ホワイトアルバム Episode 17
White Album Ep. 17 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

In the rain, Yuki refuses to leave Rina alone, even tearfully forcing the two of them to the ground, so Rina gives in and the two have pie and a long talk at a restaurant. Rina explains her reasons for leaving Ogata Productions and tells Yuki she will have to stand on her own. Haruka and Hana have a conversation at Echos which leads to tears on the part of both girls. Hana’s mother makes a play against Ogata by claiming the painting of the girl he has is being demanded back by the actual owner. He tells her she’s too late and won’t give up the painting. Instead, he offers his recording studio up as partial payment, which she uses to get Menou to start recording. At the hospital, Touya shows his father a tape of Yuki singing and his father sees Yuki’s sadness. Later, Touya tutors Hana and learns that Haruka is jealous of Hana for being over at Touya’s apartment that one time.

Thoughts/Review:

I’m not exactly sure what Hana’s mother (Kanzaki) is up to beyond taking revenge for losing to Ogata. It figures that she would have been the one to loan him the painting. I’d guess that she actually owns it and is pretending someone else does but it is just as likely that someone else does own it, only she’s making up the story about the painting’s return being demanded.

I figured Ogata had done something to the painting for him to keep insisting that Kanzaki was too late in demanding the painting. I thought he might have actually destroyed it, but instead he defaced it for some reason. Strange is Ogata’s obsession with that painting.

Yayoi and Touya didn’t have sex this episode. Now there’s a shocker. We didn’t see much of her this episode, which was fine with me. However, her only interesting moment was thinking the guy in the phone booth was someone else (the stalker I’m guessing — Rina’s former manager).

Speaking of Touya, it is still amazing that he causes so much angst among so many girls. He really is blind to much of what goes on around him, both in his actions and the reaction those actions cause. He’s either blind on purpose, blind by not considering his actions, or a bit of both. When it comes to Yuki, I think he’s blind on purpose (though that makes no sense to me). When it comes to someone like Haruka, he was blind in that he only considered Haruka a friend. So Hana’s stating that Haruka is jealous of her had him laugh, but then think of all his recent encounters with Haruka. So, does this mean that Haruka becomes Touya’s new angel for a while?

I really wasn’t sure which way Rina would go when it came to dealing with Yuki. For some reason, I thought she might snap and slap Yuki in the face to force some distance between them. Instead, she caressed Yuki’s crying face and then had some tea and pie with her. She did do one thing that needed doing by telling Yuki to depend on herself and not others.

Well, nothing to do but wait for the next episode to see where this soap opera takes us.