Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau

The show has a slow start, and you might think it is full of yuri tropes and cookie-cutter characters. It seems many people watched 3-4 episodes and dropped the show because this is exactly how it feels. BUT! But it gets better. It gets significantly better. The plot thickens, the characters start showing deeper emotions, and finally characters' backgrounds begin to matter. The episodes 7 and onward are full of raw emotion, and the episode 10 left me in tears. Admittedly, the characters are still a bit 2D, but the story development is remarkable. The animation quality for the last episodes dips a bit, butnot enough to spoil the ending. Now, if this was a cis-het show, I'd give it a 7. In terms of production quality, it's a bit below Makeine, so sounds about right? But it is yuri, and thus was much more precious and relatable to me.

ok so my final thoughts on sasakoi , it's no secret that the production quality of this anime is really low , although they might have slightly put some more effort into the last 2 episodes , but more than that, I want to talk about the content , what sasakoi is as a story and what it shows and how , it's everything an average yuri is like, and it's what I expect a yuri to be at its status quo, in fact, sasakoi is so much of a vanilla yuri that it could be used as a ground 0 to compare with otheryuri , and this is in no way a bad thing , it's good... but ... it's also a double edged sword, it's kinda basic , and it lacks unexpectedness imo , if I look at what reaction it got out of me , there wasn't that much that made me go "oh yeah THAT I'll remember it" , except maybe for the 2 last episodes that felt like they themselves united were more enticing than the rest of the show, but even past that I knew this was the goal as soon as I understood shio left because she was in love with aki , so much of it is predicting the next scene and waiting for it to happen, it's an average yuri ship chart getting resolved (shaped like a locomotive in fact) , ig shio was interesting but not much else going on for other characters , it's pretty normal , it's okay , I just wished it had a something more going on the music was pretty alright for the last 2 ep anime production : 4/10 general contents : a rather generous 7/10 because of ideology points , it would have been closer to 6.5 without it but now that I reconsidered it a bit maybe the manga has a better delivery of that same content in the way it's paced or other factors I can't know about because I didn't read it , in which case that would be only the anime's fault, but I'm not certain, maybe unlikely but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt the final result is 10/10 because it's yuri and yuri is life

