“What are you saying? In love, age and gender does not matter.”

Myself;Yourself is a strange show. It’s kind of like a do-it-yourself visual-novel show would look like.

You know, the kind you see in magazines and TV ads. Quick to set up, easy to assemble, and cheaper than a name-brand. Certainly, a lot of Myself;Yourself is almost cookie-cutter harem/visual novel fare, and a lot of it is put together following the simple included instruction manuals and diagrams.

An appealing female cast outnumbering the males? Check. Replete with the loli, the tsundere, the dojikko, the nice girl, and the older woman? Double-check.

Light-hearted opening episodes leading into serious drama and conflict? Yup. Revolving door of characters getting their turn in the spotlights? Got it. Myself;Yourself is, largely, by the numbers, at first glance.

But like a well-assembled kit car, it has that special touch that makes it more than the sum of its parts. The show has a shiny finish to its paint, a personal touch, that sense of caring that most machine-assembled shows lack. The drama’s a bit more dramatic, the characters a bit more fleshed-out, it’s more enjoyable and fun a show than one would believe.

Unfortunately, there are flaws by this same hand-assembled approach. It’s not as professional as the ones the pros make; the pieces of the show don’t always fit together exactly, and some of the parts show clear signs of a rush job, of time suddenly running out.

And for this reason it’s tough for me to pass a judgement on Myself;Yourself. It’s a good show - definitely one of the better in a season full of visual novel conversions - but not top tier, and it struggles to compete with the Shuffle!s and solas. I don’t regret my time spent watching it, but really wish that it had been just a bit longer - Myself;Yourself pushes the boundaries of a 1-cour show, but in the end is dragged back to reality by the physical limitations of time.

(Listen to Aoi.)
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The “12 Days of Christmas” series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we’ve enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

If you had asked me a year ago what I thought of anime, I’d tell you that Cardcaptor Sakura ruled my life and that would be the end of it.

If you had asked me a year ago what I thought of Haruhi, of Kanon, of Tsukihime, I’d give you a funny look.

If you had asked me a year ago whether I’d think I’d find myself, in a year, writing almost 50,000 words about anime, I’d ask if you’d come back in time just to ask theoretical questions about anime to me, and why don’t you just go win the lottery instead?

Perhaps to call anime life-changing would be a bit of a stretch, especially in the young, impressionable high school years. But I have no regrets about adapting the life style of a self-admitted anime geek, with the blogging and the watching and the Shiori worshipping and a good portion of the full nine yards, and I would like to think that my alleigance will not be wavering any time soon.

And so to close out the month of December, a time for celebration, it’s time for me to recgonize some of the moments that really personify why I am glad I made the choice to be here, watching anime, in a 12 Days of Christmas countdown.

And the first moment up is every bit as dramatic as the this intro paragraph is, for better or for worse: Myself;Yourself 11.
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And, like every good street racer in anime, Myself;Yourself has jumped four gears from second to sixth and is accelerating at about the speed of a jumbo jet.

As the guy in the shotgun seat all we can do is sit there, whiplashed, and stare agape at how fast things are whizzing by us. And with the end of the road coming up quick it’s definitely possible for panic to set in.

There’s no way he could make the turn. No way that I’ll survive this alive.

Only one thing is sure, and that’s that they’re not going to let up on the gas any time soon.

Car references aside, Myself;Yourself really did take a turn for the holy shit in its last episode, number 10. It’s a combination of plot developments that left many people polishing up their Nice Boats in anticipation.

In all truthfulness, the rumors of impending death, most likely, have been greatly exaggerated, but that doesn’t stop the fact that some very interesting and dramatic things are likely to come up soon as Myself;Yourself rushes towards the cliff, Kaiji style, ready to make a flying leap.

Whether it’ll make it remains to be seen, but until then let’s take a look at the situation, as there’s still quite a lot to play for in this story.
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I just want an excuse to use the word “threesome” in the ‘wrong’ way again.

In all seriousness though this season’s crop of anime is looking very promising for any harem/visual novel show lovers, with at least four shows out there that look to impress.

In the four corners we’ve got:
Clannad, the 500 Pound Moe Gorilla,
Da Capo II, the Never-Dying,
Myself;Youself, the Newcomer,
and ef, a.k.a. Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film (because it hasn’t been subbed yet).

Luckily the subs for the shows have been very speedy as well so I can offer first impressions on the first three of this batch, and if there’s one thing I can say about them it’s that, despite all technically being visual novel anime, they all feel like they have a different approach to the genre.

It’s not the world-upside-down approach to the harem genre like School Days, by any regards, but certainly each show has a different feel and creates different expectations. It looks like the next 3 months or so will have a lot of tense spamming-refresh-waiting-for-subs moments…

(No spoilers for anything past the first episodes ahead but I might hint vaguely at past anime of the same genre)
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