Myself; Yourself - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

[GreatTeacherKen]

The Good:

Well first of all I like the character designs, and the series did have quite a few funny moments like the rolled up tissue scene in episode 8 as well some strong dramatic moments like the end scene of the same episode and the end of episode 11. I really do like the relationship between shuri and Shuu. Yes, I kind of spoke too soon when I said it was platonic, but in general I felt the closeness and the love between these two siblings. So I guess the twincest doesn't perturb me too much. Some of the music was quite good, like the violin piece that plays during some of the more dramatic scenes as well as the OP and ED.

The Bad:

The real crippling flaw of this series is its pacing. The writers waste too much time on stuff that isn't really all that important and too little on things that should be emphasized more.

Ideally, the series should probably have been longer to better accomodate all the story material the writers probably thought of. But if they were forced to work with oly 13 episodes, I think there's a lot of material they should have deleted like the Hinako centric episodes. Even though they were kind of cute, their relevance to the rest of the story was tenuous at best. This would free considerably more time for everything else and expand on certain story elements that lost impact due to the rushed pacing like Sana and Nanaka's issues and better set up of Asami's darker side. Indeed, I feel Asami is a bit underdeveloped. Even after the twist she still seems too plot device-ish. It's a shame, because she could have been a very interesting and complex character.

I also think the relationship between Nanaka and sana is rather lacking, especially in comparison to how strong the relationship between Shuri and Shuu is. I really think they shouldn't have dragged out the whole Nanaka being jealous of Asami thing. It made the relationship seem too shallow, which considering they're pretty much the official couple, it shouldn't seem that way. I personally think there should have been more scenes of Sana and Nanaka interacting normally (it's not like you need a lot of drama and angst to create a good romance), but then again, I always felt their interaction was kind of boring. Their dialogue together and perhaps their personalities need some tweaking for the romance to really click. The way it is now, it just seems like they're together because they both have serious issues.

Anyway, even though I wrote a lot more for the bad points, I didn't dislike this show, and I've seen much worse bishoujo romances. Some of the dramatic scenes were very potent and there were a few strong characters. If the show used its time better it probably could have been something great. But as it is now, it's only OK.

6/10 for me.

[Vexx]

We got a few "not outstanding but pretty decent" series this season. This was one of them. Both ef and My;Your suffer a bit from "miraculous repair" endings. ef was definitely more "arty" ... My;Your was more "by the numbers" drama with a moderate twist or two. I did like the exposition and evolution of the relationship between the two.
Ended up a "7" -- good but didn't rock my universe.

[ReizoSan]

Although the ending was quite predictable well apart from the 10 years on, i felt the first part of the episodes was great it had a brief suspense about Nanaka, and then the rest was quite good too, apart from the 10 years on did give people a quick look on what happens next but i would of loved to see the part when Sana told Nanaka about what happened to him and then they should of hugged or at least one of them confess there love and then it would of made great sense and finished the series off great with an option of maybe another series about what happened next.
But the 10 years on made me feel that overall the series had quite a good story to a point when it felt like a 26 part series being told to cut down to 13 it felt terribly unfinished.
Everything else like the backgrounds of the characters was very good for a short anime series, the artwork is tip top with amazing style, i loved the music of the ending theme and the starting one which was great too, the sound fx were not bad and the special effects like the explosion of fire in Nanaka's house was absolutely amazing, this has to be one of the best animated finish but the amount of episodes ruin this completely, if this had 26 episodes and ran the background story and also the main plot story of the love to when Sana confesses his love then it would of been rated as one of my favorite anime's.

Brief Summary

In Myself;Yourself they had everything with them Amazing artwork, Amazing voice acting, Amazing character styles.
But if the story is ruin by being incomplete and unfinished it makes this anime being summed up from a quote from Reckoner Wasted Potential this sums up this anime perfectly if they pushed this and advanced the storyline for more episodes then this would be probably rated a high 9 but with this in mind and the way there killed of a chance of a follow on season makes this a 7.

[Kang Seung Jae]

4/10


They ruined a potentially good story by cramming it into 2 episodes.


Also, EXTREMELY bad pacing/timing.

[HayashiTakara]

Poorly Written, Poorly executed, enough said.

