Himari and Yori are like yin and yang to each other. What they have in common is that they have never experienced romantic love, and where they differ is the reason for it. Yori is a lone wolf who prefers to keep to herself, and avoids getting entangled in other peoples’ lives. Himari is a social butterfly who loves everyone and everything, but only as a friend or idol. Under normal circumstances, these two girls would never have met, or even if they had, they wouldn’t have likely taken notice of one another, and yet fate works in mysterious ways. When Yori fills in for her best friend’s band, replacing the singer they just lost, Himari just so happens to attend their concert... And she just so happens to become a huge fan of Yori’s. She professes this to Yori, using the poor yet prophetic choice of words in saying that she “Fell in love at first sight.” Yori takes this the wrong way... Or is it the right way, since this unintended confession actually managed to tug on her heart strings? She soon realizes what Himari actually meant, but it’s too late to stop this romantic comedy of errors from placing them both on a collision course that will change their lives forever.

So I am at a complete loss for words in regard to the production history of this show, because the primary studio behind it is one that I’ve never even heard of before, Yokohama Animation Laboratory. It’s only been around for about five years, and they’ve only released a handful of titles, the only other one I’ve heard of being The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt, which was recommended to me at some point by a friend at work. Luckily for me, there’s another animation studio that was involved for the first ten episodes, which... Oh wait, no, I’ve never heard of Cloud Hearts either, nor of any of their other titles! Thankfully the director is someone with experience stretching back before the current decade, that being Akira Mano, who has actually had his fingers dipped into the pies of quite a few high profile and damned impressive anime projects, so it’s not like I have absolutely nothing to work with here.

What makes all of this especially fitting is that even before I looked up all of this information, I was firmly under the impression that the only person behind this project that had any idea of what they were doing was, in fact, the director. That’s a bold assumption to be sure, and I’ll acknowledge there’s an element of hyperbole to it, but this series looks to me like a dead ringer for the kind of anime that did the best it could under a cruelly miniscule budget. Again, I’ve never seen any of the other anime from the two studios that worked on this series, but I’m willing to bet that they’re just as dirt cheap as this one. I will say, though, as a testament to Akira Mano’s abilities, that I didn’t realize just how cheap the animation looked until at least a couple of episodes in. This is likely because there are several things that Mano did right in order to compensate for his lack of resources.

This is, despite its production related shortcomings, an extremely well directed anime, with an engaging visual style and most importantly of all, a gentle and soothing color palette. The characters’ facial expressions are able to convey really intricate emotions, when they're drawn right at least. Still, he is just one man, and there are plenty of visual weaknesses in play that Mano was unfortunately unable to alleviate. First of all, it is kind of obvious that some form of rotoscoping was used during the band performance scenes, and this is by no means the first music-based anime to do this, but it’s not quite as convincing as Your Lie in April and Beck were at it, and honestly, it feels kind of awkward. There is a very noticeable and downright distracting disparity between the animation in the rest of the series and the animation of the performances. But hey, we should probably talk about those ordinary moments inbetween concerts, right?

Again, it took me a while to notice all of this, because the direction, design work and color palette were engaging me to the point of distraction, but when I was actually paying attention, this show does look broker than back mountain. There’s the constant use of key frames, some of which stretch on for a few seconds too long, and actual movement on screen is minimal at best. What’s even worse is that every so often, as I alluded before, a character’s face will go off model, especially with how the eyes are aligned, either being crooked, too far apart or two close together, and shots from an angle only make this even worse. Still, like I said, Mano does the best he can with what he was given, and more often than not, he directs the series in a way that highlights the emotion of a moment rather than exposing the shortcomings that again, more often than not, I did have to specifically look for. Visually speaking, I think it’s fair to call this one a mixed bag.

