White Album is a 1998 adult visual novel by Leaf adapted into an anime in 2008. A second season was released in 2009.
Nothing to do with that White Album, by the way.
The story deals with college student Touya Fujii and his girlfriend, the rising Idol Singer Yuki Morikawa, and the accompanying stress — along with the rest of Touya's semi-wanted harem — that is their relationship. The series is actually set in The '80s, and the lack of cellphones is important to the plot. Seriously, this story wouldn't work set in the present.
There's also a Spin-Off, White Album 2, with different characters and story but set in the same universe.
Yuki and fellow idol singer Rina Ogata appear as playable characters in The Queen of Heart, a series of doujin Fighting Games by Watanabe Seisakujo (Now French Bread), with Yuki debuting in QoH '98, and Rina debuting in QoH '99.
Much later, both girls would also be featured as support characters in Aquapazza, a Fighting Game made jointly by Aquaplus and Examu.
This work provides examples of the following tropes:
- Arc Words "Goddess of the Day"
- Art Shift: The art occasionally shifts into a kind of soft, pastel-ish style that is very, very pretty.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- Yayoi's Ending. On the one hand, Yuki never finds out Touya and Yayoi slept together and have feelings for each other, and the pair of them will never pursue their romantic feelings as to avoid hurting Yuki, who they mutually love (one-sidedly, for Yayoi). On the other, Yuki is happy and achieves great success, her relationship with Touya becomes more comfortable and intimate than before, and Yayoi and Touya seem to have something more than friendship going on as well as an understanding of their mutual love for Yuki.
- Misaki's Ending. Touya and Misaki’s relationship comes at the cost of their social circle. Yuki breaks up with Touya and amicably parts ways with the new couple while Akira tries to provoke a Cock Fight with his former best friend to cope with the reality that the woman he loves would never love him back. However, both Touya and Misaki are now happy, and have emotionally grown to the point they can both shoulder each other’s burdens and live with the knowledge of what they’ve done, preventing the past from clouding their future.
- Brutal Honesty: Yayoi is incredibly cold and blunt toward Touya, at one point outright saying that she sees him only as an obstacle. This begins to be somewhat subverted toward the end of her route, where she acts the same but it becomes more and more clear she is developing feelings toward him.
- Cock Fight: Akira tries to instigate this with Touya on Misaki’s route because of his feelings of betrayal and his inability to cope with the reality that the woman he loves would never love him back, wishing to believe that his former best friend stole her from him instead.
- Defrosting the Ice Queen: Yayoi, though she takes her time. She is incredibly cold to anyone other than Yuki. It takes until the end of her route to admit she has feelings for Touya, and then the two of them mutually agree to never pursue it anyway. She is still much friendlier to him from that point onward though.
- Developers' Desired Date: Yuki and Rina, who are the characters on the cover and the only ones to be referenced in the sequel. Yuki has more prominence between the two, such as featuring more in the Opening, Ending and other cutscenes.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Yayoi's route does not end with Touya entering a relationship with Yayoi, as she is in love with Yuki and does not wish to break her heart. They certainly share something between a friendship and actual romance though.
- Dogged Nice Guy: How Akira acts towards Misaki.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Yuki's ending. After months of hard work and heartache, if Touya spent as much time with his girlfriend as he could, the two connect again and get past their mutual loneliness. Yuki gets second place in the competition and becomes a rising star, and her relationship with Touka becomes stronger than ever before, with the two of them looking forward to another competition next year rather than dreading it.
- The '80s: The series is set in that decade, it seems specifically so that Yuki and Touya can conveniently miss each other's calls.
- In Yayoi's sedan (in LHD), you can even see a built-in phone handset in the middle between the driver and front passenger seats. Modern sedans made in the 2000s and beyond don't have that feature anymore.
- Entitled to Have You: Akira displays this at the end of Misaki's route, where he wants to convince himself that Touya stole the woman he loves away from him and all but states that he and Misaki would have gotten together had it not been for his former best friend's interference. This is despite the fact he's a Hopeless Suitor who's ignoring Misaki's own agency. Despite his feelings of guilt, Touya mentally points out that real life does not work the way Akira wants.
- False Friend: How Misaki views herself during her route. She knows the affair is wrong and that it will ultimately hurt Yuki, but she simultaneously pursues Touya and wants to make him fall in love with her regardless of how it will affect her friend. Part of her Character Development has her reconcile the fact that she's a flawed yet ultimately good person instead of perfect.
- Freak Out: Rina's brother has a massive hallucinatory one in one episode of season 2. Yuki at one point freaks out and starts biting her own wrist.
- Harem Genre: Deconstructed. Touya begins the series with a well-established girlfriend, who progressively becomes less well-established as her busy career creates distance between them and Touya's eye begins to wander as other options present themselves.
- Hopeless Suitor: Akira towards Misaki.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: All over the place. Essentially, it's the source for most of the game's drama.
- Yayoi towards Yuki. Though she is perfectly fine with keeping Yuki away from her boyfriend so she can focus on her craft, there are also times when, despite being in love with Yuki and jealous of Touya, she creates opportunities for the two of them to ensure the former's happiness. In her ending, Touya returns the favour, knowing about Yayoi's feelings for Yuki and making space for the two now and then.
- Misaki towards Touya in her route when it's heavily implied that she's been in love with him since high school yet set her feelings aside since he was in a relationship with Yuki.
- Touya and Yuki towards each other, and is ultimately the main reason why their relationship ends on most routes. Despite their loneliness and love for each other, they both believe their partner will be happier without them/with another person.
- Incompatible Orientation: Yayoi has slept with both men and women and is in love with Yuki, who presumably isn't into women herself and is unaware of her feelings.
- Mood Whiplash: Because of how the game is structured, with story-relevant events followed by long relatively drama-free sessions, the game can run into some tonal whiplash with how Touya can be filled with angst and tears one night and the next morning he's out making small talks with people and getting back to work like nothing of significance happened the day prior.
- Lonely at the Top: Rina is the most successful of the artists, at the top of her game. And incredibly lonely. Of course, in this series, everyone is.
- Love Dodecahedron: About half a dozen girls like Touya; two of them have stalkers of their own. One acquires a boyfriend in addition to her stalker.
- Especially prominent in Misaki's route. Akira loves Misaki who loves Touya who loves both Yuki and Misaki.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: Touya to Haruka. She does. Then he kisses her and they end up having sex anyway...
- Updated Re-release: The original game received an all-ages port to the PS3, subtitled Tsuzurareru Fuyu no Omoide ("Memories Like Falling Snow") in 2010 with updated artwork. Later, this version of the game was also released for the PC.
- The Voiceless: Franky, the Master of the bar, until episode 24.
- When She Smiles: Yayoi is cold and curt to the point that Touya swiftly gains a dislike for her. However, even he notices that she is noticeably more warm and willing to smile when around Yuki, which gives him a better impression.