Summary:

On the phone with Touya, Rina asks about the fortune that she brought him, so he explains that it just means she brought Yuki. Their conversation is eventually interrupted by the sound of the doorbell, but it turns out to be Haruka again. She’s not here for another walk though – she’s here to tell Touya about how they have to re-register for classes by Saturday because of some new computers. When Touya returns to the phone, Rina offers him some more fortune: a job helping her manager. She convinces him to do it by revealing that Yuki will be with her, and shortly after the two end their call, Touya gets another call from Yuki. She claims that it’s the first time she’s trying to call tonight, and he claims that he was just on the phone with Akira, but regardless, Yuki wants to go out with him on Saturday. Remembering the registration thing that he has to do, Touya runs back out to talk to Haruka who’s still there. He decides to have Haruka go for him on Saturday, and he tells Yuki that he’ll be free after all. She then hurriedly hangs up the phone because she’s not allowed to be on it for longer than five minutes, and Touya isn’t able to say what he wanted to say. He’s also curious about the secret that Yuki mentioned right before hanging up.

The next day, Touya gets a call from the school because they’ve got a person for him to tutor, however he has to turn it down due to his new job. On his way in, he runs into Rina’s manager, but the man scampers off without saying anything. As Touya finds out from Eiji afterward, the old manager was fired, and that in turn makes Touya into Rina’s new manager. Rina then shows him in to Yuki’s dressing room, and she’s surprised to see him. During the subsequent recording session, Eiji has a chat with the woman representing the group of girls that Rina previously scolded. He then talks to Yuki’s manager Yayoi about his concerns about Yuki, and Yayoi asks him to leave things to her. Rina meanwhile notices Touya waving to Yuki in the middle of her performance, so she stops to slap him. She then leads Touya and Yuki to a room and starts yelling at them, but it’s all a ploy to trick everyone else so that the two can secretly get some time alone on the rooftop. Yuki admires Rina for doing this, and she spends her time with Touya hugging him from behind. When Touya brings up how they first met, Yuki remembers a scene in the woods, but Touya remembers it being later in high school. Touya then asks about the secret, but Yuki refuses to tell him until Saturday, and even then she only promises to tell him half of it.

Unfortunately, Yuki calls up Touya later because she found out that she has to work on Saturday after all, so she can’t make the date. To complicate things further, Touya receives a phone call informing him that he’s been fired as Rina’s manager. This leaves him no choice but to return to his father and beg because he’s out of money, but all his father is willing to give him is some food. Touya then goes to school and finds out that the person who needed a tutor really wanted him in particular. The registration form lists the name Mizuki Mana, so Touya heads to the person’s house, but no one answers the doorbell. However, he sees some curtains move in an upstairs window and decides to stick around for a little while. While he’s sitting there, he remembers how he and Yuki had planned to visit their old high school, but his thoughts turn midway to how Rina slapped him. A paper airplane then hits him in the head, and it’s a note from the person inside the house telling him to leave for today. Given that, Touya heads to Echoes and chats with Akira, but their conversation is interrupted when Rina suddenly bursts in to the cafe. She goes into the back and brings out her brother to confront him about what he did to Touya. Eiji avoids explaining and escapes, so Rina goes after him after promising to Touya to make up for this. With his thoughts on Rina, Touya heads into the back of the cafe and is surprised by the broom closet there.

Preview

WHITE ALBUM is turning out to be one of those series where you have to pay a lot of attention to the details because there are a number of little things that can be fairly easy to miss. Aside from stuff that’s just plain confusing (I still don’t understand the significance of the closet at the end), the series has a knack for being very subtle at times because characters aren’t actively pointing out discrepancies, and there’s a relative lack of inner thoughts to help clarify things – only sparse bits of on-screen text. Two examples of those from this week are Yuki and Touya lying to each other over the phone and then how they don’t have the same memory of when they first met. Those things may not be immediately obvious or absolutely critical to the immediate story, but they do reveal that there are some problems with Yuki and Touya’s relationship in terms of honesty, trust, and being able to speak freely with each other.

It doesn’t help either that Yuki’s manager Yayoi appears to be working against them, as evidenced by how she was eavesdropping on them on the rooftop (those appear to be her pants and shoes) in one scene and then Yuki finds out that she has to work on Saturday in the next scene. On the other hand, contrary to my earlier assumptions, Rina’s intent to get closer to Touya was so that she could help him and Yuki get more time together, not because she was making a move on him. If that holds true, then any straying Touya does will be of his own accord, and in fact, he already seems to be thinking about Rina more than he does about Yuki. Plus he’s got all those other girls around him to pull him away from Yuki, so I can see things going downhill for him real fast.