It’s not very often that people give me warnings the second they see me register that I’ve started a new anime, and it’s even less often that I find myself almost immediately disagreeing. I mean it’s not rare, I did just experience that same phenomenon with Rent a Girlfriend, but regardless, it’s unusual. From the word of mouth that I picked up after watching episode one of this girls’ love series, this show is low key famous for presenting a rushed, bare bones love story... Or as my arch nemesis put it, a powerpoint presentation of a yuri. Now right away, the idea that it was ‘rushed’ sounded a bit questionable to me, as this is Pride month, and I literally just finished watching two yaoi anime in a row where the main couple were kissing and even fucking by the end of episode 2. I guess that’s not a fair comparison, though, as yaoi anime tends to get to the action right away, and yuri anime tends to be much more of a slow burn, so it is interesting to find a yuri anime that bucks the norm.

Having watched the series, I think I can pinpoint the actual point of contention, and it’s a little more complex than that... This series just has a really, really weird structure. There are going to be mild spoilers beyond this point, so be warned; This is a twelve episode series. The first six episodes are decicated to Yori and Himari and their relationship, which is then mostly resolved. The final six episodes shift their focus to another story arc entirely, dealing with the bands, and some intrigue the former singer who Yori replaced, and these two halves do not fit together as snugly as they should. The first half does foreshadow the second half a bit, but the sudden change in focus is jarring, not just because the first half made me really care about Yori and Himari as a couple, and seeing that relationship pushed into the backseat was always going to be a tough pill to swallow, but because the second half just isn’t as good as the first half. The story lose some steam at that point... Not a ton, but enough to be noticeable.

The first half was fun. It was fast paced, it was sweet, and I could barely look away. I have seen people saying that Yori and Mihari aren’t the most interesting or fleshed out characters, and yeah, I can kind of see where they’re coming from, neither one gets a lot of backstory, but I never complained. They’re likable enough, and they have undeniable chemistry. I was rooting for them, and I think that was the point. Besides, at least in the case of Himari, you get to see her grow and change as she’s gradually exposed to the nuances of romantic love, not just her own, but the complicated circumstances she gets dragged into the middle of as a result of her inclusion into Yori’s circle. Speaking of Yori, she does open up more and start to let people into her life as a result of her pursuit of himari, and while neither character is ever going to be taking home any rewards for how well they’re written, I think they’re both serviceable enough romantic leads.

Another complaint I saw a lot of is the unrealistic nature of Love at First Sight, which I both agree with and disagree with. I agree, because real life isn’t the Valdemar books, and people don’t just lifebond with each other at a glance. I disagree because this is fiction, and love at first sight is a time honored trope that became a trope because it’s an effective and efficient story element that can totally work. Besides, we’re talking about queer anime here, you think THAT is too unrealistic? I can’t count the number of yaoi anime I’ve seen where 90% of the cast were gay males, nor the amount of yuri I’ve seen where the cast were 90% gay females. That’s not realistic either, but just like love at first sight, it’s a damn nice fantasy to have, which is why you see that kind of thing in so many stories. Besides, I don’t think they did fall in love at first sight. I think Yori is a dumb teenager who blew her first ever crush way out of proportion, believing her first love to be of world-ending significance due to her lack of experience, go ahead and tell me THAT isn’t fucking realistic. We were all naive like that at one point.

But you want to know what my absolute favorite thing about this series is? In most romance anime, particularly in the yuri sub-genre, a good chunk of the story revolves around misunderstandings. Perfectly compatible love interests will dance around each other awkwardly for far too long because they don’t understand the meaning behind each others’ actions or words, they make the worst assumptions possible, and thus a will-they-won’t-they dynamic will ensue, and I’m not saying that it can’t work, it can be some genuinely compelling material, but you have to admit that it’s a little too pervasive. Not in this show, no, not in this show. My favorite thing about this series is just how often the characters use clear, honest and direct communication with each other. Early on, this results in serious misunderstandings either being resolved or outright avoided, and in the latter half, it results in some genuinely surprising plot twists, not because of how random they are, but because of how logical and sensible they are, which is such a weird reason for me to not have any idea what's going to happen next in a story. It’s like I’m not even watching a fucking anime anymore.

