Thoughts on Whispered Words volume 2

One Peace Books’ second omnibus collection of creator Takashi Ikeda’s Whispered Words contains the middle three books of the nine-volume story. In these chapters the two high-school girl friends Sumika Murasame & Ushio Kazama stumblingly become more conscious of their mutual love for each other, yet both girls hesitate to reveal their true feelings while seemingly everyone else around them already recognizes their informal coupling. The book also illustrates more of Sumika & Ushio first days as friends, wraps up Masaki Akemiya’s cross-dressing sub-plot, introduces a pair of new supporting characters, and concludes with a bonus side-story and an unrelated high-school romance story. The strengths of the original volume continue in the second collection, but some of the weaknesses of the first third of the story also become more pronounced in the second collection.

Picking up from the cliffhanger moment of tender honesty shared between Sumika & Ushio at the end of One Peace Book’s first Whispered Words omnibus, much of the story from chapters 19-34 focuses on an unintentional rift developing between the two girl friends as both of them consider their own feelings and anxieties and worry about what the other thinks without directly asking what the other is thinking. The extended period of anxiety between the two girls is narratively livened-up by extended flashbacks depicting more about how the two girls became fast friends, and a parallel story about cross-dressing boy Masaki Akemiya disastrous debut into the international high-fashion spotlight. The polite, unspoken discomfort between Sumika & Ushio feels believable, and these chapters provide readers with a bit more insight than usual into Ushio’s perspective and motivations for hesitating to escalate her relationship with her best friend.

However, the feeling of compromised, obligatory storytelling is even more prevalent in these chapters than in the previous collected volume. The second omnibus volume begins with an abrupt introduction to the home life of supporting characters Tomoe Hachisuka & Miyako Taema that feels jarringly unexpected. The book also sets up a juicy web of interconnected extended relationships when Masaki Akemiya new manager is revealed to be Charlotte Münchhausen’s mother. However, as if creator Takeshi Ikeda was only including Akemiya in the story due to external editorial demand, Akemiya’s storyline is wrapped up perfunctorily, and the story makes no effort to exploit the potential offered by the overlapping character relationships. Likewise, the story also occasionally drops in cameo appearances from Azusa Aoi and Kiyori Torioi, along with minor characters Watamura & Zenigata, seemingly just to remind readers that the characters still exist. Furthermore, Charlotte, who seemed to be turning into a significant character toward the end of the first omnibus volume, gets immediately shuffled into a background character in the second collection. While the focus of the story remains distinctly on the burgeoning lesbian relationship between Sumika & Ushio, much of the plot development and storytelling in the second volume feels a bit uninspired and responsive to external expectations and demands instead of focusing on strengthening the story. Likewise, a lot of the storytelling in this middle-third of the narrative feels like padding and filler, superfluous story that’s moderately entertaining but doesn’t feel vital or important to the ongoing narrative.

The second omnibus volume concludes with a side-story introducing a rocky friendship between two other girls attending the same school, and a bonus story unrelated to “Whispered Words” but also coincidentally revolving around a high-school romance. The first bonus story is a harmless supplement that loosely adheres to the same girl-love theme of the core story. The “Dance With a Goddess” bonus one-shot diverges in both artistic design and theme. The final one-shot story has a visual design less anime-inspired and deals with a conventional heterosexual romance. The self-contained story is pleasant, if unremarkable.

The 456-page second Whispered Words omnibus retains Japanese visual sound effects, and frequently background dialogue or notes are left in Japanese with supplemental English translation. Seemingly improving on the localization quality evident in the first volume, the second book doesn’t exhibit any flaws in print quality, and I spotted only three typos in the dialogue translation. Apart from the lesbian affection theme that may not be suitable for or appealing to all readers, the book contains nothing overtly offensive: no nudity, sex, violence, or adult language. Whispered Words still doesn’t feel like the best that the yuri manga genre has to offer, but the series is more often than not successful as an inoffensive, amusing school slice-of-life comedy with a yuri-theme and occasional moments of sweet romantic tenderness.