ホワイトアルバム Episode 13
White Album Ep. 13

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Yuki’s concert goes off without a hitch as apparently does Rina’s. Sakura-dan is not so lucky. Yuki gets to see Touya again after the concert where she gives him her Christmas present. She lets him know that the phone call ban is over and tells him she loves him. After they leave, Ogata-san and Touya head to the production studio where they have a talk about Yuki’s singing. Shinozuka-san takes Touya home and he rejects her sexual advance.

Touya finds Mana has been waiting for him and after some convincing, manages to get her in from the cold. Shinozuka-san returns to bring Touya something he forgot and ends up taking the ill Mana to the hospital. Haruka comes by Touya’s place to see evidence of another woman being there. She leaves and when Touya finds her and tells her the things are Mana’s, she demands to know why they are there. Misaki and Akira race up in her car to inform Touya that something terrible has happened to his father while Yuki attempts to call Touya, having given him a nice, new phone for Christmas.

Thoughts/Review:

Almost the first half of this was dedicated to Yuki singing and the whole concert thing, but it was clear to me that in addition to wanting to sell a CD single, White Album’s animation budget had been shot. This became even more evident during much of Touya and Ogata-san’s talk. Then it showed up again with Akira and Misaki’s talk. The worst of the lot came during Mana’s and Touya’s talk outside, where the two characters looked just ugly from the cheap, “half-arsed” drawings. The ugliness is so distracting that it was hard to focus on the story.

Indeed, I kept thinking about how something similar happened in Yu Yu Hakusho, where several episodes had scenes clearly done by another animation company and then several entire episodes where done by this company. The art was so off-putting that I almost stopped watching that series. Fortunately here, we won’t see another episode until late fall/early winter when the next season starts. Hopefully, they’ll increase the budget a bit on animation and not come up short in the end.

Now, onto the story. Rina is pretty much reduced to a cameo role, but I think it is safe to say she’ll play an important role next season. Questions I wonder are (1) will she let Yuki know what she knows about Touya and Shinozuka-san getting busy? (2) Will she still try to see Touya or is that completely over? (3) Will she and Yuki remain friends now that Yuki’s star is clearing in the heavens?

Ogata-san came off interesting to me this episode. Obviously he knew about Shinozuka-san being the guard dog to prevent access to Yuki by Touya, but since he also knew about Touya banging Shinozuka-san, I can’t help but wonder if he didn’t play a role in orchestrating it. Of course, Shinozuka-san may have just told him about it or he may know the lengths she’ll go for the person she manages.

I felt badly for Mana. She may have some feelings for Touya (I say this because she has several times remarked about him taking advantage of her, which could be seen as a way of hinting that she wants to do more with him rather than the “I don’t want you taking sexual advantage of me”-type words that come out of her mouth. I think she’s a very loney girl. The whole tutor thing is clearly not for her grades, but for her to have someone older to spend time with — an “oniichan” if you will. No doubt Shinozuka-san knew who Mana is or she wouldn’t have been so eager to get the girl to a hospital.

One side note — Mana made me laugh in her bundled up look. *lol*

Looks like Akira still can’t get over Misaki having had feelings for Touya. I get the feeling that she’s decided to toss her lot in with Akira but he does have a point — she doesn’t address him by his given name “Akira,” but as “Nanase-kun.” We’ll see how Touya’s father’s medical incident affects their relationship.

Speaking of not getting over things, there’s poor Haruka. She’s desperate for her shot at the Touya plate and has to see Yuki take the plate, followed by a whole string of other girls. No wonder she was so upset when she heard Mana had come over — in her mind, Touya would rather bang a high school girl than Haruka.

Then there’s Yuki, of course. So she hasn’t let go and she’s offering Touya a way back. I had complained about Touya not calling Yuki and I still think he should have at times. However, I guess the calls were all monitored and so Touya wouldn’t do it at all. Now he has a fancy, 80’s phone and he’s not home. I don’t think it will be much of a problem though unless Yuki already knows that Touya has been banging Shinozuka-san.

The event with Touya’s father was dropped after episode 10 and brought back up now to end the first season on. I don’t think it is too much to say that this event will be a turning point for all involved to one degree or other.

So, no more White Album until late this year. Hopefully, that will give me a tad bit more time to catch up on other titles I need to watch. ^_^; I do plan to return to this soap opera of an anime though.