I hate White Album. It is going to cause me lots of pain and I know it.

First off, the art style. The character design and animation by itself is passable and decently good-looking, and like the direction of the story, strongly reminiscent of True Tears. But the art direction otherwise, makes me wonder if someone at Seven Arcs watched ef, loved its artistic style, and tried to copy it.

The only problem is that they got ADHD, and forgot about it in about 10 minutes.

That’s the only reason I have to explain random scenes like the phone call in episode 1 which, while accurately recreating the inability of people to stand still while on the phone, made me dizzy, confused, and motion-sick.

Or the on-screen overlay text that expresses the thoughts of the characters. Clever idea. I rather like it. It keeps the flow of conversation going while still allowing us, the viewers, to peek inside the heads of people in the story.

But the way it’s executed bugs me. The text is so small, that once or twice the camera direction nearly caused me to not even notice the extra touch. Only the extra size given by the English subtitles made them visible.

More importantly, it’s sometimes hard to tell who’s thinking what. It’s simple when the text reads Yuki this or Yuki that, but in the second episode, when Touya and Whoever The Secondary Guy Is are talking over cheesecake, who is telling who to ’shut up’?

You shut up.
No, you shut up.
No, why not both of you.

How about that opening? You know. That one still shot. A piece of rope or something, and some credits overlaid on it. Maybe Seven Arcs is holding out for the third episode to unveil their real opening, but somehow I doubt it.

It’s just smacking of ‘lack of effort’. Still shots are not artistic. It doesn’t even work in ef. I don’t like staring at a piece of rope and some Japanese text for 10 seconds in an OP any more than I like watching a painting burn for 2 minutes.

It’s a shame because the OP song itself is a fairly solid effort. It’s got a memorable, powerful chorus, and the first 5 seconds of vocals sound like Lunatic Princess. And the ED is straight-up Suara sexiness.

Just like Wasurenaide (from Kimikiss), it’s slow, hugely emotional, and completely worth it. And it probably has more animation in it than in the OP, even though it’s just a bunch of stills.

But enough of that audio-visual stuff. When worst comes to worst, we can ignore that. Much like how a lot of early Higurashi was drawn by a bunch of 8-year-old kids overdosing on QUALITY, and how I managed to work my way through the Tsukihime visual novel without any music whatsoever, poor (or no) marks in these regards can be easily overcome by strong characters and a strong story.

And so the cast of White Album steps up to the plate with a lot of pressure to perform.

Which is probably a bad thing, since apparently the general consensus is that the only thing stopping white Album from being the most putrid fecal matter ever defecated out of a rectum is Rina Ogata, and well … she’s a bitch. And I don’t really know much about Nana Mizuki.

And this leaves us with a male lead that’s doubtless to tread the path of Takayuki and a harem including his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend who barely shows any affection, a Noe reject, and that other girl who reads Browning, which I know nothing about.

Disconcerting.

And so we come to the realization that I really really hate White Album because I’m really,

really,

hopeful for it.

I think the first thing I should note is that Rina is a bitch in the same way Ami Kawashima is a bitch, in the way that such a word doesn’t necessarily reflect a negative connotation on her character, but rather acts as a decription.

Rather, I find Rina a quite interesting character. I might not agree with her actions and like Ami she will do things that undoubtedly frustrate me, although it’s not as bad sometimes as in Toradora where there are much more hyperactive and shippable characters than in white Album – but on the flip side Rina does not get the excellent characterization Ami does, yet.

But back to the point characters like Rina and Ami undoubtedly make a show exciting and intriguing because to be bluntly honest most anime are full of incredibly shy, slow-moving, passive characters, and unpredictable, unreadable people act as catalysts, kicking the show into gear one way or another.

And truthfully enough White Album’s stars (for now), Touya and Yuki (and, as DKellis noted, not of the Cardcaptor Sakura variety) are as passive as they get … yet it’s not grating on me, but rather something that raises my eyebrows and gets me to sit up and see what happens (or perhaps, what doesn’t) next.

I chalk this up to what boils down to cheating on White Album’s behalf, in that the nature of this pre-established relationship is one that we don’t see much of, and one that I personally feel a great connection to.

For while an unromantic relationship is not a new thing in anime, the passive yet not neglectful bond that ties Yuki and Touya together is rather unique. Usually one person in a dull relationship in fiction is somewhat dissatisfied or disillusioned, but the most White Album is reaching at the moment is a sort of wishful longing. It’s not really even negative.

Rather, it’s that stage where both parties are satisfied – if not just – with a low-key, simple relationship although both onlookers and viewers can tell that there could definitely be more to such a thing.

And such a dynamic interests me on multiple levels, I’m actually quite intrigued by White Album on multiple levels: the Yuki x Touya relationship, how Rina is going to shake things up, and the direction it goes from there.

Well, the direction is rather obvious, at least. If there’s one thing I can expect legitimately from White Album it’s KGNE- or School Days- class drama (sans violence … perhaps), and whether such a thing is welcome or not I can’t say.

I like and hate drama in about equal levels; that is to say, it’s all subjective depending on the anime. White Album could work really well and be a very captivating, very personal drama … or it could just be a trainwreck that fails on multiple levels.

This is why I ‘hate’ White Album. Like Toradora or any of the greats, it has promise.

Unlike them, however, it hasn’t proven anything yet. It’s got massive potential, but no return. It’s the most dangerous kind of anime.

While something undoubtedly trashier like Akikan has really no outlook and so can be enjoyed in a satirical, Mystery Anime Theater way, White Album is giving an honest try, so I have to judge it honestly.

White album proven what it can’t do right (animate an OP). Now let’s see what White Album CAN do.

-CCY