Whisper Me a Love Song – 02 – Russian Blue

Yori and Himari have made a habit of sharing their time on the rooftop, and Himari is not shy about telling Yori how she loves her singing. Yori finds her thoughts of late are dominated by the painfully adorable Himari. When she pats her head, Himari blushes, but when she takes off, Yori blushes even more. She’s not sure what she’s doing, but she knows she likes Himari.

She encounters Himari waiting outside her class at lunch, and on Aki’s urging they exchange contact info. This is how Aki learns that Himari is the girl Yori is into (and we later learn that Aki is still into Yori herself). Since it’s raining, Himari meets Yori in her classroom after school, and asks her if she wants to go on a date to a cat-themed merch pop-up at the station on Sunday. Yori enthusiastically accepts, and it’s First Date Time.

Yori shows up effortlessly mature and stylish, while Himari is a tiny goddess of cuteness in her maroon dress and white blouse. Yori compliments her and Himari is glad she dressed up for the occasion. At lunch Himari feeds Yori, and the two end up holding hands to not get lost at the packed pop-up. Himari picks out matching phone straps for them to share, and Yori buys them as a gift for her.

At a music store, Himari tells Yori she wants to see “both sides” of her: the gentle solo artist on the rooftop and the snazzy frontwoman in the band. Yori decides she’ll give the band thing a try after all. Throughout the date, she’s is on cloud nine. Just being beside Himari makes her happy, and all Himari has to do is smile or praise her for that happiness to soar even higher.

When she expresses as much to Himari before they part ways, Himari laughs it off, saying being her girlfriend would be great. But as she walks away, Yori takes hold of her arm and tells her, in no uncertain terms, that she wants to go out with her, for real for real, and asks if she’ll think about it.

When Himari does so in the bath that night, she worries that her love and Yori’s are different. But then again, she also asks herself what love even is. In any case, the cat’s out of the bag and there’s no putting it back: Himari knows that Yori-senpai has feelings for her. I wonder how she’ll choose to respond to them.

Whisper Me a Love Song – 01 (First Impressions) – A Happy Misreading

First-year high schooler Kino Himari joins her longtime friend and classmate Miki to watch her older sister play in a band composed of third-years to welcome the new students. The moment Himari sees the cool beauty of the band’s frontwoman was love at first sight. When Himari catches the older, taller girl by the shoe lockers, she uses those precise words: “I fell in love at first sight.”

Those words, combined with the enthusiasm and intensity with which Himari says them, make it possible to interpret it as a confession of love. The fact the singer, one Asanagi Yori, finds Himari incredibly cute and her smile surpassingly pretty, means the “love at first sight” was mutual.

Yori reports this enchanting encounter to her friends, who partly tease her for having finally found someone, and also encourage her to respond to the girl in however way she sees fit; the better to inspire her to write the love song they want her to compose. She doesn’t know Himari’s name, but thanks to Miki, Himari knows Yori’s, along with her birthday, blood type, and tendency to sing songs on the roof.

So when Himari appears on the roof, Yori works up the courage to tell her she fell in love at first sight too, and learns that Yori wasn’t talking about falling into romantic love with Yori personally. Instead, she used the words “love at first sight” to describe how she became a fan of Yori and her music on the spot.

At first, Yori is crestfallen, and embarrassed for misinterpreting Himari’s words so totally. But she wasn’t really that far off. Words are imprecise in these matters, but she cannot deny she likes Himari and wants to keep seeing her and especially her smile. So when Himari agrees to watch her perform on the roof every day, Yori takes that as an opportunity to her Himari to fall for her even harder.

Himari may not be aware of Yori’s feelings for her, but only because she’s in a different mindset. Perhaps in time, Yori’s feelings will come through loud and clear. In the meantime, the two have such good chemistry together that they spend their first rooftop session simply chatting, and Yori ain’t mad about that at all.

Misunderstanding or not, Yori’s feelings aren’t going away, so she might as well keep playing and singing for Himari in this effortlessly sweet, gentle, and charming story about different kinds of love coming together and resulting in a new, unique, and beautiful sound.

