Alternative TitlesSynonyms: W.A. Japanese: ホワイトアルバム
Information
Type: TV
Episodes: 13
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Jan 3, 2009 to Mar 28, 2009
Duration:
25 min. per episode Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
L represents licensing company
StatisticsScore: 6.961 (scored by 3472 users)
Ranked: #22322
Popularity: #527
Members: 8,171
Favorites: 20 1 indicates a weighted score
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SynopsisAdapted from the Leaf eroge.
The White Album game centers around Tōya Fujī, a college student dating a rising idol singer named Yuki Morikawa. The game deals with the challenges to the couple’s relationship from the other people at Fujī’s college, Morikawa’s work, and elsewhere. (ANN) |
Related AnimeAdaptation: White Album
Sequel: White Album 2nd Season
Characters & Voice Actors
Staff
Reviews
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tehnominator
76 of 101 people found this review helpful
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13 of 13 episodes seen
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| Overall |
8 |
| Story |
8 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Character |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
We often lose ourselves when we get caught in a downward spiral of white lies. More than losing ourselves, we end up risking the loss of those who mean anything or everything to us.
What would you do if you found out that a person you love has lied to you? What would you do if you are the one lying to a person you love?
White Album is a pensive anime about a young man who is in a relationship that he has to struggle to make work.
Touya is a normal university student who has a regular job and is, to the greater world, largely inconsequential. His girlfriend Yuki, though, means a lot more to Japan. She is an idol in the making. Idols do not have boyfriends. Idols commit to their audience, not to an individual. With her career on the line, the two try their best to keep their relationship under wraps. Of course, that is easier said than done.
White Album's story takes place in the 1980s, and for Touya and Yuki, being committed to one another is a lot more difficult for them. It is a relationship that relies heavily on timed phone calls, intricately planned meetings, and lucky breaks. No texts, no cell phones, no emails, no instant messaging or video conferencing. They take whatever they can get, and even that is very little.
It must be clear that despite this anime's genres, it does not play out conventionally as a harem and romance do usually. White Album starts off quite differently. First of all, the protagonist already has a girlfriend unlike other harem anime where there is some sort of competition for the main male character. This anime is more complicated than that. It features many moral dilemmas without ever turning into a melodrama. Secondly, the pacing of the story and the plotting is much slower, subtler, and more deliberate. Some viewers may actually find it to be dull, so do not get your gears ready to race into some intense dramatic romance of a series.
This anime pays attention to the smaller details in storytelling. The subtle actions of a human being is just as important as their grand ones. What happens when you purposefully neglect telling your girlfriend that a mutual friend is constantly making home visits? What does it say about us when we try to save face by telling that person who we have been calling over and over again (and waiting for far longer than we could keep track of) that we "got them on the first try"? What does it mean when a person laughs to remind themselves of what it is like to be happy?
White Album has an interesting art style. There are details such as the shadowing in the indentations of a phone's buttons, and the mouths mostly moved in sync to the dialogue. There is the incorporation of fluid watercolour animated scenes and still shots that are woven interchangeably within the regular artwork. Softness of the watercolours exude the intimacy of a particular scene; whether it is a pastel background with gentle tones or when it is used on the characters, allowing us to see a certain fragility in a situation or person. As for the direction of the anime, it is also unconventional as some scenes are spliced with one another, shifting from one character to another with an interesting use of the split screen technique. Noticeably, bits of internal monologues are scripted and seen throughout the scenes allowing the viewer to also to delve deeper into the characters' minds.
White Album has a pretty good score with jazzy elements to the background music. The atmospheric sounds that totally give the anime a less frenetic quality. Other times, there is wonderful violin work creating soothing pieces of music. The strong point of White Album's sound is that it knows when to be used and when there should be moments of silence where the dialogue takes priority. It does not overwhelm the anime and it fits the moods that are presented. Although it is a series that places great importance on the music industry, it hardly has any focus on actual music save for one or two songs sung by the idols.
What makes White Album stand out from other harem anime are its characters. The relationships are certainly not what you would expect from an anime that has its roots in harem. In fact, the girls who are interested in Touya are not malicious to one another. Outwardly and directly, that is to say. Consequentially, though, is another thing. Some of the girls never meet, some do, some are long time friends, co-workers, and classmates. There are moments when their relationships with one another take unexpected turns, surprising you with trusts and betrayals that you would not have assumed would happen.
