Ranked #3385

White Album

*An underrated series with plenty of potential for its second season.*

“The beginning has ended.” - White Album

1986
A year where internet does not exist.
A year where cassette tapes still dominates in the media industry.
A year where cell phone, the size of a brick, has just emerged in the market.
A year where the story of White Album takes place.

White Album often presents viewers with these muddy views of reality. There is often no clear distinction from right or wrong, good or evil. There is, however, often grief and suffering caused by various circumstances and misunderstandings. More often than not, people simply turn their head and walk away from the show because people just do not get it. White Album is the type of show that likes to tell the story as indirectly as possible to the viewers. Little things that may seem trivial at first can come back to haunt the viewers, so make sure to pay 110% attention!

While White Album is technically a harem anime, viewers will be disappointed if they are looking for immature ecchi scenes, for instance boobie grabbing. White Album is not ecchi and/or sexually oriented, period. However, there is one well made French kissing scene in a car. The story revolves around our protagonist whose life got turned upside down when his girlfriend became a famous national idol. He was forced to distance himself from her by the music company and that is when his nightmare begins. Girls from various age groups, some he knew from the past, others he met along the way all started to barge into his life. Some wanted him to forget his girlfriend by allowing themselves as replacement. Others want to make sure the protagonist remain faithful and loyal to his girlfriend, thus they began to have plans of their own. All the while the protagonist is trying to fight temptation, worrying about his father, completing his university degree, and keeping himself sane amidst these chaos.

For a studio that is not particularly well known for high quality animation, Seven Arcs did a wonderful job in producing this series. In addition to the regular animation, often times the viewers will see characters in their caricatures (distorted or exaggerated), other times a scene may be presented with pastel-like animation. Simply put, the production crew of White Album did their job skillfully and flawlessly.

The producers also have a knack in bringing out the characters’ subtle emotions: they don’t have to say anything about their feelings, their facial expressions speak for themselves, and this series has been really good at throwing these feelings all over the place. Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the show is viewers get to “read” the inner thoughts of the protagonist, rather than the traditional way of making the character goes into a long and boring monologue. These inner thoughts often reflect the ambiguity the protagonist has with his feelings and situation.

With award winning seiyu performing the OP and various insert songs in between, White Album has at least one exceptional selling point it can brag about. After all, the story does heavily center on songs, thus it is only appropriate to get the most talented seiyu to do the job. Otaku should instantly recognize names such as Nana Mizuki or Aya Hirano, both have singing capabilities rivaling the top notch professionals. But perhaps due to over emphasizing on the songs, the BGM turned out to be rather lackluster (budget problem?).

I had to do a quick re-watch of the series before mustering enough courage to write this review. In part due to its unclear way of portraying its characters and where they are heading. Please be mindful that season two, covering episode 14 to 26 will be airing in fall 2009, so don’t expect any form of closure to the story just yet. In fact, the ending was rather calm and did not do much to make viewers lust for season two until the final few scenes where things just seem to happen all at once around the protagonist. In a sense, this suit White Album just fine as most realistic/slice of life drama would have approached it in a similar fashion. read more

What is this story's all about?
The story is all about the life of the two main characters whom separated from each other on the cause of the one of them has become the idol.

What is the conflict of the story?
The protagonist was difficult to contact his girlfriend whom has became the idol. Many circumstances among the other characters who has became his ideal person or what he called "goddess" or "every day(the person who has been worth for him)" person.

What is the point of the story?
The protagonist has been told that he's a hindrance for his girlfriend's future, that she has been more popular. One of the characters had to plan that the protagonist to be pulled off not to contact the heroine. So much circumstances that lead them to sadness and pain.

My Review:
So I say that, White Album has a relation to our real world on what is all about when the person you know has become popular. The story begins on childhood and discussing their dreams of what to be. There others that happens like this then ended happily, but this is different of what I thought or you thought that it might this happen really to us. Leaving us unknown to others when they obtain power to do everything, but not everyone is cold-hearted. They were unknown truth that doesn't imagine to us that the person we entrusted had doing far; like cheating, making affairs. And there's much circumstances that make people misunderstood and making excuses. The episodes were like it written on the diary, making qoutes on what is in our minds that we want to write in daily life. But it's a good anime, that has a good lesson for us who has or who hasn't related on this life before. For it has contain dramatic scenes and real-life like story. And it's worth that it's shown in anime. read more