[Sassarai]

Not enough character development =(



Slitting ones wrist in the bathtub seems to be a popular method of suicide in anime. It always fails though.

[tun]

0/10 because no Nanaka/Sana kiss, and because I wasted my time fansubbing it.

[Kang Seung Jae]

Originally Posted by tun

because I wasted my time fansubbing it.

Ouch..... Unfortunate.

[Falkor]

I usually wouldn’t bother writing this much for a show that didn’t fulfill me in any aspect. I started watching this show because of simply curiosity, but it soon turned out to be disappointing and confusing. Moreover, I gave this show a chance to redeem itself, but it was unnecessary.

Good points:
- Great cast of seiyuus including my recent favorite Koshimizu Ami.
- Decent music played in key scenes.
- Some dark side.
- There seems to be a plot after all.

Bad points:
- I couldn’t remember the names of the characters.
- What kind of genre this belongs to? Romance, drama, high school life…any combination of the aforementioned. This question is very important because the show did not excel in any of those areas.
- Pacing is totally off.
- Lack of remarkable development.
- 3/5 of the show seemed filler-like to me.
- Aoi’s voice is annoying.
- Black blood kills my enjoyment.

Animation Quality:
By animation quality, I will try to judge this show in terms of movement, detailed background, character designs, and consistency. For starters, I did not like the character designs or the backgrounds. They seemed plain and uninspiring. I believe there’s no need to do a lot of movement if this show is focused on drama, and so I won’t criticize it in those regards. However, the overall animation quality did not blend very well in order to come across with the mood or situation. Having a great budget at the beginning and slowly reducing the quality as the story progressed did not help with the consistency either. Animation was, in few words, not one of the strengths of the show.

Voice Actors:
This is one of the few shows this season whose voice actors I actually like. Aoi’s voice was really annoying, and I praise the seiyuu for doing a great job at that. Koshimizu Ami excelled in her interpretation of Nanaka by showing a great voice range depending of the situation at hand. The show carried a great cast of seiyus and it got the best of it.

Script/Editing:
I consider this show to have a great potential, but it is pretty much wasted. 13 episodes were not enough to flesh out the plot. Trying to develop many things at the same time without successfully accomplishing anything is a problem that filler-like episodes did not solve. There was no need to use seven episodes to introduce the plot or the characters when the first two already did a great job. The supporting cast was used merely as background objects to the relationship of the main leads. Is the twins-arc important to the “main route”? Are the conversations between Sana and his teacher reaching a new meaning of life? However, the great problem I have it’s the ineptitude to craft something worthy that avoids the label of cheesy/cheap melodrama with hints to a bad ending/dark side.

The show could have been great, but it was never well executed. I take for example episode 9 whose drama reached high levels thanks to the job of Koshimizu Ami. The background music was correctly chosen, but the volume was unnecessarily obnoxious to the point of overshadowing the voice acting carrying the weight of the emotions/drama. This small detail pales in comparison to the serious pacing problems throughout the show. Is necessary to introduce a girl who doesn’t play a major role? Is there any purpose to go slow at the beginning and rush all the drama at the end even if that means incoherent plot twists (grandma going crazy or the ending/epilogue would fit as example)? This show has overlooked the intelligence of its audience without doing its job properly.

Emotional Involvement:
There was drama here and there, but never to the point of making me “emotionally vulnerable.” I couldn’t relate to the characters simply because the situations, apparently realistic, became fictional and ridiculous.

Merit: 2
This show has no remarkable merit in my opinion. The voice acting is outstanding for a drama/romance genre, but a show cannot depend solely on the seiyuus, otherwise I would buy a CD drama labeled as “Myself; Yourself.” I gave this show a merit of 2 because there’s nothing particularly unique about it; even the great voice acting can be found anywhere else. I wouldn’t recommend it since there are better shows out there whose drama, high school life, romance, or any combination of the aforementioned are better developed.

Overall Rating: 4-6
I feel empty after watching this show. When you cannot remember the names of the characters, you know there’s something wrong. Nothing noteworthy happened after 13 episodes or so that made me interested enough to rewatch it. I couldn’t laugh when they attempted to create humor and even less of crying, but find it absurd most of the times. This show was pretty forgettable in few words.

