. He makes a nostalgic visit to a temple he used to visit with the gang when they were small, remembering the time they went to a festival together and he gave Nanaka a bracelet he won at one of the game stands. While loitering around, he catches sight of the temple’s shrine maiden, who seems oddly interested in Sana, but he doesn’t think much of it, concentrating on the written fortune he drew instead, promising misfortune, especially with girls.
Sana figures it’s about time he go check out the place he’ll be staying at, which coincidentally, happens to be run by Aoi’s family. When she opens the door to greet Sana he’s surprised to see that she’s grown quite a bit…specifically in the chest area. Aoi doesn’t quite get what Sana means when he says he almost didn’t recognize her, thinking that it might have been because she’d gotten glasses recently, but Sana wisely chooses to dodge further discussion of the topic.
After Sana gets settled into his apartment, he continues walking around town and finds himself in a bookstore where he remembers how much Aoi used to love books. And sure enough, Aoi shows up at the bookstore and starts fangirling over a book that Sana showed a passing interest to. But despite having to deal with her eccentric love of literature, Sana’s glad to see that Aoi has remained mostly the same.
Yet another thing that Sana has to be grateful to Aoi for is taking care of his food situation. With not much experience in cooking for himself, and hearing that he planned on eating out, Aoi invites him to have dinner at her place from now on. Breakfast is also taken care of for him, Aoi surprises Sana with an early morning visit and ends up cooking breakfast for them since she hadn’t eaten any yet either.
At school, Aoi shows Sana around and leaves him in the hands of his homeroom teacher before running off to her own class. Coincidentally, when Sana is introduced as a transfer student, he’s immediately recognized by Shuu and Shuri who are ecstatic about having him in the same class again, Sana’s pretty happy to see them again too, and pleased to see that they’re still their same old selves.
Through the crowd of the classroom, Sana recognizes a girl, the shrine maiden who he saw at the temple the day before. He introduces himself and greets her formally, like they were meeting for the first time. However, his greeting is returned with a strong forehand slap from the girl. Shocked at first, Sana looks at the shrine maiden and when he sees the bracelet from the festival those many years ago comes to the horrific realization that the girl in front of him is Nanaka.
First Impressions
Character leaves friends due to various circumstances, character returns years later and has to deal with the changes that have happened over the years, reforging and strengthening friendships and bonds, with a side of romance. It’s a template that’s been played out hundreds of times before in anime and other forms of media alike. I downloaded Myself; Yourself on a whim, not expecting much, and perhaps that’s why I’m enjoying it so far.
The characters are pretty standard, you have the large breated meganekko, happy go lucky friend, token male friend and tsundere shrine maiden. I usually don’t like meganekko, but Aoi is a surprisingly likable character, being a little clumsy but well intentioned and normally shy but crazy when it comes to books, her character has enough variance that she doesn’t come off as stereotypical. But my favoritism goes to Nanaka, with the power of tsundere on her side. We haven’t seen much of her, but the story of how she went from being such a happy child to cooldere should prove interesting to watch. She’s also a shrine maiden, and scores major points for having a slight resemblance to Chikane of KnM. She’s got one hell of a slap too.
Plot seems standard harem template at this point, I don’t sense much romantic interest coming from Shuri yet, so the series may be a battle between Aoi and Nanaka. I’m willing to bet Nanaka will win, there was that whole flashback sequence with the bracelet, and it’s obvious she still has feelings for Sana since she still wears it. A huge chunk of the series will probably concentrate on Nanaka and how she changed so much over the years and Sana bringing back the cheerful girl she once was.
Character designs are great by harem standards, Aoi and Nanaka standing out, Shuri is pretty plain. Animation is nothing special, but unless you’re KyoAni and plan on animating supersonic flurries of kicks, it does just fine. Music gets the standard “meh” review from me.
One thing I’m particularly loving about Myself; Yourself is the seiyuu cast. Shuri I instantly recognized as Yukari Tamura (Takamichi Nanoha from, uh, Nanoha) and although it took me a while to remember, Tomoko Kaneda is cast for Aoi (Chiyo from Azumanga Daioh). It’s really weird hearing the latter voice Aoi, as her voice is more fitting for lolis, but Aoi’s eccentric and sometimes childlike behaviour makes it work, even though her body is far from an accurate representation of her mental age.
Myself; Yourself will probably not make it onto many people’s weekly schedules, but I enjoyed it quite a bit and will be watching it for my harem/shoujo fix of the season, just as a supplement to Da Capo II.
~ Shirukii ~
21 Responses to “Myself; Yourself - At a Glance”
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- large breasted meganekko
- large breasted
- meganekko
———-
(O__O)
I… may be interested…
I don’t know if anyone else felt this way, but when I was listening to this episode, I felt like my brain was going to leak out my ears from all the piercing loli voices.
“Aoi…normally shy”
What? I got the impression that she was an extrovert. But whichever way it goes, she’s still pretty far from your average anime bibliophile. Which I like.
And I’m not sure that Nanaka is actually a tsundere. It’s pretty clear that she’s angry about something, but being angry does not make one a tsundere. But I wouldn’t place any bets on her not being a tsundere. Especially given that she’s the lead girl. Lead girls are pretty much always either tsunderes or ‘good girl’ jimis.
And yeah, I know what you mean about it being generic yet catching your attention. It did the exact same for me.
And I’m rather worried about the art given that the first episode quality was somewhat below average. If that’s all the budget they gave the first episode, I’m scared of what some of the mid episodes will be like.
