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.