3 Episode Taste Test: Sasameki Koto (Whispered Words)

Sasameki Koto takes place in a land of almost per­petual sun­sets, golden skies and scenery aflame with oranges, all the while impres­sion­able young girls stand in front of illu­min­ated classrooms blush­ing with pos­sib­il­ity. The series lays in thick and fast and doesn’t ever pre­var­ic­ate as to what the major­ity of it will be about: unfettered romance. Dainty piano melod­ies and smooth words flow from the open­ing leav­ing no doubt as to the pos­i­tion the series takes on its sub­ject matter.

“they feel like char­ac­ters rather than por­cel­ain dolls but­ting heads”

Sum­ika Mur­as­ame loves her best friend Ushio Kazama who is infatu­ated with cute girls, unfor­tu­nately for Sum­ika she is tall, ath­letic and book­ish pre­fer­ring to dress in muted polo necks than frilly skirts. While she pines for Ushio a male from her class, Masaki Akemiya, has fallen in love with her and expresses this by cross dress­ing and pos­ing for a fash­ion magazine. Things take a turn for the com­plex when Sum­ika and Ushio catch two other girls kiss­ing, and from the hints dropped in the first three epis­odes, it’s safe to assume that other poten­tial love interests will be intro­duced in short order. The story is typ­ical romance fare with the added twist of same-sex rela­tion­ships but the plights of the cast pro­duces a level of empathy that is wholly unusual.

The series is to be com­men­ded for hav­ing the cour­age not to expli­citly spell out every nuance of the ongo­ing rela­tion­ships; many ele­ments are implied — albeit blatantly — rather than insip­idly nar­rated, giv­ing events more refine­ment than one expects to find within the genre. The sur­prises don’t stop there with the show at times prov­ing immensely funny, favour­ing more sur­real situ­ations — the Ultra­man mask kiss­ing a stand-out example — than goofy comic tim­ing. Pacing is lam­ent­ably the weak­est point of the series so far: after the first epis­ode the story wal­lows with the same over­used try-deny effort from Sum­ika. The upshot is that real char­ac­ter and plot pro­gres­sion is not out of reach and the mater­ial covered so far bodes well for the remain­ing nine episodes.

Fol­low­ing other heav­ily les­bian ori­ent­ated series such as Maria-sama ga Miteru and Straw­berry Panic or even fantasy shows such as Simoun and Blue Drop means that Sasameki Koto has a chal­lenge to prove that it is both dif­fer­ent and worth­while. To its credit it removes the pre­ten­tious, snooty atmo­sphere that per­vades such series with aloof and reserved char­ac­ters in spades, instead focus­ing on light­hearted but no less tan­gible stor­ies and cast. Ushio may be a touch too whim­sical and Sum­ika a might too stoic for it to be real­istic, but crit­ic­ally they are like­able and enter­tain­ing to the point where they feel like char­ac­ters rather than por­cel­ain dolls but­ting heads.

In three epis­odes Sasameki Koto proves that it is uncom­monly adept with its genre, craft­ing char­ac­ters and situ­ations that are still typ­ic­ally slow burn­ing but are able to hold much more than a passing interest. The rest of the series may be already mapped out with emo­tional tur­bu­lence and late after­noon classroom meet­ings but it is charm­ing and approaches the still rel­at­ively taboo sub­ject mat­ter without any bash­ful­ness or devolving into smut. Ami­able and amus­ing, there is little more one could ask for from a series of this ilk. ¶