*sharpened pencils slowly make their way towards the ear holes….*
Yea, the only thing I liked about this was the NICE SLAP. Then again, I typically detest bishoujo anime. :S I can say that I’m glad people are actually taking note of this show though. I did see some potential in it, even though I didn’t want to follow through with it. ;P
Generally, I like the series especially the great cast of seiyuus. Our TL find Aoi’s panting erotic. ^__________^
We are subbing this by the way and what’s keeping us from releasing it is because, me, the timer, is too darn lazy. >.
Hee, Myself; Yourself is definitely on my list. Granted its generic, but like you, I can’t get enough of this stuff. Glad to see I’m not the only one~!
I gotta say, I don’t care if it’s generic, this anime just strikes as possibly being the sleeper hit of the season, in a season where not much has caught my eye. As cute as Aoi is, I’m cautiously placing myself in the Nanaka camp. Shrine Maiden + Violin + Kept a memento of Sana-chan + promise to play the song again just screams mushy stuff to me.
Not that Aoi doesn’t get mega points for the book fangirl geeking.
@ Hangmen: I prefer DFCs personally, but I can see where you’re coming from XD
@ Kabitzin: Having fallen in love with Potemayo Nene’s voice last season, this series is music to my ears!
@ Phil: I’m basing Aoi being shy off the whole boxer incident lol. As for Nanaka not being tsundere, I’ll admit that it does look like a possibility, but I’m just hoping for the best.
@ Totali: lol, looks like Kabitzin’s not the only one who hated the voices. Are you dropping it?
@ SHiN_aKuMa: Awesome, I look forward to your releases. Having helped your team out, I know you guys do good work, I’ll most likely archive your stuff.
@ Hopey: Generic shoujo is still shoujo! And I have a soft spot for shoujo.
@ Jobrill: Woot, another Nanaka supporter, her awesomeness radiated through, even though she’s had like…the fewest lines so far. With Clannad overshadowing it though, this probably won’t break through and amaze everyone, but the relatively fewer people who do watch it seem to be enjoying it so far.
The only thing I really dislike for this series is that Aoi sounds like a talking cat.
Otherwise, this would probaly turn out to be a pretty generic romance anime. Hopefully, there is some points in the middle that makes it stand out from the others.
AT Shirukki: Yes. I’m going to read Arimasu and Kurogane’s posts on it though, and I might marathon it later. Bishoujo anime…ew…..EW! I’d rather watch “HEY, YOU STOLE MY BIKE” and “An-pan”.
Thank you for restoring my faith in shoujo-loving bloggers. :D I was starting to get a little depressed because all the blogs on this show have been pretty negative, while so far this show is right in my wheelhouse.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen Harem anime, last (and first ^^) was Love Hina, so I might pick this up as a second watch from the new season since I haven’t seen much Shoujo either. ^^
@ Alias: Yea her voice is pretty annoying, but strangely tolerable if you keep listening, for me at least.
@ Totali: I’m not entirely sure I’ll keep blogging it, I’m doing first impressions posts on everything to see how people react/discuss each series, I’ll announce my schedule when everything I’ll be watching is out.
@ Greggo: Shoujo ftw. Although I can see why other people would bash it, it’s such a typical story that you could interchange names and character designs and you’d have the exact same anime done in the past.
@ Vadigor: Wow, Love Hina is like…the original harem anime, or at least one that revolutionized the genre. I wouldn’t recommend this particular series as a harem catch up though, there are much better ones out there.
Heh Heh! I am a little bit too late?
I personally don’t like this opening episode it is way too weak for me but at least we have that slapping scene makes up for it. But i think Myself; Yourself will be a interesting series to enjoy.
The only problem i have with the voice actor is Syusuke Wakatsuki voice by Takehito Koyasu, i think it is way too old to fit Syusuke Wakatsuki as a teen.
@Phil: “And I’m not sure that Nanaka is actually a tsundere.” we have no clue if she would become one or not because of her lack appearance in the first ep but the appearance of Nanaka in the opening song she doesnt seem look like a tsundere but i maybe wrong too.
@Greggo: it seem that way but as u can see there are people who still enjoy this series as you.
@Shirukii: one question, will u do the First Impressions for Maple Story and You’re Under Arrest! ~ Full Throttle?
LOL, just in case, at least caution me first before u do it.
I have the first episode of Maple Story sitting on my HDD, but honestly, I’m scared to touch it lol. I’m scared of how bad it may be.
As for You’re Under Arrest!, I think I’ll pass on that series, I haven’t even watched the original.
If anyone happened want to try You’re Under Arrest! plz at least check this out first.
www.riuva.com/?p=742
Maple Story????
I have no idea how can an idea like this be exist?
I think there are only 2 more left to go that i want to see.
Prism Ark
ef - A Tale of Memories
I think this would be a good choice if you actually enjoy it. A lot of us are afraid to touch it, but there are tons of people who want it covered. Not that I’m trying to suggest anything….*wink wink*
@Totali: why a lot of you guys r afraid to touch it? Is this series really that dangerous?
That voice. I don’t think I need to say any more! Ok, maybe I just don’t like bishoujo anime. :)
Oh, and looks like Omni suddenly got interested….do what you want sempai. x)
lol, it seems look like that because the second ep is already up to Omni blog.
I just watched this anime! Aoi-chan voice was so not right for her character. But strangely it brings out her character. It was funny to watch how she told the story to Sana. She was really into it. And I have never seen a slap as hard as the one that Nanaka gave to Sana! That must have really hurt! (>o