Touya's relationship with the girls is unusual as well. He deliberately tries to keep his distance from some but it is in his nature to seek out these girls and help them. In fact, perhaps his downfall is that he tries to be some sort of hero or comfort for them and ends up making the situation worse. Touya has a habit of making a girl his "goddess" for the day. And who means more to him than anyone else, his 'everyday' as he put it, is his girlfriend Yuki. But how long is that going to last? Touya is not some sort of pillar. He is weak, and as every episode passes, we see more and more of this. Look at his actions around Yuki, his fascination with Rina, his dependence on Misaki, his denial of Haruka, his playfulness with Mana, and his hesitation around Yayoi. Touya is sort of a difficult character to relate to. Sympathising with him at moments is rather hard to do seeing as how he sometimes helps in digging his own grave. Hell, most of the time, he brought his own shovel.
Eventually, the anime's characters start taking turns for the uglier. Only perhaps two or three people remain completely innocent while the rest are deceptive, scheming, or selfish. Even long time friends can secretly hate you a little, as White Album clearly shows us. The characterisations of these people is actually rather daring, as very little of them have redeeming qualities as "good" human beings (although, it must be understood that with their subtly delivered personalities, none of them are necessarily "bad". They are just making and sometimes deliberately making truly bad decisions). It makes it a lot realer.
The concepts, situations, development of the storyline for this anime are fascinating despite its slow, purposeful, and sometimes confusing manner of plotting. The themes that are presented are harsh. But reality is a harsh thing. Perhaps this is why White Album may prove to be a difficult watch for some--it is rather similar to how we may act or respond or think in real life. Though there's a chance that none of us can relate to what is happening, the events in White Album happen nonetheless. At least, most of all, being a confused and insecure teenager with a loose grasp on what is morally correct is a universal message that can be understood.
It makes you wonder just a little, why do we even bother? White Album is an anime that shows us just why it is people do the things they do. They may not have good reasons, they may not have any excuses, but we are reminded that human beings are complex, complicated creatures.
A white lie is no better than a real one when the consequences are weighed. The effect is the same, there is irreversible damage done, and there will always be the mistrust and pain that comes afterwards with it. read more
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kaminakun
54 of 76 people found this review helpful
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13 of 13 episodes seen
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| Overall |
8 |
| Story |
7 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Character |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
*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
Recommendations
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quite similar story, one full fledged and one to-be idol and main guy forms a love triangle with lots of nice music going around
Both revolve around music and romance. In the case of WA, the male protagonist is a wimp. In the case of MF, the male protagonist is less of a wimp. BUT the selling point for both series are in their music, both have very strong female singer/seiyu and will not disappoint you in that regards.
Both main protagonists (Yuki from WA, and Ranka from MF) are trying to become famous, via the path of singing.
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Both are harem-type animes with somewhat of a love triangle. The characters are kinda similar too.
A young man suddenly becomes the fancy for several girls, some of which are close friends with him or with one another? Sounds like School Days and White Album have something similar to one another.
They are both harem romances with certain twists to them and a commonality in that the protagonists start off the anime with girlfriends. Both Touya and Makoto are similar to some degree; they are both fellows who make some truly epic mistakes that make you question their intelligence and morality.
However, while School Days gives you a rather brutal look at relationships, White Album is a lot subtler and artistic. It also lacks that certain tacky grossness that makes School Days so... "special". White Album lacks that "specialness" of School Days, though.
You should check out White Album if you want to see a version of School Days that is a lot more satisfying in terms of story and character development (or if you just want to see a version of it that is a lot less stupid); and you if you did like White Album, you should check out School Days to see unlikeable characters get their due comeuppance (which does not happen nearly enough in White Album).
Well the whole love...ummm... pentagon? or maybe hexagon.
and the main character doing some shady stuff with other girls in the background relates alot. But the main guy in school days is much more of a douche and there wasn't any crazy girl murder stuff yet.
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Opening Theme"Shin Ai" by Mizuki Nana
Ending Theme#1: "Maiochiru Yuki no Youni" by Suara
#2: "Shin Ai" by Mizuki Nana (Ep 13)
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Related Clubs~ONII-SAN... Big Brothers club~, ♫ Anime Characters Luv Music ♫, Mizuki Nana, Anime in Blu-ray, Harem Club, Aya Hirano Fans, Haruka Tomatsu Fanclub, The Romantic Manga, Anime and Drama Club, White Album, White Album Club, Genre of the Arts Fanclub!, The Hirano Aya Club, Music Addicts, Anime MILFs & Mature Women Fan Club, Animetr, Secret Paku Romi Fan ClubXD, Showbiz Fan Club
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