Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau

Himari Kino is a cheerful and outgoing girl who is able to make friends with anyone she wants. When she enrolls in high school and attends the freshman opening ceremony, Himari falls in love with Yori Asanagi, a reserved upperclassman, during Yori's band performance. After the show, Himari blurts out her love, but Yori is inexperienced when it comes to romance.

Yori, who did not expect this outcome at all, looks for answers from her friends and music. She decides to respond to Himari's confession, and to her surprise, Yori discovers that Himari fell in love with her music and performance rather than Yori as a person.

Despite the shock, Yori desires to make Himari truly fall in love with her. The duo spend time together after school on the rooftop, where Yori usually plays her guitar with hopes to change Himari's feelings for her.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Asanagi, Yori Main

Seto, Asami Japanese

Kino, Himari Main

Shimano, Hana Japanese

Izumi, Shiho Supporting

Nemoto, Yuuna Japanese

Mizuguchi, Aki Supporting

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Tachibana, Kaori Supporting

Kakuma, Ai Japanese

Satomiya, Momoka Supporting

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Amasawa, Hajime Supporting

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Tsutsui, Mari Supporting

Kohara, Konomi Japanese

Mizuguchi, Miki Supporting

Koga, Aoi Japanese

Amasawa, Kyou Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Endou, Kazuki Producer

Mano, Akira Director

Gou, Fumiyuki Sound Director

Nakatani, Nozomi Sound Director

Reviews

Dec 28, 2024

ninakali

Recommended

Funny

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, but ... not 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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 30, 2024

Justykanna

Mixed Feelings

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 how ... this 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)

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 29, 2024

KANLen09

Not Recommended

Whisper Me a Love Song - What was supposed to be a wonderful adaptation, got absolutely ripped to shreds by haphazard production.

You know the drill: hyped series tend to get the adaptations that were supposed to be expected from, and if there's anything to learn from the AniManga industry in the post-COVID era, is that the industry itself will NEVER learn from their mistakes trying to pump more quantity than quality just to satisate their audiences, on top of having to spend and lose revenue over what is commonly sighted as "production delays". Case in point, one of the highly revered Yuri a.k.a Girls' Love ... series of all time, mangaka Eku Takeshima's Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau a.k.a Whisper Me a Love Song, whose reputation in Japan, is said to be comparable towards mangaka Nio Nakatani's Yagate Kimi ni Naru a.k.a Bloom into You, it's just that popular.

The anime, however, is a well-known case of production hell that is worthy of a case study on its own.

I know this is rather old, but picture this with me: imagine series like Winter 2017's Fuuka and Spring 2017's Fukumenkei Noise a.k.a Anonymous Noise, the stereotypical love polygon that's the staple of all rom-coms in the music theme, but make it Yuri instead. This is what you get with this series, which births your typical romantic love out of music from characters that just admire each other, to then only be seen as a one-sided "misunderstanding" that led to romance being an objective to be achieved from both sides so that their love for each other remains ethereal, pure, and lovely. The 1st Year high school student of Himari Kino having "fallen" in love with her Senpai of 3rd Year Yori Asanagi being the lead vocalist and guitarist for their SSGIRLS band, it's all based on her singing abilities that she admires, but having never actually fallen in love before, she misinterprets Yori's singing from a form of admiration, to one of being romantic. Likewise, Yori also being in the same shoes as Himari, also misunderstands her approach as one of love and not admiration, but this vowed her heart more than ever to want to one day have Himari wholly as her partner for life and get her to reciprocate her true feelings in time. This is honestly a romantic love so grounded in both maturity and reality that both girls give each other space to explore their options and tap into the romance if ever required, asking each other's opinions and embracing both their strengths and weaknesses, no questions asked (or rather, the appropriate ones), and so on.

Every romance should desire to be like Himari and Yori's, and so will the heavy drama be accompanying it, which is a story of lies, betrayal, and the love polygon drama that comes along for the ride, making this the rather complicated mess between all relevant characters. The SSGIRLS band, consisting of Yori herself, bassist Aki Mizuguchi, drummer Mari Tsutsui, and keyboardist Kaori Tachibana, the 4 girls are especially outgoing and love to hang out with one another, for playing music is their passion, and nothing else (besides the obvious of Yori wanting to embrace Himari as much as she can). As with any 1st Year joining a club (which is mandatory), Himari is accompanied by the Culinary Research Club that hosts its president of 2nd Year Momoka Satomiya, and the ghost member of Shiho Izumi, though things within the club are as typical as its name applies. But the drama that affects everyone, and most especially that will rock both Himari's and Yori's romantic bubble, is yet another band that is the result of a feud gone wrong: Laureley, consisting of the two girls in Himari's club, the 3rd Year drummer Hajime Amasawa (whom also has a tragic drama of her own), whom they want to best against SSGIRLS from the long-standing rivalry of its lead person of Yori or Shiho. If you're the type to love endless soap operas, this show has it all — from hatred and jealousy to pure romance as sidelined third parties. The drama in this series absolutely does NOT relent on emotions that are just for show but true emotions that test the vulnerabilities of the heart matter.

Sadly, its production is just one of the saddest stories of tragic misfires leading to animation so broken that slips and cracks begin to start showing at the very beginning of the series. Despite both studios being of one parent company, both the main studio of Yokohama Animation Lab and sister studio Cloud Hearts, for some reason, can't quite maintain consistent production values for the show. The endless and egregious complaints being summed that up of a PowerPoint slide show, it's very damning for a studio (let alone 2 of the same company) to have such deviances early on, leading to the delay until now (that is still not an acceptable late Xmas present or anything). To have a director step down due to health issues and let another one take over, the situation has already gone from bad to worse, horrible even. The finality of Cloud Hearts apparently "closing" its doors just after this high-profile fiasco, the AniManga industry once again takes a massive L for instances like these.

The music is front and center for a series like this, and the anime delivered to an extent. I'm actually OK with SSGIRLS's OP, it's not the best for indie projects like this, but it's serviceable at best. What gets me more is the diversity of the ED songs, which actually plays a more pivotal role defining the drama stages of the series' nature according to where it is.

All in all, it's sad that such a famed series like Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau a.k.a Whisper Me a Love Song get the anime adaptation that is the very literate definition of "go read the manga". What a shame that the anime was literally in shambles even before it was a "go" at the green light, much less butchering a revered series that has Eku Takeshima's art drawn so beautifully, reduced to mere drab art by anime standards, so much so that you can't really call this "anime" to begin with.

Just go read the manga, for real. The anime is NOT worth your time, unless you can dare to stomach horrible animation with a compelling story to tell.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau Episode 12 Discussion IzanaSolos - Dec 28, 2024	37 replies	by avacarrot »» Yesterday, 5:57 PM
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