While the art style in Whispers After Class isn’t immediately unique or memorable, artist Hinasaki Yo does a great job of drawing plenty of different kinds of women in each of the stories of this anthology collection. Some girls are tall and gorgeous, with massive breasts and wide hips. Others are petite cuties, short in stature with small chests and big bright eyes. No matter the body type, there’s a great amount of detail put into the way each character is rendered that really helps the artwork in the book shine.
That quality only shined even brighter in the ample amount of full-color pages featured in Whispers After Class. The first chapter of the manga is drawn entirely in color, and on top of that, three other chapters in the volume begin with 4 pages of fully colored action. I always appreciate an ample amount of colored drawings in hentai volumes, and it’s especially appreciated here thanks to how well-done the coloring work is. The eyes of each girl are rendered with sharp, vivid mixtures of color that make them shine like gemstones. There are subtle rays of light bouncing off of their breasts, bodies and even lips that add an incredibly erotic shine to their anatomy that I loved. Shadows are blended vividly to create an incredible sense of depth, and other color details like the tan-lines of a girl at the pool left my mouth watering. Hinasaki Yo might not have an incredibly inventive art style, but he certainly has a strong mastery over the use of color.
There’s strong attention to detail in the sex scenes of Whispers After Class, as well. Reading the book with uncensored artwork thanks to the FAKKU release is a blessing, as it lets the quality of every aspect of the bodies of each character come through fully. Breasts naturally bounce and hang as girls move their hips enthusiastically, and the variety of positions the characters engage in over the course of the book are each more erotic than the last. While characters don’t have the most expressive of faces during normal scenes, the vividness of their facial expressions during sex is exquisite, especially during things like blowjob scenes.
Surprisingly, though, the character designs themselves aren’t as strong as the other aspects of the art in Whispers After Class. The faces of each girl are almost always identical, with the same kind of shape and type of eyes and lips. On top of that, almost half of the book features girls with long black hair, and in one case, two separate characters had the same exact hairstyle and body type. The men in Whispers After Class don’t fare much better, with most of them being nearly indistinguishable slim dudes with straight black hair. While there are certainly some exceptions, there aren’t many. The personalities of the characters somewhat help to make them stand out from each other, but again, only somewhat.
One of the most memorable chapters in Whispers After Class is Love-Wonder-Roger. In this story, highschool boy Kazuki is sitting alone at the bus stop in the rain, when along comes his childhood friend Azusa. She’s got a gloomy aura and is soaked to the bone from the rain, and she informs Kazuki that she was just rejected by the boy in the basketball club that she liked. Funnily enough, our protagonist Kazuki was also just rejected by the girl he confessed to today. The two go back to Kazuki’s house together so that Azusa can dry off. When they arrive and start taking care of their wet clothes, though, Azusa anguishes in the fact that the two always seem to get rejected. She clings to Kazuki, asking him to help her warm up her body. While he’s conflicted at first, he soon realizes that he’s wanted this all along, and the two end of spending the evening together very intimately.
Azusa is one of my favorite characters in the entirety of Whispers After Class. Part of it is because her design stands out from the other girls in the book, with a large chest and short stature that is complemented by her long brown hair and gorgeous bangs. On top of that, though, her personality is great. She’s serious and blunt, but also wears her emotions on her sleeve, leading to her sometimes being forceful and direct while other times being shy about her true intentions. There’s a feel-good quality to the story arc of this chapter, with the classic childhood-friend trope playing out in a really nice way that made this one of the stronger parts of the anthology.
Another highlight of the anthology with a pretty different vibe is the chapter titled Goddess Kuramitsuha. In this, a young man named Shougo is walking along the beach next to his home when he spots a woman out by the water. He gets closer and discovers that she’s drenched and entirely naked. Insisting on helping her, he brings her to his home and gives her clothes and hot tea. She has weird energy and insists that her name is Umi, the Japanese word for ocean. When she asks about the strange rock formation outside of Shougo’s house, he tells her the legend of his ancestors who saved a mermaid that washed ashore, burying her in that very spot when she died soon after being rescued.
That night, perhaps in a dream, Shougo opens his eyes to discover Umi in his room, and she’s decided to repay him for his kindness with her body. The two explore each other’s bodies, but after some time together, Shougo awakens and discovers the true nature of the mysterious woman in his home. The art in this chapter is some of the best in the book, with Umi having an incredible figure and an alluring face that I couldn’t get enough of. The more interesting aspect of the chapter, though, was the intriguing story. There’s a legitimately mind-boggling twist at the end of the story that left me thinking, and for a simple hentai anthology story, that’s pretty impressive.
Overall, Whispers After Class is a decent showcase for the talents of artist Hinasaki Yo. He has a wonderful knack for drawing vivid and energetic sex scenes, on top of a wonderful eye for the usage of color and shadow. It’s just a shame that the character designs in this anthology ultimately felt a little weak and repetitive because everything else about this book is downright amazing. Whispers After Class by Hinsasaki Yo is available at our shop here, along with many other great hentai manga series.
