White Album 04
ホワイトアルバム Episode 04

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Rina calls Touya at 5am to tell him that Yuki wants to meet him at 10am instead of 11am for their date. Touya doesn’t remember all the details so when he arrives at the station, he doesn’t know where to go. Meanwhile, Rina is in disguise at the meeting place she’d told Touya about, but he never shows. Touya bumps into a high school girl who accuses him of being a pervert but for some reason, she does help him, even though she doesn’t believe he’s dating the idol Yuki. Touya and Yuki keep missing each other and finally catch each other after the sun goes down. They embrace and Yuki tells Touya the news that she’s going to release a single. She invites Touya up to her apartment and after they passionately kiss, she goes to take a shower as he waits sitting on the bed.

Thoughts/Review:

This is such a strange anime to me, and yet there’s just something about it that I will admit has its hooks in my, like some STINKING SOAP OPERA! *lol*

You know, this anime is set in the 80’s and yet the characters don’t appear to be from the 80’s, nor has there been any 80’s music to be heard (even in Japan, the J-pop groups had music that could easily be ID’d today as coming from the 80’s). However, this episode, more so than the others, made me realize from a technology perspective that they are most certainly in the 80’s. The use of those green pay phones (which is something I remember seeing a lot of in Japan) didn’t trigger that much of a response to me before, but for this episode, I realized, “Hey! They don’t have cell phones!”

Yep. The lack of cell phones and the use of corded phones (as well as some other technological touches here and there) are the only real ID markers this series has that it was set in the 80’s. As I watched, this, I realized just how much the cell phone has become such a useful tool. Heck, I don’t use mine that often, but even the other day when meeting some friends for a pinball outing, I used my cell phone to call a late buddy, who’d been caught in traffic. I had his number saved in my cell phone so I wouldn’t forget. However, back in the 80’s, that wouldn’t have been possible and likely we would have assumed that our friend wasn’t coming. So if Yuki and Touya could have had cell phones, they wouldn’t have missed each other. Aren’t you glad you have a cell phone today (those that have them)? ^_~

Finally, Touya and Yuki felt like a couple. It only took four episodes, but I finally felt it this time. Yeah, I know that last episode, Yuki embraced Touya from the back, but Touya still felt like a guy who had placed Yuki on a pedestal he could not then reach. He chased her and wanted to be with her, but there still felt like there was a wall between them. This time, that wall didn’t appear to be there as Yuki and Touya kissed. What’s somewhat strange is that while Touya calls Yuki his girlfriend and he goes to great effort to be with her, going up to Yuki’s apartment was something he was hesitant to do. Even as the episode ended, he seemed hesitant. Maybe he’s just a nice guy though nice guys rarely get girls romantically interested in them.

While talking about Yuki, at least we now know what Yuki was crying about in episode 2 — she is getting a single released. Well, now that scene makes sense but back then, I honestly wasn’t sure if Yuki was telling the truth about being happy or was crying because she’d been chastised and was simply covering. I chose to believe the former, but I wondered why we couldn’t be told what brought Yuki to tears of joy. I guess the writers wanted to keep the audience in the dark like Touya.

Speaking of Touya, looks like he’s finally starting to wonder a bit about some of the girls he’s been in contact with lately. We’ll see where that goes. Also, I guess his dad kicked Touya out after Touya’s mother died. Well, I guess that explains Touya’s dislike of his father.

Poor Haruka. She did Touya’s slave work to stay in college and even bought him a candy bar.

So, why did Yuki have Rina call Touya about meeting early? Clearly, Rina had an ulterior motive and initially, I thought she did this all on her own. However, when Yuki mentions that Rina suggested moving the date time up to 10AM to insure Touya was there by 11AM (the planned date time), that meant that Yuki was down with it from the start, though I doubt she knew that Rina planned to spend that extra hour with Touya. Considering how Rina goes overboard on trying to disguise herself in public (and Yuki doesn’t), I wonder if Rina is envious that Yuki has a boyfriend she can trust. Rina may be trying to gain a pseudo boyfriend. Despite this, she still covered for Yuki so that Yuki didn’t have to have a singing lesson. So she’s an odd one to figure out.

Finally, there’s the high school girl. I would have blown her off as a one-time entry, but since she was shown for the teaser combined with her looking almost as if she recognized Touya, I wonder if she’s the tutor student.

So, as I said earlier, there’s just something about this anime that has me interested despite its presentation failures.