Whisper Me a Love Song. THIS is the anime that I was probably most excited about at the beginning of 2024 aside from Solo Leveling. And I made that known in my MAL Blog Post. Bloom Into You was the closest comparable and that series is extremely near and dear to my heart - it's even on the same streaming platform - HiDive. But man, as everyone else has mentioned, the production issues this series had created so many issues for what probably should have been an easy 8 or 9/10. Words cannot even begin to express how I feel about howthis series was handled. Yokohama Animation Laboratory and Cloud Hearts couldn't have handled this project worse, outside of not finishing it at all (I've actually heard that they're essentially the same studio). People were worried about this series in the very early stages when the air date had to be pushed back two seasons later than originally planned - apparently the studio had a bad rep from prior. When a few episodes were delayed, there were leaks coming out that production was being halted and delayed because of EXRTREMELY poor working conditions. There's always going to be that grind in the anime industry because of the demand to get seasonal anime out on time, but it got really bad to the point that some of the work had to be outsourced. As of June 10th, when the eighth episode aired, production on the eleventh and twelfth episode hadn't reportedly gotten started yet. It sounds like a massive fumble for a series that really could have been something bigger. Story & Characters: Himari Kino has her first year of high school and has possibly the most carefree attitude that I've ever seen in a school anime. She has zero worries in life and proclaims to everyone that she loves them. This is obviously a bit of a steep slope to go off of because of what you and I know as 'love', she defines as more as being friendly, or happy with said person. When she goes to the school's opening ceremonies, she is immediately amazed by the band that plays, mainly, the main singer, Yori Asanagi. Himari eventually catches up to Yori and tells her that she loves her. This completely takes the introverted Yori by shock, but what starts out as an innocent interaction between two different characters, ends with a decent-feeling story. Himari is a decent character - she's happy to help anyone in need of assistance and still puts her best foot forward when she sees something that needs to be addressed. She backs up her beliefs with her actions and develops quite nicely as the series goes on. I was actually kind of worried where they'd take her because some series take the light and bubbly character and does nothing of developmental value with them. She's certainly not the best of example of this, but she's still decent written. Yori probably doesn't have as much depth though. She feels very withdrawn to a point where I could see her inability to speak her mind - as shallow as it may be - very often. Her strengths lie in her ability to create music and follow through in that medium. Whether that feels like a strong secondary character to you, I'll leave up for debate because I can see both sides. As the series progresses, many other characters' stories start to unwind and I have some mixed feelings on how well they turned out. Shiho's was likely my favourite because it really attempts to tug at some serious feelings. This is not a past that is easy to read and not shed a tear or two and her attempt at getting by life is extremely admirable. My problem with her was how they executed her arc. I'm not familiar with the source material to say for sure, but it feels like her story jumps around a little too much. It doesn't feel cohesive until it's pieced together, rather than building up her story until the conclusion. It pays off, but it was a little awkward to get to. Aki is another strong character whose trope may feel all too familiar to Bloom Into You fans, but even if it feels familiar, I like what she does with what she's given. It's not to build drama, but instead, to make sure those around her aren't dragged down by what she is. Momoka is the final character worth mentioning because of her connection to Shiho. She kind of brings a lot of storylines together and, outside of the bumps along the way as I described in Shiho's arc, it is decently written. Similar to how putting our characters together and piecing their arcs into one story had minor issues, I'd say the overarching story also had minor issues. The first and most obvious is that I don't believe enough attention was given to Himari and Yori. One of the issues that seasonal anime has when you're only adapting a piece of the whole series is that you have to stop eventually. A lot of the material that introduces new characters with a story that keeps you interested in them comes very early this time around, leaving limited runtime for our main couple. Sakura Trick had a similar issue, though I wouldn't say to this extent. There are still some wonderful moments being shown and developed, but a big part of me wonders if our main duo's relationship gets challenged much later in the source material, especially because of the position that Himari is put in. (Story: 7/10, Characters: 8/10) Art: With all the production issues that Whisper Me a Love Song had, it should come as no surprise that the place that they suffered the most was the animation. The first couple of episodes looked half decent, but as you go on, the quality seriously begins to dip. In music anime, the performances are always the most important part - think Sound! Euphonium or Fuuka. The first big performance they had was such a mess. Heavy CG and choppy-looking animations were only the start. They also really overuse stand-still backgrounds while our characters are moving in the foreground. The Himari-Yori moments were still decent, but I would have loved to know how this would have been handled by another studio. (5/10) Sound: Music and the OST were fine, but a lot of it ends up sounding too similar to each other. Follow Your Arrows might have been my favourite, but the rest was kind of just okay. Voice work was fine for the most part, but Himari's personality leads to some high-pitched stuff. (7/10) Overall: I wanted to not just like, but love Whisper Me a Love Song, because of how much I've seen of other Girls Love anime. Even with a non-perfect story, I was ready to give this series high praise, but sadly, it's kind of just good. Fans of the genre will probably still be fine with it at the end of the day, but this series is not a good way to introduce a new fan to it. I might go back and rewatch it, especially if HiDive ever dubs it - though I can't see that ever happening now. But this series was not nearly what I hoped it would be. (7/10)

If I'm writing a review it's because I just watched one of the best or one of the worst anime I've ever seen and 'Whisper Me a Love Song' meets that criteria: Pure dogshit. My God-given calling in life is to sift through the wastelands of tasteless yuri anime so that YOU don't have to, and I truly cannot believe that I had the psychological capacity to slog through this entire series. These were some of the longest 12 episodes of my life. The first half of this series is a mirror-image knockoff of Bloom Into You (a yuri series that's actually worth your time) and the secondhalf is an anticlimactic romance arc about background characters that no one could possible bring themselves to care about. There were some pretty cute moments in this show but they were far outweighed by over-the-top cringe moments. I am very compassionate with my ratings and gave this a six; for context, there are less than 10 other anime series I have ever rated this low. If you're like me and you'll watch anything to say you did, this is the show for you. If you want to watch a good GL series, this is not the show for you.

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