Whispered Words Volume 1

The good is the manga itself; that's reviewed below. The bad has to do with this edition, and I'll discuss the problems with that now.The Bad1) The book title and picture are not what you get; you get a manga clearly marked as volume one, and indeed what is on sale here is Part One only (Chapters 1-18). The manga published in Japan has 53 chapters, so at this rate we could see as many as two additional volumes.2) Amazon's description states, "Both of them prefer girls, but Ushio likes cute and petite types while Sumika prefers the athletic outgoing girls." This is wrong; Sumika is interested only and always in Ushio.3) The translation feels a bit weird to me. For example, on page 3, Sumika says, "Here we go again". The actual Japanese is very close to the scanlated version: "Is this your illness starting up again?" The first version makes sense; it isn't wrong -- but why? In later sections, the translation actually corrupts the text so badly that some of the jokes don't even make sense. Why?The GoodWhispered Words is the story of high school girl Kazama Ushio and her best friend Murasame Sumika. Ushio crushes on cute girls and is very out. Sumika is tall, athletic, a born leader -- and secretly in love with Ushio. The tension is that she believes she isn't cute enough to be loved in turn. The first two volumes of the series chronicle Ushio's mad rush to find a cutie, with Sumika following close behind, desperate to keep her own crush hidden. Ikeda-kun is excellent at comedy: there's situations wild and silly, sharp comic dialog, and the comic energy makes it all hold together. I found it engaging and a lot of fun.Light spoilers follow; be warned.Things change completely in volume three; Sumika shatters under the weight of her deceptions. Ikeda takes us through the back story: who the girls are and what secrets drive their personalities. We learn Ushio's true feelings, and the weight of her lies to keep them hidden. In the following volumes Sumika and Ushio put themselves back together, as whole, mature people -- who are open about their deep love for each other. This part of the series I found engaging, touching and real, with sadness and loss, but also joy.Your mileage may vary; some will describe the series as "aaangst!"A comparison with Milk Moringa's Girlfriends is useful; both feature high school girls afraid that revealing their secret desires will mean rejection and loss. But the two manga are not only different, but are different kinds of things.Girlfriends is detailed, largely realistically drawn, and one feels completely immersed in the world of affluent high school girls. Morinaga uses this world as a mirror held up to the girls: in watching their friends, they understand their own feelings and what to do with them. Girlfriends is a well-crafted, subtly constructed manga. Yet at the same time, the plotting feels conventional, staged, and the manga is basically fluffy. I happen to like good fluff, for the same reasons I like comfort food, and Girlfriends is first rate comfort food. Unlike Whispered Words, Girlfriends has a hefty chunk of service thrown in, but in the end what one appreciates here is craftsmanship.Whispered Words is much sharper; the girls face risk and loss; the series shows some of the real challenges for gay teens in Japan. The comic elements do continue: though the secondary characters never take on the three dimensional quality they do in Girlfriends, they provide most of the comic energy in the later volumes.An important difference between the manga is that Takashi Ikeda is a man, and cannot give as rich a portrayal of an adolescent girl's life or of lesbian love as can Milk Morinaga. Whispered Words also has the feel of looking back on the angst of love and loss from an older, wiser view. While the drawing seldom reaches the lush portrayals in Girlfriends, several panels have stunning emotional impact, the kind that Girlfriends lacks. While Girlfriends comforts me, Whispered Words touches me on deeper emotional and intellectual levels.Both are superb manga, each of their kind.

Whispered Words (Sasameki Koto) is a lightweight, enjoyable, slice of life, high school girls-in-love manga. This book collects 18 chapters into one inch-and-a-half thick volume. The whole series runs 53 chapters, so presumably there's two more books like this in the offing -- assuming that this one sells, and it should.For those who are concerned about steamy lesbian scenes, well, there aren't any. This is a romantic comedy, all about unrequited love and missed communications. The two protagonists are shown on the front cover (which, Japanese style, is on the back, and it reads 'backwards'). Short, curvy, blond Kazama likes cute girls and is always pining after a new one. Her best friend, tall, athletic, totally smitten Sumika is decidedly not cute. Kazama is oblivious, and every time they're alone and Sumika works up the courage to tell Kazama how she feels about her, something intervenes (other class members dragging Class-Rep Sumika off to settle a squabble, one of the Girls Club members barging in to rinse her blouse). Periodically, Kazama worries why she gets so worked up when Sumika is gone, or is found in a compromising position with another girl. As one of the side characters says "Two people who are in love with each other and who don't realize how their partner feels or even how they feel themselves, makes for a delicious scenario."I stumbled on this through the anime (which only goes up to chapter 12), and then read much of the manga through scanlations before it was available on Amazon. I liked it because it has interesting characters, good pacing, and a fun story. The art style is engaging (although some of the side text is really small). It's openly GL, but in such a way that only those who object to the concept could object to the book. Buy it.

I think people are over-rating this for the wrong reason. Sasameki Koto is a wonderful manga and a wonderful anime, but this product is awful and it's an insult to all fans and to the people who produced the original Japanese version.It's riddled with simple spelling errors, like typing "stans" instead of "fans".The text placement is sloppy. In the first half of the book, the main issue is that the text is placed too high in each speech bubble. Since english is written left to right while japanese is written top to bottom, the text bubbles are shaped in a way that is hard to place the english words. However, they did an exceptionally bad job, pushing the words as far to the top of each bubble as possible. In the latter half of the book, the words actually go out of the speech bubbles. This corrupts the text AND the pictures behind it.They essentially only use one font throughout the book, the generic manga text font, regardless of what kind of mood the words have. They even use the generic manga font for translated words on signs or text on cellphones. This issue is fairly minor, but it's still something that would have been covered by a skilled editor.Finally, they constantly split words in half when they could have fit them onto one line. They do so 1-3 times on every single page of the book, and it's ridiculous. Some spots are almost unreadable.All of these problems WILL tear you out of your immersion while reading, and it's disgusting to know that One Peace Books thought they could produce it with such a sloppy editorial job. It genuinely looks like they didn't even have an editor work on it before production.My advice: Postpone your purchase of this product. They might release a revised edition later, if all the complaints get to them.

I didnt realize this wasnt a complete series so when I got to the end I was like WTF!?!?@? You start out kinda not liking the girly girl but she grows on you. Pretty cute story so far.

imo felt like it was more of a focus about the main Yuri couple's friends then about them I didn't enjoy returned. (better yuri's out there read Girlfriends! by Milk Morinaga her writing, characters and interactions did a 100x better job then this series sorry)

Don't buy. All time show error.

Great paper and print quality, but the translation feels very cheap. I don't think they have been given time to even revise the text before printing (the drop in quality in the third volume is especially significant), all three volumes are full of typos/mistranslations/style issues/terminology inconsistencies.

10/10 would recommend

Absolutely amazing!! I loved the anime and the manga was just as good. :) I received it in perfect condition and would recommend it! ^^