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Originally Posted by Sorrow-K
Ep 2
The first is that I've yet to see something in these characters worth liking. The second is that I get the feeling this show is trying too hard to be the serious romance drama, with a bit of emphasis on the "serious" and massive amount of emphasis on the "drama". From a technical point of view, there's lots of overbearing music and and visual techniques which sort of imply that there's a lot of subtle detail that requires the audience to actively pay attention (because apparently that's how "good" anime approaches storytelling [insert skepticism here]) to fully appreciate it. Clannad and ef ~memories~ are a bit the same, but it's true that a lot of the meaningful stuff in those anime happens under the surface, so it's more rewarding to actively watch these shows, as opposed to passively watching them (if you can see what I'm saying). What's the pay off for actively watching White Album? Will it be an opportunity to better engage with the show's themes and appreciate its meaning? Or will it just be a chance to "enjoy" the dramatic cataclysm at the end? Because if it's the latter, there's no reward for watching the show actively, since you get the same result watching it passively.
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I personally enjoy the whole premise of the show and where it's going. There is nothing wrong with a love triangle story which admittedly has been used as a basis for many many different shows.
When I watched the first ep initially I found the written monologues an intriguing way to reflect what Touya was thinking. Upon watching the second ep though, I feel it's a bit over used.
Thoughts written out like that is an interesting technique but it does not replace the true artistic genius of putting subtle character development, such as in their actions or facial expressions without having to spell it out directly in strange short soliloquy, with which the show right now is attempting to do.
This relates to Sorrow-K's comment about the show focusing on subtle details believing that's what makes a good show and in some respects I agree that subtlety of character development does make a good show. The problem with this is that they try to put in the subtle character developments yet fear that we may be too stupid to notice them, hence the insertion of the almost schizophrenic internal written monologues to point out to the audience that this scene has some "subtle" development placed in.
The problem with this is that should a "subtle" detail require pointing out then the director or writer has failed already. An example would be when Touya calls Misaki, when I first saw that scene it had me curious as to why he's doing such a thing, so I watched attentively to see if there are any subtle hints as to why. After watching the scene once, I failed to see why he would call her considering practically no lead up to that scenerio. Only after watching the scene a second time did I notice the white barely legible writing around Touya's head telling us that he's doing it for his friend. The problem with this is that subtlety that doesn't connect, fails and a written monologue isn't a solve all method to tie up loose ends or to explain actions which by watching normally are unexplainable.
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My point is, is this serious, "mature" tone that the show is taking all smoke-and-mirrors, or is there going to be some meaning along the way in this journey? My great fear is that it'll be the former, and that the show will be about little more than the dire consequences of relationships gone wrong. What I'm trying to say is, if that happens (and that's still "if" at this stage), just because the show has a serious tone, and just because it uses a lot of ambitious storytelling techniques, if there's no meaning, and no sympathetic characters, then that doesn't make it any better than Kimi ga Nozomu Eien.
I'm worried about this anime, because at this stage it just looks to me that in its desire to be a "serious romance drama", it's putting too much emphasis on making characters that have issues, and not enough on making characters that are sympathetic.
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Despite, the little hiccup I have with this show, after watching 2 ep I would put it as one of the better romance animes out. I do find the male lead a bit dry to watch though and I'm one who has a extremely high tolerance level to boring male leads. Perhaps there hasn't been much romance so far, but it's only been 2 episodes and I'm pretty sure it'll get better.