It’s amazing: Touya only had five scenes in this episode in which he appeared. In three of them, he did nothing, so he only had about one minute of serious airtime. And yet he still manages to come across as an inconsiderate asshole in that time.
But let’s look at the other characters first. A majority of the episode was spent on Yuki’s grief after she found out that Rina would leave her. Can I fault this series for overdoing that? Not really. Yuki always was a crybaby who always sought protection from Rina. She sees Rina as a very dear friend, and thus I can see how she would not accept Rina’s choice of leaving her brother, especially if she was the indirect reason for it. The scene they had together was very nicely done, actually.
And you know, Eiji with his painting, which apparently originally belonged to Mana’s mother. Since he didn’t know it was a very pricey painting, I can see how he in his delusions would have had no reason not to paint over it. I’m now beginning to see the part that that new singer girl is going to play in the whole story. The thing with Yuki always was that she’s weak and can’t protect herself. If Eiji ends up abandoning her, she only has Yayoi left, and we all know what a reliable woman she turned out to be…
Speaking of the devil, she’s getting love-sick. When Touya stood her up, you could really see that she’s not screwing him just out of business anymore. Could it be that she was left by her previous boyfriend and has therefore been looking for someone to fill that void?
A lot more questionable was the bar scene, in which Mana and Haruka both started crying while talking about Touya. I know that Haruka is sad for the loss of her brother, and that Mana longs for her mother, but whether that would result in both of them crying… that scene was a bit too much perhaps, but I know too little about psychology to really say for sure.
But yeah, Touya. He makes an appointment with Yayoi, but goes to his father instead. His studying turns out to have been a preparation for his student tuition work for Mana. He finally puts in some work for something, but to me it’s just a way to escape his relationships with Yuki and Yayoi. On top of that, not knowing what happened between Yuki and Rina, he simply brushes off her tears on television as something that she does to ask for attention. When he finds out that Haruka cried about him, he starts laughing. Oh boy.
There is no doubt that Touya is one annoying SOB. However, is he a bad character? I’m still not sure, to be honest. In technical terms, he is well developed: he’s been inside a downward spiral ever since the start of the series, and the end of this episode only makes this worse. White Album asks an interesting question: if a character isn’t likable, does it make this character automatically bad? School Days did this before but it failed horribly with its badly executed development and script that just seemed geared to getting to that bad end. White Album however is much more subtle, and while we have to wait a few more episodes to find out whether or not it actually paid off, I’m still having problems to determine whether this series is bad, or simply annoying.
I think that the first season had its obvious flaws, but those were in its set-up: as an adaptation of an eroge, the creators had to create a scenario in which all of the five girls would have feelings for the lead characters in a certain way. But accepting this set-up, I’m still not sure what to think of this series.
Rating: * (Good)
White Album is an amazing anime. It can be seen with different interpretation. As a drama, it has very singuliar characters, with shady relationships. Nothing is black or white: all is grey. Love is never totally bliss, and can become pretty sour. WA can be seen also as a parody of dramas. There are a lot of subtle jokes and gags that often kill the serious. Animeslug (www.seaslugteam.com) decribe them very precisely. All that thanks to Touya, who is a jerk, but an amazing character. He is the total opposite of a standard male lead in other drama animes. He doesn’t hold a pure dedicated love. He’s a man who can’t fight his desires: some would say he’s weak, I would say he’s “normal”.
Touya is a real love-hate character, but so well-developed that you have to appreciate him. When he laughs so hard at hearing how Haruka was jealous – with images of her in his head that comprise all the hints she gave that she is interested in him – is a perfect case in point. Is he being malevolent? Of course not, but he is pretending to be dense; pretending so hard even a kid like Mana sees right through him. I believe he knows Haruka likes him that way, just as we know. The laugh was almost one of desperation…he has no idea how to handle all of these women!