[Yaoi_Daisuki]

seem alittle rushed and extremely disappointed at some of the stories . . .

the drawing? (tie up all the char hair, i doubt i can differentiate between some . .)

sana past? omg
the granny arc??!
and
asami??! (totally failed imo, instead of the element of surpise its more like wtfized and it took awhile to find back my jaw)
who is that kid beside hinako at the ending??
lolicon face and voice but at legal age + devil body ended up alone in the ending? well it might be a hint at the end, she might be with asami rofl, since she called out for her, asami might get the wrong idea and go berserk again

overall i give a 6/10
not that bad to kill some time. i sort of expected it to be better

[Cheerful]

Animation Quality: 6. The animation was solid. Lots of connections between School Days and this anime though (especially the blood and the character design). I noticed they repeated scenes, which gave the impression of lazy animators.

Voice Actors: 6. I actually recognized a several of the voice actors, especially for Aoi (Chiyo-chan from AD). Its a nice cast of voice actors but, theres something like a old proverb, the best of the best don't make the best team.

Script: 7. Despite a few sections, I enjoyed the story alot. The pacing was kinda off, but I the presentation was decent i guess. However I expected a bit more romance. Like the people who rated before me there wasnt a single kiss scene, except for that grandma kiss from Hinako and Sana somewhere in the middle.

Editing: 5. Like I mentioned before I noticed some scenes repeated (Sana blowing his nose, Sana walking through two doors to get into the bathroom, the putting out of cigarette butts in the ashtray) and such.

Emotional Involvement: 8. Lots of drama. There were some points that drew me into the story (definitely not all). But when it did I did enjoy it a little more i guess.

Overall: 7.5~8. I was debating between a 7 and 8. Now that I consider it I would ve changed my vote to 7. The OP song and ED song gave a couple points to the final score since I didnt mind either. I also really enjoyed the couple episodes in the middle covering the twins and the relationship of the past between Sana and Nanaka, as well as the small epilogue in the final episode. Other than that it was mediocre, it wouldve scored much lower if I werent such a romantic.

[tun]

Originally Posted by Kang Seung Jae

Ouch..... Unfortunate.

I need a negative infinity option in the poll. I found out that they don't have a Nanaka/Sana kiss in the game either.

[Irenicus]

4/10.

Not impressed.

Poor pacing, poor execution, scatterbrained script, and reliance on tired workshop formulas convince me to rate this show harshly. It doesn't really offend me that much, but its crime is that it utterly fails to distinguish itself from any sort of mediocrity. Like somebody earlier in the thread, I had been consuming large quantities of romance-related entertainment lately, and I think I'm in a good position to judge them; and this show, well, fails. I'll forget about it in a week easy, probably three days or so.

Random points to illustrate my disappointment in more detail:

- a generic ending. No, not just generic, it's poorly-executed genericness. Extra fail for terrible adult character designs for the teenage protagonists. Nanaka is acceptable. Sana is lawl, wut?

- black blood is black. Censorship issue aside, if my first thought was confusion at looking at the black water, then you probably fail to convey the situation to your audience in a timely manner.

- characters are plot devices. They readily act out of character just so to fit into the scene. Moreover, they are underdeveloped and more-or-less stereotypes or variations thereof. Quality beats originality; but with neither you're left unfulfilled.

- bad voice-acting. I'm in no position to judge Japanese as a native speaker, not even cartoony Japanese that anime seiyuu's use, but even I feel terribly contrived at it all. Especially Sana's voice-acting, that was horrible.

- plotlines randomly thrown together.

- I've never been a fan of that style of character design.

Etc.

I wasted my time.

[Fweakin]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

4/10.
....

I wasted my time.

This sums it all up for me. It was trash, and not the enjoyable kind.

[Woodchips]

Okay, where to start with this show?

I started watching this show with very low expectations. I hadn't heard much about it, and didn't do much research about it. I really only knew that it was a harem-y shounen show. End of story.

Fast forward to the first episode. Ignoring the fact that you are beaten about the head with the characters' observations, and the rather slow-moving first episode, we are set up with a rather cliche situation: Boy returns to old haunt after many years away to find that many things have changed. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, and based on the feel of the first episode, I was preparing to watch a rather light and fluffy superficial anime...

Well, I managed to get one out of the three right: This was certainly a superficial show, if not light and fluffy.