Shin no Nakama – S2 09 – What Love’s Got to Do With It

The gang has a meeting to discuss Chaos Reignsborough’s Blue Boy, specifically how they’re going to go about protecting Ruti and Zoltan from his hyper-zealous, destructive whims. Tisse provides well-drawn portraits of Van, Lavender, and Ljubo. Ruti declares that Van’s world is tiny, allowing him to trust his beliefs without conditions.

Van will disguise himself and reach out to Ljubo, but Lavender is the problem. Mystorm warned to Yarandrala that despite her tiny cute fairy appearance, she’s actually an extremely powerful monster they should a avoid a direct fight with. Rit decides she’ll try talking to Lavender, since both of them are madly in love.

Red sees Tisse out on the deck looking troubled. Her issue is not just that he’s powerful, but also a “terrifying human being.” She just can’t fathom how different he is from Ruti, despite them both being bona fide heroes. Red lays it out: Ruti is an indomitable hero, while Van seeks to be an invincible one.

Van is also little more than his blessing, which he levels up with everything he’s got. Ruti is more than her blessing, thanks in no small part to her brother’s careful guidance, and love. Tisse is glad Ruti had someone like Red, and now understands better what a disadvantage Van has.

After a tense introduction in a dark alley, Rit manages to get to Lavender’s tender side by basically baring her heart to her. She doesn’t want to talk about anything with her but love, and once Lavender can tell she’s sincere, learning that Rit gave up everything to be with her love, she’s happy to drink mead with her.

While they’re able to find common ground through the love they have for their partners, Lavender disagrees with Rit fundamentally on one thing: the ability for love to grow or change. Ever since she met Van, Lavender has been all-in on her love. It’s a feeling she’d destroy the world to preserve, and never wants it to change.

It’s hearing this that makes Rit realize Lavender’s love is not only one-sided, but entirely selfish on Lavender’s part. She doesn’t really care about Van’s feelings, which, if we’re honest, he doesn’t really have, since his world and his almighty are his entire world. Lavender is, at best, a tool to help him carry out the will of Demis, like everyone else. She’s only “special” insofar as she’s completely loyal to him.

Rit is wise not to bring up the contradictions or limits in Lavender’s love, but does warn her that at some point she’ll have to choose between Van changing and Van dying. If that time comes, Lavender promises she’ll simply die with Van. When Rit asks Lavender to ask Van to leave Zoltan, she refuses, and Rit doesn’t push the matter. Instead, they toast one more mug of mead to hopefully having more peaceful talks like this.

While Rit must by design wear her heart on her sleeve and exhibit extreme honesty with an entity like Lavender who could quickly sniff out her lies, Red takes a different approach with Ljubo, one that exploits Ljubo’s vices, specifically money (which he wasn’t born into) and gambling.

Red, slumped over, hooded, and with a purple face tattoo, goads Ljubo into betting on a fat dragon that ends up winning and earning him a bunch of cash. There’s no better way for him to ingratiate himself to the cardinal than by lining his pockets.

With Ljubo’s lust for gold sated for the day, Red shows him where he can spend some of his winnings on some quality wine and seafood. Yarandrala in an anachronistic bartender’s uniform assists Red with this, and Ljubo is impressed that a backwater like Zoltan has such good fare.

With his pockets and belly full and a nice buzz from the wine, Ljubo is sufficiently prepared to hear Red out. Here, Red weaves the story of ancient elven ruins around Zoltan being full of advanced biological weapons. Some are monster form like the dead Ogre King he shows Ljubo. And some have human form – like the girl Van fought.

Red tells Ljubo that the girl is the ultimate elven weapon to be used against the demon army. If Van fights her, and either or both of them die in the ensuing mayhem, it will be a huge blow to mankind. Ljubo agrees, and vows to recommend to Van that he give up on fighting the girl. That said, Van’s obedience cannot be guaranteed.

The bottom line is that Red, Rit, Ruti & Co. don’t want to kill Van if they don’t have to. They want a peaceful solution, and that may require them to deceive Van. That’s a risky prospect, especially with Lavender discovering that Esta and her new Squire seem to be friendly with the apothecary who fought Van.