White Album first impressions: the little things that go unsaid
White Album was pretty much the first of the new season’s shows to be subbed which is part of the reason why I think it caused such a ruckus: the first over the parapet drawing most of the fire and all that. Admittedly it’s an unusual series that has a style you’ll either love or hate, so I’m not overly surprised that reviews have been mixed. I waited a while before sampling the first three or so episodes for myself though because while one post is an honest opinion, a whole slew of them on a bloated feedreader makes for an offputting wave of negativity. Of course, when something divides opinion at all it has to be doing something right, y’know?
Star-crossed lovers in more ways than one
I’m not going quite as far as 21stDigitalBoy’s wonderful gasp of nonstop Directorgasm but the guy has a point. So too does Michael over at Low on Hit Points in praising its restraint and subtlety. The old argument of “what’s so special about normal people doing normal things?” rears its head again because it’s another slice of life effort; anime bloggers can never seem to agree to disagree on that issue so for this show I’m hoping we’ll be able to fail to understand one another in peace this time. Granted, White Album does take a little while to slip into its groove and there are one or two unfortunate elements resulting from its visual novel origins (cue epic sigh of exasperation at that old chestnut too) but the fact that it has that subtlety, restraint and maturity is why I’m so (cautiously) optimistic for it.
There seems to be a lot of attention paid to animating the characters’ body language in a lively and fluid way, a bit like Kurenai and, more recently, Xam’d: Lost Memories have. I could see the true tears comparisons coming a mile off and feel inclined to agree on that count as well. I even dig the retro setting: I’m old enough to remember school life in the days prior to digital mobile phone and internet use so know what it’s like to converse with friends using landlines and phone boxes (“Sorry, got to go. My pips have gone!”). A shame the affection for all things 80s didn’t extend to the BGM, but eh. Who knows if the title is a direct reference to the Beatles, but calling a café Echoes did have me wondering.
It’s a breath of fresh air for me in being so character-driven: it encourages me to concentrate on the what and why of their thoughts and actions rather than events. I’m sure we’ll see an interesting commentary on the little-covered middle ground between normality and life as a celebrity but I’m most interested in seeing how this unusual setup affects the relationship between Yuki and Touya. Yuki is cute enough and I’m hoping will find her way in life without the two aspects of her life causing to much anguish for her but I also pity her for having such a dolt for a boyfriend…
Infidelity? DO NOT WANT
Touya seems to have not only Indeciveness Syndrome, which is epidemic among anime romance protagonists at the best of times, but has a bit of trouble with honesty too. He’s economical with the truth in that his off-white lies don’t do much harm in themselves but he seems to tell a little fib because it seems he can’t be arsed with explaining the real situation. Lies tend to require even bigger ones to cover them up later on so I can see Touya’s reluctance to be open and honest with Yuki snowballing out of control further down the line and really harming the relationship they have. We’ll see.
A recurring theme in White Album does indeed seem to be that of those little trivial details, motives and secrets that the characters keep to themselves, which leads to all sorts of misunderstandings and unexpected events. The reason why I think the animation has such a muted colour palette is to encourage the viewer to study the characters and pay attention to the dialogue, because at this stage if you want a fair stab at figuring what’s going on you have to work out what they are trying (or trying not) to convey to one another.
This is where the artsiness of the series, which is the contentious aspect and ironically the one I like most about it, comes in. The aesthetic is unusual with no goofy comedy or garish colours; it’s about ordinary people going about their lives, to the point where it looks and feels like a live-action drama. The scene that does a camera pan around Touya’s bedroom while rising star Yuki is interviewed on TV speaks volumes about his personality and situation without anyone speaking a word, and fits exposition in with ease; the telephone conversation towards the end of the same episode ramped up the tension and feeling of distance and disconnection to almost Shinkai-esque levels. This incidentally was the point where I decided: I like this show because it’s directed with such confidence and sophistication.
Text overlays: so much love <3
Confidence and sophistication can also be interpreted as pretentious-ness, which is a shame because I really do think that it’s making an honest attempt at using certain techniques and effects for a reason. For instance, I absolutely love the text overlays. I really, really love them. They may scream “Pretentious!” to some because we’re used to seeing them in arthouse efforts (and ef) but they effectively highlight the moments where characters are keeping their real thoughts and feelings hidden; when they should/could be saying something, but aren’t.
My only remaining worry here is that the whole affair hinges on how likable you find the characters to be, and whether their relationships pan out into harem like the worse examples of the genre (its eroge origins may hinder it here). The petty bitchiness of some of the other girls in the first episode for instance was infuriating, but fortunately seems to keep a low profile from that point on; the behaviour of Haruka on the other hand is just plain creepy. I thought the dynamic between Misaki and Akira was interesting too but whether these interactions turn out to be convincing or convoluted will be the main factor that makes or breaks the series for me.
