ホワイトアルバム Episode 19
White Album Ep. 19 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Rina finds Yuki saw Touya visit Yuki and confesses that she not only kissed Touya but that she’s had feelings from them from their first meeting. Yuki is confused by all the lying going on so Yuki assures her that she’s telling the truth but also tells her they are rivals professionally and now privately. Rina hires Touya to be her assistant and Kanzaki is not impressed with Rina’s album. As such, Kanzaki sends Rina to assist Menou make her album. Meanwhile, Yuki has Yayoi drive her around all night and comes home to find a message from Touya regarding his visit to Rina. Rina discovers the ex-Sakura-dan members Ayako and Touin have new roles. Ayako is now Touin’s manager and Touin is attempting a solo album. Menou, having recognized Touya, decides to greet Touya as he leaves the train station to come home.

Thoughts/Review:

There were three surprises for me in this episode. The first (and maybe the biggest) is Yuki’s confrontation with Rina and Rina telling the truth about her kissing Touya. The natural instinct is to lie but instead Rina told not only about the kiss, but that she’d hired Touya as her assistant again. I still don’t see why Rina is attracted to Touya, but she also admitted to having been attracted to Touya from their first meeting at Echos, which is something I suspected since the first episode.

The second surprise was Touya calling Yuki and letting her know that he visited Rina and took a new job with Rina. He’s such a weasel that it stunned me that he’d call her at all. Wait! Didn’t he pretty much refuse to call her for a long time? Weird that he’d even attempt to call her now but then he is still telling people that he’s dating Yuki, this despite his banging of Yayoi (which didn’t happen this episode) and snogging Rina.

So, why is Yuki so in love with Touya anyway? Why is she apparently willing to let Touya wander around and still wait for him? There were some hints of this when Yuki met with Touya’s father last episode but no answers. Why didn’t Yuki confront Yayoi about Touya since she knows Yayoi is lying?

The final surprise is Menou and I smack the back of my hand for not seeing this coming. In a harem title, even one that does not follow traditional harem aspects but goes for a more soap opera approach, all girls “of age” should be considered viable lovers for the lead male. I don’t remember Menou being shown meeting Touya before (though I’d have to rewatch the episode where Touya goes to Yuki’s concert) but now she’s apparently going to make a move on Touya. *_* Ugh.

Touya seems a bit better at his job as Rina’s assistant than before. Then again, having kissed Rina, Touya doesn’t come off as someone in awe of an idol as he did last season. Since he’s been around idols, he shouldn’t be in awe of them any more — they should be mere people to Touya now. With Menou now in the picture, I am curious to see how Touya and Rina handle things, especially since Rina is being tasked with helping produce Menou’s album.

Which reminds me — now that Touin and Ayako are more in the mix, will they too go for Touya?

This episode had some rather strange and unrelated mini-scenes. One showed Touya calling someone (his father I guess). One showed Haruka picking up something. Another showed Misaki and Akira making out before Misaki runs away. I’m not sure the point of these scenes other than to give a glimpse of stuff happening. The one that stood out is Misaki and Akira because I’ve long suspected that Misaki wants to have sex with Touya despite everything. Then again, I think all the girls want to have sex with Touya, but considering this is a ero visual novel, that’s not surprising.

As an episode, this one was a bit more interesting to me and we’ll see how things go now that Rina has laid it out for Yuki.