Whisper Me A Love Song Fixes One of Anime’s Most Hated Tropes

Only in recent years has anime improved when it comes to incorporating more equal representation for diverse groups. This includes LGBTQ+ characters, which have come a long way across the decades. The most recent series to feature LGBTQ+ characters is Whisper Me A Love Song, and its approach to a major issue with representation is surprisingly refreshing.

Whisper Me A Love Song is about the relationship between two high school girls. The major conflict comes from the fact that even though the underclassman Himari is flirtatious and declares her love for her upperclassman Yori, she claims that it might not be love after all. The whole point of the anime is for the two teens to fall in love, but this tease of a romantic queer relationship – otherwise known as Queerbaiting – is something that the anime community is all too familiar with. Whether it’s intentional or not, this anime uses the tease of romance to dive deeper into what love really is.

For the most part, Whisper Me A Love Song is a standard high school romance series centered around first love. The two main characters are third-year student Yori Asanagi and first-year student Himari Kino. Himari first meets Yori while she is performing on stage in the school’s auditorium. In this moment, the younger girl is so awestruck with Yori that she can’t help but approach her later on and declare her love for her. Shocked by the confession, Yori is surprised to find her heart stirred and develops romantic feelings for her underclassman, but sadly, Himari says her feelings might not be romantic.

Despite Himari’s flirtiness and repeated words of love toward Yori, the point of the anime is for the underclassman to figure out what her feelings truly mean. In the meantime, Yori is persistent, but not pushy, in finding a way to make Himari’s feelings clear and make her fall in love with her more. The relationship between this pair could have easily been unhealthy and relied on further misunderstandings or overzealous romantic gestures, but it’s one of the most wholesome relationships in the romance genre from episode one.

Without spoiling anything, the theme of first love is paired with the challenge of understanding romantic love and separating it from love between friends or family. Yori is immediately sure of her romantic feelings for Himari, and Himari’s uncertainty could have been seen as irresponsible and unfair, but the way she handles this unbalance in their relationship is genuine. It might be obvious with this being a romance and GL (short for Girl’s Love) anime that the pair will become a romantic couple, but the confusion of Himari’s feelings creates an interesting conflict for the story. Her journey in understanding love is a welcomed nuance for the romance genre at large, but also takes the trope of Queerbaiting and flips the script.

Himari’s Behavior Is More Than Just Queerbaiting

Anime’s Reluctancy Toward Queer Romance and What It Has To Do With Whisper Me A Love Song

To repeat, the audience knows that there will be a romantic lesbian relationship featured in this anime — that’s not up for debate. The interesting thing about Whisper Me A Love Song‘s premise is that it touches on the issue of Queerbaiting in anime. Queerbaiting is when fictional characters appear to be queer or have romantic same-sex relationships, but the writing doesn’t explicitly state that this is true. The whole point of Whisper Me A Love Song is to make this relationship canon despite the questions surrounding one of the character’s sexuality.

Anime like Lycoris Recoil (2022), Free (2013), and Great Pretender (2020) strongly hint towards lesbian, gay, or bisexual relationships, but never make them canon. The only detail missing from each of these series is one scene that confirms mutual romantic feelings and attraction from each character in question. This is the same case in Whisper Me A Love Song, but the anime is honest and upfront about the issue. To be clear, this is different from a character who is reluctant to fall in love or a character who struggles with emotions in general.

The former concept would be series like Kaicho Wa Maid-Sama (2010) and the latter would be anime like Violet Evergarden (2018). In both examples, romantic feelings are confirmed by the end of the story,but they are also both examples of straight couples which are most often confirmed canon. LGBT+ romance series often have main characters who are confused about their feelings but this confusion is tied to the character’s homophobia — they are afraid to fall in love with someone of the same sex because they’ve been taught that it’s wrong. The best example is the series Junjo Romantica (2008). The only anime to challenge the frustration of Queerbaiting in particular is Yuri On Ice (2016), which teases romance early on, but ends canonically with one of the most wholesome gay relationships in anime.

Himari Isn’t Teasing, She’s Genuinely Confused And Prepared To Do Something About it

Whisper Me A Love Song is different because Himari isn’t prejudiced against same-sex couples. In fact, there’s never a single moment in the anime where a character is put off at the thought of a lesbian relationship. Going back to Himari’s confusion, this at first appears to be similar to Queerbaiting. Himari has all the signs of being in love with Yori. Even after stating that her feelings don’t match Yori’s, Himari briefly continues to cozy up to Yori. They even go on a date, but their relationship as a couple is still not established. In the most wholesome way, however, Himari takes responsibility for her actions.

The younger teen becomes aware that she is being unfair to Yori and their relationship gradually becomes stronger because they form a bond without the pressure of a romance. Himari takes her journey of self-discovery seriously for her sake and Yori’s, which is the big spin on Queerbaiting that makes the series worth watching. The flirting and intimacy between this duo do come to a stop by episode 4, but the audience knows that this isn’t because of queerbaiting, but rather because of how careful Himari is being.

This is a sign of genuine character development for Himari, and while the experience is unpleasant for Yori, it’s how Himari is taking accountability. She is trying to be sincere to Yori but also fair to herself at the same time. This isn’t the typical tease of a couple of women one step away from being canonically romantic with each other. The anime creators are taking steps to bring these two characters closer with the intention of pairing them up.

An Important Example of Representation

It might be frustrating for the audience to watch and deal with the “will they won’t they” trope, but Whipser Me A Love Song is so nuanced the slow-burn development is worth it. The only major conflict is Himari’s confusion with romance, which is built up carefully across the first few episodes.

To spoil development a little, misunderstanding feelings is a problem that Himari has often. There have been moments in her past where the using the word “love” led to problems in her social circles. This causes Himari to realize that the word comes with different meanings and needs to be used with the utmost care. Because she doesn’t want to string Yori along and hurt her, Himari does her best to understand her feelings on her own. This is a step beyond the issue of Queerbaiting and ties into themes of self-discovery.

Himari might not be aware of her romantic feelings and that’s okay in retrospect. One article from VeryWellMind explains various relationships, the positive and negative impacts of being in a romantic relationship, as well as how to recognize different forms of love. The article states that “love is marked by being devoted, possessive, and confiding in one another,” but adds that there are several types of love. In the breakdown of the seven types of love, romantic love distinctly had intimacy and passion. With so many details to cover and Himari being so loving to everyone around her, it makes sense why she wouldn’t understand.

With Himari being such a layered character, the anime doesn’t just bait the audience with a romance. Instead, the purpose of the story is to explore romance and sexuality. This introspection is something Himari has never had to do because she was always okay with being friends with everyone she loves, but upon taking on the challenge seriously, she’ll learn about love over time.

Whisper Me A Love Song opens with only the tease of a romantic relationship, and if it weren’t for the GL label, there would be a high chance of Queerbaiting. The creators could have left the same-sex relationship as a tease and swept the confirmation under the rug to be ignored. This anime doesn’t only promise a lesbian relationship, it develops it with care using the challenge of confusing emotions. Himari is set on a journey to discover what romantic love is and could learn a lot about herself in the process. For once, the frustrating wait for a canon queer relationship is not because of Queerbaiting, homophobia, or some other frustrating romantic trope. Instead, Whisper Me A Love Song is about how complicated love is, regardless of gender.