What They Say:
Friends since kindergarten and seemingly like blood brothers, You and Me follows the lives of Yuta and Yuki Asaba, Shun Matsuokan and Kaname Tsukahara; as well as transfer student Chizuru Tachibana who joins the circle of friends. Together we will watch as they laugh, dance, cry and share the memories of growing up together in everyday life.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One of the things I do enjoy about school based shows that do advance the timeline is when they hit summer vacation and show what everyone is up to when left to their own devices. The cast of You & Me are the types that don’t seem like they’d be caught up in all sorts of summer activities from school related things and instead just doing fun things. Or going on vacation and the like. Where shows like this have a hard time though is in that the adults are simply never around and we only see the kids. It makes sense to a degree, since they often are out working, but the lack of any mention of them generally is what drives me nuts and even You & Me falls prey to this.
Naturally, everyone does eventually get together at times as Chizuru is a real social butterfly sa he wants to hang out with everyone and do things, even though they just want to burrow in and play games or do their own thing. Chizuru in fact spends a fair bit of time with Shun during this time period since he’s still the most outgoing and friendly of the core group and even spends time with the newly minted “Mary” as she copes with the hot summer and being a bit of a social outcast in general. She’s something of a hard kid to get a handle on since she’s so much shorter than everyone and has her own issues which pretty much makes her a person that you don’t want to spend time with because of the anger and sadness the emanates from her.
Where things turn, slowly and rather naturally, is the way certain interactions occur. You can tell that Chizuru is interested in Masaki and does what he can to show her a good time at the festival, though she’s oblivious to it all. But she ends up getting some help from Shun during the goldfish time and it awakens and interest in him from her, which confuses the heck out of Chizuru since Shun is the least manly of them all and the one that he can’t believe would get a girl. Which just shows how little he knows of the world and the way women think and operate. The blossoming of a triangle here is fairly obvious, but it’s one that you have to wonder how far they’ll actually get with it or whether they’ll truly capitalize on it beyond making it an occasional source of tension and humor.
In Summary:
Similar to the previous episodes, You & Me largely works because of its relaxed atmosphere and the way the characters do all come across as natural and realistic in their laid back approach. People of similar mind and temperament finding each other and all. The shake-up from the introduction of Masaki and Chizuru certainly adds to it by changing the dynamic and adding tension, though not of a huge and overpowering sort. It’s refreshing to have things to work through without it going loud, boisterous and over the top. I do find that while I like Chizuru and Masaki, part of me wonders at what a series about the four main guys themselves and just that would be like, since the first episode was what got me into it before they became a part of it. But their addition works well too without upsetting the balance but rather tweaking and enhancing it.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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