ホワイトアルバム Episode 22
White Album Ep. 22 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Tamaru attempts to blackmail Misaki into writing an article for him after showing her the photos of Touya with Yayoi. Tamaru’s is frustrated with Hiiragi for selling the negatives but his plans are changed when Menou shows up and offers him something more — a photo shoot with her in bed with him (his face obscured). Menou convinces Misaki to write an article about her to save Touya, explaining that Touya is a childhood friend of sorts.

Meanwhile, Mana strands Touya with Haruka at the cabin, where he remembers how Haruka trained here in high school. Mana pays a visit to Touya’s father that night and he mistakes her for a young Yuki. Meanwhile, Haruka attempts to get Touya to sleep with her, but he refuses. Later outside, she apologizes to him and to make up to her for always using her, Touya sleeps with Haruka. The next morning, he bikes to town, leaving Mana’s bike at her house before seeing Rina, who’s upset at having been left alone. She won’t let him touch her and as she makes her TV appearance and pretends to be happy, Touya realizes he hurt her.

Thoughts/Review:

Recently, White Album had become kinda tedious. The soap opera elements that made the series interesting enough to watch were still there to a degree, but frankly I was sick and tired of Touya constantly banging Yayoi and the story wasn’t moving anywhere interesting. That started changing last episode and with this episode, I found myself fairly engrossed. Then again, it was rather light on Yayoi.

For starters, Misaki is insane to even have agreed to meet Tamaru in the first place, much less agree to be his “slave” of sorts. What is so special about Touya that she would agree to do whatever Tamaru wanted to protect Touya despite seeing that he’s banging Yayoi when he’s supposed to be dating Yuki. In the visual novel, I know Touya banged Misaki, but that element was not present (that I’m aware of at least) in the anime. I have always had the impression that Misaki was not truly over Touya and that Akira was just a mere substitute for Touya, but why keep hanging on? Makes no sense.

This leads me to Menou. I still don’t know her connection to Touya but she too wants to protect him and agrees to sacrifice herself rather than let images of Touya and Yayoi be published along with a story about them. I get the feeling that Menou isn’t just doing a sacrifice for Touya though by doing a photo session to make it appear she’s sleeping with some dude. I feel she’s likely going to get at Kanzaki with this (her friend, who’s name I forget, playing the song plays into this). Still, now we have two girls lusting for Touya who are now working together to protect him. *_*

It was strange that Menou knew Tamaru though. He addressed her as “Me-chan” and she addressed him as Kenichi-kun. She was in complete control of him though, which was also a bit of a surprise.

As to Mana, I was surprised to see her pay a visit to Touya’s father. She too has some deeper connection to Touya that I can’t explain. Why Touya’s father saw her as a young Yuki, I don’t know but it did reveal that Touya and Haruka apparently were a couple of some sort and Yuki had a crush on Touya back in the day. Weird.

Moving on to Haruka, I laughed when Touya initially refused the naked Haruka’s attempts to get him to sleep with her. I thought, “Haven’t we seen this before where Touya acts angry and offended by sexual overtones from some girl and then bangs her anyway?” Oh yeah, that’s how several of his and Yayoi’s acts of sexual congress started. So I was pretty sure that he’d end up banging Haruka and sure enough when he’s smiling at her outside and offering to make things up to her, I knew the jig was up (and gone).

Finally, there’s Rina. I guess Rina had been hoping to ride the Touya train to Ecstasy-ville. Well, there’s still time to get your fill, Rina-chan. *_*

Again we have another girl desperate for Touya despite knowing that he’s a 2-timing so-and-so who’d sleep with any pretty girl who comes into his line of sight. Its something I can’t understand because Rina is otherwise a pretty sharp cookie. Considering how Touya was reflecting on how he’d hurt her at the end of the episode, I suppose Rina will be next to get some Touya lovin’.

Despite my head hurting over it all, I will say I wasn’t bored at all with this episode which managed to keep my interest quite well. Isn’t that what a soap opera should do?