The first two to three episodes were okay, not gripping and not particularly intelligent, but okay. We see that our protagonist has a few personal issues to deal with, as does our main heroine, which should be a good way to introduce some intriguing conflict, right?

Well, the writers and producers definitely managed to insert some conflict into the series, unfortunately it was of the soap-opera, melodramatic variety. Now, I like conflict as much as anyone, but when I look at how much external conflict they have jammed in this series, it really makes me want to roll my eyes and give the writers a guide to writing.

Let's break it down:
- Melodramatic slap when hero somehow doesn't recognise heroine.
- Heroine completes 180 and becomes jealous over new girl Asami.
- Cue multiple ridiculous situations in which hero and Asami are found in one-another's company by heroine.
- Domestic abuse exhibited on two occasions.
- An evil step-mother.
- A psychopathic grandmother with homicidal tendencies towards pets.
- Hinted twincest.
- Political intrigue in the school's administrators.
- Council fraud and deception.
- Psychopathic Evil Lesbian™
- Parents who are not parents.
- Real parent dies of cancer.
- Fake father goes homicidal and suicidal setting himself and wife alight.
- Scarred heroine makes disturbed pleas for help to empty postbox.
- Bullying.
- Double suicide attempt.

All in 13 episodes of a school-based series.

"Tip 1: Thou shalt not insert ridiculous conflict into series to make up for a poor plot and character development."

While external conflict can move the story on and allow the characters to be explored in different situations, the story lacked the appropriate focus on internal conflict that would have fleshed out the characters a little more than we have perhaps seen.

As has been mentioned previously, it makes it hard to empathise with the characters and their problems when the scenarios are farcical. Instead of being emotionally moving and powerful, the scenes ran into the ridiculous, and I found myself physically scoffing at the improbability of it all.

To add insult to injury, the story is built up to the point Sana reveals the secret of his troubled past to Nanaka, a perfect opportunity for them to connect and to allows us some resolution of the romantic arc. But what do we get? A skip forward in time by ten years, and a terribly out of place epilogue. It was almost as good as the one we saw in Mai-HiME.

I do feel honestly sorry for the talented seiyuu who were involved in this show. There were some great performances -- especially during mundane scenes, but the melodrama killed any sense of escapism for me. Good performances from: Koshimizu Ami (Nanaka), Tamura Yukari (Shuri), Koyasu Takehito (Shuusuke) and Nakahara Mai (Asami).

Overall I gave this show a 2/10. The lack of credible character development, buckets of ridiculous melodrama and lack of anything resembling a sensible plot made me thoroughly dislike this series through and through. I only watched it through with the smallest of hopes that it would sort itself out. I was sadly mistaken.

[Vexx]

Wow and I thought *I* was thinking harshly of the effort.

[grey_moon]

One of the things I really liked about the show was the amount of thoughtful (and heated) discussions it generated. I think I actually enjoyed that more then the show itself

Plus points for me were Aoi's squeaky voice and her tits

[Deathkillz]

Originally Posted by Woodchips

Let's break it down:
- Melodramatic slap when hero somehow doesn't recognise heroine.
- Heroine completes 180 and becomes jealous over new girl Asami.
- Cue multiple ridiculous situations in which hero and Asami are found in one-another's company by heroine.
- Domestic abuse exhibited on two occasions.
- An evil step-mother.
- A psychopathic grandmother with homicidal tendencies towards pets.
- Hinted twincest.
- Political intrigue in the school's administrators.
- Council fraud and deception.
- Psychopathic Evil Lesbian™
- Parents who are not parents.
- Real parent dies of cancer.
- Fake father goes homicidal and suicidal setting himself and wife alight.
- Scarred heroine makes disturbed pleas for help to empty postbox.
- Bullying.
- Double suicide attempt.

All in 13 episodes of a school-based series.

Wow...what an accurate depiction of real life

But I love drama ^^ (most kinds...makes a nice change).

[stjeppe]

Animation Quality: 6
Voice Actors: 7
Script: 5
Emotional Involvement: 8
Personal score: 7

Total score: 6,6 --> 7

i could start bringing up stuff but most has been said so i don't think it would add much

[arkxkra]

overall for me is ok, only the ending, abit too rush and many thing too simple, not clear enough. But i like this series, so i will give it 8~9(I know its a bit high).