As you may have noticed, Browning’s book made another appearance in episode 2. In the first episode, the book represented in some sense Misaki’s interest in Touya. Touya didn’t have interest in the book (Misaki’s feelings by extension) and tried to pass it on to Akira, who refused it, even though he had interest in the literary content of it. What Akira refused is to simply inherit Misaki’s attention from Touya, he wanted Misaki to romantically discover his person by natural progression/personal wooing efforts. He has too much pride, he wants something genuine.

(My thanks to Lelangir for this visual support) Here, I refer to Fuuji as Touya. Don’t ask me which is the first name

I had this loose interpretation floating in my mind but then by episode 2, there was another appearance of the book. It was in a central scene where Rina reveals her own romantic interest for Touya. Rina leaves a note within the book, makes Touya laugh by making a joke on the book. It is therefore instrumental in their relationship. Instrumental and metaphorical at the same time (as per the first appearance.) What I’m missing is the new metaphorical content for the second appearance.

What if, the metaphorical meaning is the same? It could also represent Rina’s feelings, this time, secretly, hidden from Yuki and Akira as the note is within the book. Another piece is missing, why recycle metaphorical meaning? Why would it represent Rina and Misaki’s feelings and not Yuki or Haruka’s? I’ve got a lead here. Touya’s not interested in the literal content and does not take care of the book that much, it could be the same for the metaphorical content. That could be revealing here.

Considering the last paragraph, I’m going out on a limb here and predicting that Touya will not end up with either Misaki or Rina. This comes at a condition however, that Touya does not begin to take affection to Browning’s poetry, in which case, things become a lot more muddy.

This all makes me remember Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien’s shoe metaphor. If you didn’t crack it already, go back to when Mitsuki stubbornly refuses to change her shoes when one of her heels breaks.

Finally, I’ll try to delve into Browning’s work and see how it relates to White Album’s metaphorical subtext.

(BTW, I’d like to clarify that I’m a Philosopher, not a poet nor do I read many novels at all. Consider this a complete amateur’s interpretation, all that not to state the cultural distance between me and the object.)

Popularity: 1% [?]