Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.

Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.

White Album Review

This will be a unique experiment in how to make a normally notorious genre into something more mature and grown up.

Set in the 80s, it focusses on the romance between University Student Toya and upcoming Idol Singer Yuki and the trials and tribulations of maintaining a relationship through difficult conditions such as conflicting schedules, advances from rival women including Yuki's Idol friend Rina who starts as a supporter to their relationship only to develop feelings herself and this being a harem there are also childhood and school friends along with another girl that Toya tutors. But there is a difference between this and every other harem series. It's actually a very serious romance story.
Right from the get go, you get a good glimpse of the type of character Toya is and how conflicted his mind is through the silent inner monologues that pop up through out each episode and clearly fears Yuki drifting away from him yet not really knowing how to answer the feelings of the other women that come his way as he deals with the difficulty of staying with Yuki as her career starts taking off. There is so much to read on everything and the anime does a fantastic job of remaking every scene like an encounter from a visual novel which of course is what White Album is based on. The fact that it's set in the 80s takes away the conveniences of modern technology making the telephone a major plot device on it's own. All this from a harem, proving it can act all grown up.
I'd be conflicted with the idea of dubbing this especially if the monologues suddenly got voiced so I'd rather there wasn't one.
Final Verdict: It's a mature grown up romance, harem story that doesn't need cheap fan service to sell. While it is slow paced and the story gets told the same way as a visual novel, it really sets up well with the characters and setting as well as time period. Definitely worth a shot if you are sick of harems being cheap fan service and stock characters.