For a lot of series this season I lost the motivation to keep up, even Yozakura Quartet, but with White Album I really wanted to catch up due to the potential I still saw in it. I just finished episode nine, and yeah. The creators pretty much did it: they created a love triangle, and they did it well. They did exactly what they needed to do, nothing more and nothing less.
I mean, this just works, and it’s the first love triangle in quite a while that is so well done. There are no annoying side-characters who try to steal the spotlights: the side cast knows exactly their place: this is the story of the three main characters, and nothing else. Every episode also progressed smoothly into the other: We first had the set-up, then a few episodes of developing the romance between the male lead and both girls, then there was the climax with the school performance that lead to two of them coming together, and now the finale of the series is focused on graduation and the actual love triangle.
On top of that, this series is so mature about it. It just presents the romance as it is, and the drama here is actual drama that develops naturally, not through forced cliched events. The whole premise of this series is deceptively simple, and this series knows it. When I compare this for example to a series like Sakurasou, the latter just feels so contrived with all of the forced drama that just kept going on and on. Not to mention the stupid characters. The characters in this series aren’t stupid. They’re teenagers. This show is actually blurring the lines between friendship and romance, rather than making it incredibly obvious who fancies who.
Also, a freaking couple forms before the end of the series! Yay for another series that actually wants to do that.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)
Glad to know you’re following this series. I still remembered some of your posts on the first White Album series, although I never got around to watching it yet. I recall you said that the first part was pretty topsy-turvy and quite rage inducing at times, but the 2nd half turned out to be really good. The excellent 9 episodes we’ve got here is making me seriously consider watching the first series, although I do have some misgivings about the rage inducing parts. Can anyone give some thoughts on if the payout is worth going through the series?
On the series, I believe this may be one of the few love triangles where I can easily see myself shipping for both girls. Currently I’m in the Kazusa camp, although I don’t think Setsuna doesn’t deserve to be with Haruki. The characters are also not idiots nor is the MC as dense as a brick wall for which I’m eternally grateful. They also all act logically and naturally in character, and the missteps they make are reasonable and unforced. Personally, I find it a breath of fresh air in the high school romance anime genre.
Going ahead, I’m seeing a veritable fireworks of emotions at the end of the road. Kazusa is finally acknowledging to herself that she likes Haruki, and is thus keeping her distance from Setsuna and mostly Haruki so she won’t be tempted to be a third wheel. Haruki seems to recognize he holds some feelings for Kazusa, but he also cares for Setsuna, thus he seems to want to do more couple-like things with Setsuna to reaffirm his ‘love’ for her, despite his burgeoning feelings for Kazusa. Setsuna made the first move on Haruki and managed to become his girlfriend, but she also doesn’t want to lose her friendship with Kazusa and wishes that the 3 of them can still be together like in the live show despite knowing that both Kazusa and Haruki harbor some degree of feelings for each other.
With all of that going on, I’m really looking forward to the conclusion of this series which is the Introductory Chapter of the VN. Hopefully a 2nd season will be in the works soon, because I would really want to get to the end of this amazing story.
i have not been watching this series and the biggest reason .. pretty much every romance i have watched turns into a rage fest and then it becomes a chore to wait for each episode every week though i have heard awesome things about this series, tell me is it a bit like true tears? or honey and clover since those were awesome XD
I don’t know if it won’t be rage inducing for you, but personally I think the love triangle is very deftly handled in this series. I may be shipping for one of the girls, but I still feel like the other girl also deserves to have the main male character. Sure sometimes the characters may do something that we as the observers would label as stupid or idiotic, but their behaviors are all plausible and could be how real people would react in similar situations. You don’t have to watch the first series as the main characters are different with the setting is about 10 years after the first series, so I don’t think you’ll lose anything in giving it a try.
You have to know that the first White Album is completely different from this one. Where this series is perfectly paced and the flaws of the characters are there, but well balanced, in the first White Album the flaws of the characters are the single biggest focus of the entire series. They are literally everywhere and that is the biggest factor of why it was so incredibly rage-inducing. It’s a unique series and the voice acting was much better than in White Album 2. But it’s not as easy to sit through.
Wow! Welcome to the party, psgels! In a way, I think it’s a crowning achievement of WA2 that so many veteran bloggers seem to switch to it late. Guess that word is going around after all!
For me, WA2 is the show I’m looking forward to the most each week. And at the end of every single episode, I’d want to watch the next one immediately, if I had it.
I hope that the BD sales are good enough to let us see an animation of both Closing Chapter and Coda.
It’s becoming harder to have patience with shows that drag out the excrutiating “will-they-won’t-they” dynamic that usually isn’t resolved until the last episode, if at all. Both Golden Time and White Album are refreshing in that they actually GO SOMEWHERE with the romance, and for that I’m glad.