White Album is an anime that is based on a visual novel. The first season is thirteen episodes long. It has a confusing first episode where it feels disjointed and doesn’t properly introduce the setting. Instead, it feels as if we are thrown into the midst of things and left to piece it together ourselves. Perhaps what makes this noticeable is that scene transitions are abrupt and they don’t seem to tell a coherent story. Or maybe it’s due to the frequent periods of silence with no background music, causing a solemn atmosphere and a feeling of unknown. Nevertheless, this feel persists for the whole season.
The story follows Fuji Toya, a university student who is dating Yuki. Yuki has just become an idol and is currently working hard to gain popularity. We see that she has to suffer some unpleasant things in the industry and that it is not all easy and fun. She has to put in a lot of hard work and good for her that it’s starting to show results. As far as you can tell, Toya is sad that he doesn’t get to spend more time with Yuku due to her work and wishes that it wasn’t so.
There are many characters introduced that relate to the two protagonists in some way. However, it is tough to determine how exactly they relate to the story being told. Eventually we come to realize that all these female characters are Toya’s “goddesses”. They’re probably the romance options in the visual novel but it doesn’t translate to this anime well. We have Rina, who seemingly develops an interesting Toya. She takes the initiative to contact him but what’s confusing is that she keeps creating opportunities for Toya and Yuko to meet so that they can catch up, which is a nice thing to do.
Another character of note is Haruka. It feels like there is more to the background yet we only see a tiny bit. It doesn’t explain why for some reason she keens showing up wherever Toya is and waits for him until she is noticed. All these alternate character viewpoints feel so out of place and their interactions are too awkward.
What’s tough is that while it feels like Toya and Yuki are the main pair and that the story revolves around them, it jumps around too much and becomes out of focus. It’s always looming there in the background but we may get a scene with them after several unrelated interactions of Toya and another character, making the whole plot feel out of focus. You can see that there are serious issues in Toya and Yuki’s relationship, affecting them both. Yuki’s job as an idol severely restricts her freedom and she has an image to uphold. It’s a big sacrifice and one that can be too much of an ask for Toya. This makes it all the more shame when you see how they got together in the first place.
It just doesn’t feel like that there would be a good ending for anyone at the rate things are going. Toya has a “bad end” with some characters where they don’t end up together. And just when a character doesn’t seem relevant anymore, they pop up interacting with another character and you’re wondering if that will lead to anywhere. The problem is with the way the story is structured and written, you don’t have a strong connection to any of the pairings. They are all too distant and disjointed and thus you have no investment into any of the characters. It gets to the point where Toya’s unfaithfulness and indecisiveness does not paint him in a good light.
Another thing is that you can tell that the original visual novel is set in an older time and the anime keeps it in that time period. This is because the characters still rely on payphones and home phones. There are more than a few situations which would have been easily resolved nowadays with the convenience of mobile phones. Due to all this drama unfolding from miscommunication, it’s harder to stomach when you realize how easily these misunderstandings and problems could have been solved.
Overall, the first season of White Album is extremely mediocre. It’s disjointed while at the same time, it is trying to cause drama but not succeeding at this as there are a lot of contrived moments and misunderstandings. This can be forgiven if at least the story is told well but it’s just not. The characters are not likable or memorable. You will actually feel glad when the season finale is up, only to feel disappointed when you remember that this is only the first season. At least the one good thing in the anime are the various pieces of music.
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