27 Comments

  1. So is there going to be a Yuki/Rina slap at some point? I played QoH’99 a long time ago and I remember that was their super, accompanied by some conversation I couldn’t read at the time…

    midrange
  2. @dfsa as well
    This is a good series idk why you think its boring and what makes you watch it more is because Mizuki-chan is the main voice actor 😀
    Its an acquired taste I guess.

    master-ling
  3. Very complex show, very easy to miss things, so you find something new even on the second or third rewatch…

    I hope that we’ll understand the closet scene next episode, because I frankly have no idea what this might have been about ^_^;

    In any case, a nice romance drama for adults…

    Mentar
  4. I think it’s too quick to jump on Touya and say he might be the one to stray. Like it’s been pointed out they’re already on shaky ground to begin with and need to work on their relationship. If Yuki and him don’t and they start to get further apart due to her working more and so on as will probably be the case, then if any of the other girls (even Rina) who show a bit of interest in him romantically will get his attention easy.

    GP
  5. @ GP I completely agree with you because he has all of those other girls around him and the only one he can think about is Yuki, its not like he wants in everyone’s pants its more like they all want him for some sort of reason. Plus with the managers being out to get Touya he might crack under the pressure. I just hope that he does not end up making his friend angry because it is obvious that Misaki has some feeling towards Touya.

    Zero
  6. Had to rewatch this before some ‘things’ made sense, like Rina’s intent in offering Touya the job. Is it really to bring Yuki and Touya closer? or closer to doom? If she’s one schemy bitch, I’d say she had foreseen that Yuki’s manager is going to find out about the Saturday date… that’s my suspicion so far. There’s more to Rina than meets the eye, definitely.

  7. If there’s no nice boat I’ll say it will still be Touya and Yuki in the end…I expect Touya to get link with all the other girls in between. I sympathize with Touya. Anyone who says he’s like Makoto should be ashamed of themselves….

    Kyoko
  8. @KuroReishin

    Really? I am sincerely hoping for a School Days ending. Though unlike school days I don’t believe Touya would deserve it. (Spoiler on School Days)Show Spoiler ▼

    Also, I wonder if it couldn’t be that the closet is some sort of metaphor for perhaps bigger secrets that Yuki and Touya have. (This coming from someone that hasn’t had anything to do with this series before the anime, so take it with a grain of salt)

    Camarilla
  9. I still have absolutely no idea as to what that closet symbolizes. I’m guessing that
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Of course, it’s just a guess.

    Anyways, great episode.

    twilightlegacy
  10. I thought the hallway was where Rina’s brother came from…so perhaps Touya went to see and it implies Eiji was hiding in that closet for whatever reason? It’s not clear why he was in the cafe but the nod from the owner seemed to indicate it wasn’t unusual.

    squirrel
  11. @squirrel
    Maybe Eiji gets his musical inspirations while in the closet.
    Or maybe he was just hiding in the closet from Rina.

    Eh, let’s just hope that they explain the closet later on.

    Another thing that’s been bugging me is that I can’t really see a connection between the episode title and the episode itself.

    This show has more questions than answers. I can’t wait for the next episode.

    twilightlegacy
  12. I think the situation was a setup to have Touya dependant on Rina.
    From what ensued after he got fired, he obviosuly needed the money from the job, and now since she’s making a show of why he got fired, and might push to get him back, it would create a dependency on her, which might be her ultimate goal.

    This ties in with my theory on the closet: that if Rina’s brother did indeed com out of there, then the whole situation was staged for Touya’s benefit.

    Also, on how they have different memories of their first encounter, I am curious as to why they darkened Touya’s face. I think she may be recalling another special encounter with someone else, and got it blurred with her enocunter with Touya.

    Do we know who was the person that requested the tutor? I saw the name on the paper, but are we supposed to know who that is right now?

    seltzer
  13. Even I’m perplexed about the whole closet thing. (I can only think about hiding or doing naughty things)

    In the sub, did anyone notice when Touya read the person’s name for tutoring, it was “Mizuki Mana”? It’s obviously referring to Mizuki Nana’s character as Rina. Rina either wanted a tutor for herself or try to hook Touya up with Yuki.

    Yuki and Touya both need to come clean or “out of the closet” if a decent relationship should spring. For some reason, I speculate Yuki might die, have a disease, move to another city or country, or perhaps have some affair with Eiji.

    We all know he won’t hook up with Haruka, but she still has a chance. May the best “route” win.

    soyahoney
  14. Great episode, great series so far if you ask me. I find myself pausing a lot to read the on screen text that seems to go by faster as the series progresses. Anyway, Eiji was definitely in that closet, why.. we’ll find out I hope. The ending obviously won’t be good for everyone I just hope its not like School Days where everyone loses out (I hate that series so much, its beyond messed up). Well.. only time will tell, right?

    DragoZERO

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