But that does unfortunately bring us back to the second half of the series, which wasn’t bad per se... It wasn’t boring or painful by any means... But when the relationship between Yori and Himari wasn’t the focus, I found it difficult to stay emotionally invested, even when I could acknowledge that what I was watching was well written and complex. And with this in mind, it is unfortunate that they do take a back seat to the romance between two other characters, neither of whom I disliked or anything, it was just kind of a disappointing step down. As far as Yori and Himari are concerned, things do get weirdly lopsided, as Himari continues to play an active role in the story, but poor Yori has nothing to do. She’s more plot devise than protagonist at this point, as the narrative seem to care more about the way characters are connected through her than it does for her as a person. Still, things do come around in the end, with Himari’s proactive intervening and several honest conversations leading us into a really very nice and touching ending.

I’m a little torn as to whether I like this series the way it is, or if there’s a way it could have been executed a little better. It’s possible that the series would have been technically better written and more of an audience-pleaser if the two halves of the series had been combined in some way, with the two main plots playing out side by side instead of one after the other, but I don’t think I would have liked it as much. This anime is kind of a mess, but I enjoyed this mess. I don’t expect perfection, and sometimes emotional story-telling has to work in illogical or messy ways to truly grab a viewer’s heart. If I could describe this series in one word, it would be ‘refreshing.’ It’s refreshing to see characters for once do what I want them to do to avoid unnecessary drama. It’s refreshing to see a yuri anime that doesn’t fuck around or drag things out, and has an actually satisfying ending that you don’t need to read the manga for. It’s refreshing to see a couple that trusts each other, talks things out and deals with their jealousy in healthy ways, can you tell I just watched Junjou Romantica?

Just about every episode of that infamous yaoi non-con-fest featured somebody grabbing their partner’s wrist in a controlling or abusive manner, one of the many things that happen often enough in that show for me to suspect they must be one of the author’s fetishes, and which the tone-deaf narrative often justifies in some forced manner. In this show, however, it happens twice that I can remember? Once, when Yori is proactively trying to clear up a misunderstanding, and then a second time out of jealousy... Although immediately afterwards, she realizes what she’s doing, backs off, and expresses remorse, after which the jealousy is rationally discussed between them, do I seriously need to list any more examples of how refreshing this show is? It’s also funny(mostly in the first half) and charming, and sweet, and full of touching moments... I should mention, I guess, that there was a huge hiatus between episodes 10 and 11, which I guess might have turned a lot of viewers off, but I only watched it for the first time this week, so I didn’t experience that myself. I’ll take it into consideration to be fair, but whatever, I still really liked this series.

Whisper Me a Love Song is available for streaming from Prime Video and Hidive. Apparently there are a couple of recap episodes, but I skipped them on principal, so no comment. The original manga from Eku Takeshima is available from Kodansha Comics.

It’s not unfair to call Whisper Me a Love Song a mixed bag, but I think it would be more accurate to call it a split bag, as it really does divide neatly into two separate six episodes halves. The first half is, in many ways, the anime equivalent of the song Pink Pony Club. It’s a bright, uplifting story full of youthful optimism and innocence, excited about the prospect of a fun, fulfilling LGBT lifestyle. The second half is more like the song Good Luck Babe, like it’s being told from the same voice, a few years older, and sounding much more tired, having come to the realization that “Okay, damn, I guess this shit is more complicated than I expected it to be.” It has it’s flaws, some of them arguably pretty big, but I enjoyed the experience as a whole, as even its worst moments had something of value to offer. If I could review the two halves individually, I would give the first half an 8, and the second half a 6, so overall I guess it’s only fair to shoot for the middle?

I give Whisper Me A Love Song a 7/10