I think that’s about right: I get a sense that there’s a steady hand on the rudder of this production. The storytelling is sophisticated and telling us things in interesting ways. Ep4 has moments that somehow remind me of the quieter eps of Kuranai, of people just wandering around doing things their own way (or falling into digressions about Chesterton). I like all of that very much and want to enjoy it, but it’s hard for me to care about Touya, and I’m not sure I want to spend however many more episodes watching him screw things up. And the girl is such a helpless innocent that I find it hard to care for her, too. They better show some potential for maturing, or turn it into a comedy of errors, or I’ll drop it, well-produced or not.
I feel like I’ve written so much about this anime in comments and forum posts that I should take a watered down summary of it all and process it into a generic response that I pull out for posts like these. :p Yes, yes, I know, that’d be cheap.
I guess I just can’t share your optimism. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about White Album’s subdued approach to storytelling, and I can’t seem to escape the suspicion that it’s a gimmick, a cheap way to separate it from other titles in the anime soap opera genre like Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and Myself; Yourself. All the signs are pointing to a melodramatic climax, with lots of broken hearts and characters acting like jerks and crumbling relationships, etc, etc, you know, the trainwreck, which just isn’t my cup of tea, since it almost always strikes me as cheap drama. If the result is cheap drama, then I can’t really see why this approach to storytelling is justified, since the reward at the end is the same, whether they were subdued and subtle, or whether they spelt out everything. So far, they’ve been very implicit with everything, and the story has almost been driven by details that you have to unravel, which means it’s asking for quite an effort from the audience. I don’t mind putting in effort and paying attention to the little details to try to understand the underlying meaning of things when I watch anime, provided I feel rewarded for doing so, but the details haven’t really said anything that’s made the characters seem more multifaceted or sympathetic. Like you say, the whole thing hinges on how much you like the characters and so far I’ve found the two leads, Touya and Yuki, really flat and the side characters only marginally better. I don’t need to be spoon fed, but I would like some reasons to sympathize with these characters.
Touya is a hugely frustrating character in both his indecisiveness and those white lies you mentioned, but then again the male lead in any kind of series basically *needs* to be like that for the story to go anywhere – If he was decisive and honest, there wouldn’t be much of a story to tell or any chance of the other female characters stealing him away from Yuki. It’s the kind of thing that always leaves me conflicted when it comes to shows like this, and it’s another reason why True Tears did what it did so well for me, as it somehow prevented Shinichiro from ever being anything but a reasonably nice guy.
Despite that, I have found myself liking this series – The retro feel has been put to good use when it comes to communication between characters, and personally I’ve loved the use of text to convey Touya’s inner thoughts. Yes, Yuki isn’t a particularly strong character, but again that’s kind of the point I think.
To be honest, it’s Rina that makes the series for me at the moment, both on the scale of cuteness and in terms of what her real motives are – Perhaps I’m just not trusting enough, but my money is still on her coming between Touya and Yuki at some point.
@Peter S: the direction is excellent but I’ve only got as far as #3 so far; if Touya turns into a selfish ass or makes stupid decisions, I can see myself losing interest. Makes me wonder what the visual novel’s like…
@Sorrow-kun: good points. You’ve basically summed up my thoughts of a worst-case scenario. If the characters turn dull and unlikable, all the effort that’s gone into the art and direction will all be for naught. Myself;Yourself grated on me after only one episode, but in both seasons of ef it took a while for me to warm to the characters; from that point on it was fine but it was frustrating initially.
@Hanners: if Touya turns out to be a decent lad with awkward decisions to make like Shinichirou was, we’re safe and sound. Alternatively (it’s too early for me to say one way or the other, honestly) he could be a complete scumbag, and all sympathy (and in turn my interest in the show as a whole) will be gone. Rina is certainly an interesting character though – I didn’t know why she was so popular with the viewers, but I must confess trying to figure out her motives is entertaining.
I think you just summed up everything that I was thinking about the series, right down to the minimalist approach that encourages the viewer to pay attention to subtleties rather than aesthetics. If all goes well, this just might turn into the True Tears of 2009.
@Eternal: I don’t want to sound like a doom-mongerer but what little (spoiler-free) I’ve read about what follows Touya continues to be a bit of an idiot, which is not something I was hoping would happen. It certainly has the potential to match true tears but as far as I’m concerned the jury’s still out. I have the rest of the episodes as far as #7 on my HD so will see for myself later this week. Watch this space!