Pessimistic, aspiring photographer Rikuo Uozumi just graduated from college. Now he works part-time at a convenience store to make ends meet. While feeding the crows with unsold lunch boxes he meets a mysterious girl named Haru Nanoka with a pet crow. She had missed the last train apparently and asks for a lunch box too.

Soon he learns that his old crush Shinako who he had met in university, was still in town even though he thought she had moved away for a job. It turns out Haru was one of her former students too and Haru had fallen for Rikuo at first sight during a chance meeting many years ago. Unfortunately, Rikuo doesn't remember the vague encounter but finds themselves having a lot in common.

Despite learning of Rikuo's crush, Haru wasn't going to give up winning his heart. Meanwhile Shinako wasn't quite ready to accept Rikuo yet as she too is still stuck in the past. Every time she sees her late love's younger brother, Rou, she is reminded of her lost love. What's more, Rou had also developed feelings for Shinako during the time she has spent with her family.

And so we watch as the various characters try to overcome their pasts and, move on with their modern day relations and life.

This is a coming-of-age show so it's quite mature and very relatable I'm sure compared to your familiar high schoolers with powers setup; the whole graduating and trying to find a job phase of life. It's not your romcom show so there's a lot of brooding going on. Not exactly your cheerful show but if you've ever been down in the dumps for a long time you might find a lot to relate to.

It actually reminds me of the classic 1990s romcom Maison Ikkoku where a woman can't get over her late lover but, continues to give hope to another man to keep him around for fallback. Only difference is that was an actual romcom full of entertaining whacky characters while in this show it's a lot more gloomy and closer to your everyday person. Well, I guess it does have a girl with a pet crow and a young man with safety pins for earrings...

Both shows just are also set in the days before mobile phones so there's plenty of extra opportunities to put those cliche moments. If you grew up during the pre-broadband internet days you'll probably relate even more.

Haru's enthusiastic personality kind of cheer things up a bit as she teases Rikuo but it can still get quite gloomy. Fortunately few episodes in the gloominess stops and it starts to hit the middle ground where they're setting up back stories for each character. Your usual misunderstandings in romcoms start brightening it up from all the brooding around as they start to slowly move on from both their relationships and other rough patches of life but, their nice personalities and indecisiveness always ends up throwing a spanner into the works; again much like Maison's web of relationships.

However, while every event in Maison was actually meaningful, here you're fairly much given warning signs of a train wreck waiting to happen as you see no wrap-up late into the show despite the characters' attempts to move on. I guess that's why it's called, "Sing Yesterday" since everyone's stuck in the past for the most part. Some have compared it to Welcome to NHK but I haven't watched that to compare.

Art isn't exactly the best but it's consistent. It feels kind of odd knowing Shinako's voice actress Kana Hanazawa also voices Akane from one of my favourite action sci-fi show Psycho-Pass but, I guess her other roles such as Naho from Orange, Mayuri from Steins;gate (also a great sci-fi show) works here.

Personally I didn't like the wrap-up because it felt like the whole show's direction was completely pointless; just as it felt like it was getting somewhere too. Kind of like they decided to throw the script out the window and wanted to re-write the story so that it's based around pity instead. Or possibly because the writer wanted to explore other kinds of love compared to your average romance since the tagline is, "What is love?" such as sacrificing one kind of love to protect another. The main characters are so nice they end up being driven by guilt for any harm they do throughout the show and I think they come to an understanding of what each other are like in that way. It does give some hints from the start of the show of where it was going; especially if you watch the disc release's bonus scenes but that doesn't really make it any better.

So if you're up for a mostly serious, slice-of-life and romance drama show, you might like this (if you can get pass the gloomy start). It's not a happy show that's for sure as you watch people wallow in guilt and it's probably one of those love or hate it shows. I would just go with the classic Maison Ikkoku which more or less falls into the same premise but its wrap-up just feels a lot more well-deserved than what happens in this show.