Summary:
It’s Christmas Eve still, and Haruka eventually arrives to take Mana home from the hospital since President Itsuki Kanzaki is busy. Yayoi then makes a call to Yuki, who takes the time to visit Touya’s dad and is shocked to find that he will need heart surgery in the next few weeks. Naturally, Yuki and Touya just barely miss each other again after Touya’s dad tells Yuki to get back to her busy schedule, and Touya wastes no time in selfishly yelling at his sick dad (even though Yuki wasn’t even there to visit Touya).
Eiji just wanted to tell them that they won and did a great job, and he rushes off without giving Rina a chance to talk to him. Eiji is in such a rush because he has to collect the OP painting he won from Kanzaki from their competition. Kanzaki’s never lost before, and she blames the defeat on the absence of her star, Matsuyama Menou (the lone female at Yuki’s concert). Kanzaki hits Menou with an epic 9-hit combo, and then has Menou locked up in a storeroom with a boombox until a shy Sakura-dan teammate comes by to reenact the K-On! beach training episode. From there it’s all downhill as Yuki goes back to the hospital, only to realize that Yayoi’s car is already there (the lies managers tell!); little does Yuki realize that Touya is giving Yayoi a White Christmas while telling himself that Yayoi is just a temporary stand-in for Yuki.
Reaction:
At first I was like, “Wow, was this show always this fugly,” but after a few minutes I was like, “Wow, was this show always this AWESOME?!” This episode wasted no time in reestablishing Touya as a Top 5 Worst Boyfriend, and we didn’t even get his inane text thoughts until the last few seconds. From yelling at his dad who he didn’t even know was sick to taking up 6 beds in the hospital to bang Yayoi instead of his girlfriend, it was classic Touya once again. At least Touya’s dad gave as good as he got in reminding his loser son that Yuki is a busy girl. It also gave Misaki a chance to redeem herself, so I guess perhaps those rods knocked a little sense into her.
We finally got to hear more of Rina’s song, and I’m done pretending that she’s not completely awesome. I was so psyched for payback when the Sakura-dan meekly passed Rina in the hall, but she was quite gracious. It’s too bad she is stuck with this emasculated Eiji, and I was kinda mad at Yuki when she was late to the meeting. You know Rina would have gotten out of the car and sprinted to the meeting on foot, probably making it there in 5 minutes or less. Also, WTF did that painting do to Eiji? He went from a strung-out skull-wearing rock star to… whatever the hell he is now. Eiji even called Frank up to hold him while he cried in front of the painting OMFG!!!
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
they even whipped out the Rina Machinegun picture again \o/
The painting sort of looks like Rina… perhaps he realized he missed his sister? And then he realized there was more money to be had by being Scythe Master 2.0
I thought so too, but I’m sure we will find there is some retarded reason why he is so moved by the painting.
Oh, how I’ve missed this.
When I saw Haruka’s bike, leaning against the light pole and apparently unharmed, I started to wonder if we were watching a Sunrise series, because that thing was clearly toast last episode. When Mana’s character design seemed to change from scene to scene, however, I knew that this was the White Album we know and love. So many awesome things happened in this episode, from Yuki’s “I thought he had hemorrhoids” wail, to Misaki’s “STFU forever” admonishment, to Kanzaki’s “Great Tutor Touya” line, that I laughed the entire time. And Touya was more full of fail than ever, yelling at his possibly dying father. You know, I bet he still believes the hemorrhoid lie himself.
And Eiji… maybe their mother was the model in the painting? That would explain a lot….
Plus:
Even though goddess Yayoi is still being defiled, when I read that I almost died. WA is back in Kabitzin’s capable hands, and all is right with the world.
LOL! Actually, I was a little confused about the orange bike, aka Orange-kun. As I understand it, Haruka’s bike got run over (which Haruka herself remembered), and Orange-kun is Mana’s bike. However, Mana is mad rich, so she just got a new bike, and Haruka got Mana’s sloppy seconds.
Excellent theory… that would explain a lot, especially when considered with the OP.
LMAO @ Orange-kun, so appropriate. Looking at the flashback in this episode, and the scene from the last, they animated things a little differently. Last episode, the crash and run-over-bike-noise occur slightly out of the frame, and this time around you see the bike sliding across the pavement. In both cases I believe that it is Orange-kun being wiped out by Akira’s sub-par driving skills, but later, during the lesbian biking excursion, we see Haruka on Orange-kun again. Maybe Akira is so impotent that he can’t even run over a bike properly? I dunno. But I’m beginning to think that there really is something going on between Haruka and Mana with your suggestion of sloppy seconds, the healing power of Haruka’s “porridge,” and the way that they cling together after their long hard ride.
P.S. I wish that Crunchyroll would hurry up and roll this out already. Being denied my White Album fix after waiting for so long is killing me.
Same here, and is it just me or not that many people are seeing / blogging this show?… it sort of makes me sad
I can understand that there’s only one ep out, but dammit White Album 2 is the SHIZNAT!!!
Nope. The girl in the painting is not related to Eiji – we saw in a flashback that young Eiji saw the pic in London for the first time. I think it’s clear that the girl in this picture which struck him so much is in some way his dream, his ideal. First he tried to meld Rina into it, but he has given up on that. Now, Yuki is gonna be next. I’ll betting dollars to donuts that Eiji will become the end boss of WA.
This picture was what the whole contest was about. This “war trophy”, as Eiji put it. My goodness…
Oh I don’t think most of us think that it’s directly a picture of a relative. I just think it LOOKS like Rina (or his mom or whatever) and thus reminded him of going home during his journey. Made him realize that there were loved ones back home he was missing. But that over time he lost sight of this.