White Album 2 (13/13)
Hey everyone. This is kind of my first and kind of my second big spoiler-filled review so bear with me and I welcome any criticisms. This week I’ll be going over White Album 2, which I finished on Sunday (12/21/2014) in one sitting (kind of). I was moved so much by the show that I wanted to give it a review it deserves.
Story
Even though the passing days pile up, our mutual feelings are always by my side…
Where to begin except with the story? As with most romance and drama shows this is a VERY character centric show all the way to the very end. The story is made by the characters and the characters make the story. And what a story it was. The show runs the characters and the viewers through the whole gambit of emotions – happiness, sadness, joy, anger, love, hate… these things all seem to vary viewer to viewer depending on what experiences they’ve had in their lives. This is a good indicator by itself – a good story SHOULD be able to make you feel these things. It shouldn’t shove something in your face and make you “sad”. It should naturally lead you to feel sad or angry or betrayed or hurt or whatever.
We have the themes of staying with your friends and regretting all those snap decisions you make. We learn (again, for some people) how hard it is to keep friends forever and how unrealistic promises made by high schoolers can be. Chasing your dreams always involves sacrifice and falling in love always involves pain, at some point or another. Instead of being overbearing or disjointed all these things seem to flow together in a very natural way as the story progresses.
I don’t want to just do a recap of the story so, assuming everyone reading this knows what happens, I’ll move on. The story does seem to be a little bit clichéd or poorly inspired for a little bit. We see a plot about getting a band together that I’m pretty sure every single band anime at least considered or actually did once. But for those who are unfamiliar with the show (myself included) it felt strange that the “dream” was achieved in episode 8. Of course that’s arguably when it kicked it up to eleven and began to blow everything out of the water.
Now onto the ending: it seems like it’s something that either makes people incredibly sad or incredibly angry. Leaving VN continuations aside it really does feel kind of hollow when there’s quite possibly the least happy ending for all the characters in the show and the viewers themselves. I was once asked if I got angry at the characters or how the writers wrote the story. You know what? I didn’t. Not one bit. Who’s to say who was in the wrong? Weren’t they all wrong? Didn’t they all “lose” in the shitty game they were playing with each other?
This show did an amazing job of showing us what kind of mistakes high schoolers make. The kind of foolish and brash decisions horny girls and guys will make when they haven’t experienced life and know nothing of the consequences of their actions. I’ve gone through it myself. Made decisions that I regretted and wished I could undo. But I’m still alive and my story hasn’t ended. In the end, with Kazusa leaving and Setsuna going to the same school as Haruki, they all have the chance to live on and learn from what happened.
Art
Even if we can’t meet, I say ‘I’m okay.’ Although I say this, it’s riddled with sighs…
What’s to say that hasn’t already been said? Just go look at some of the screenshots from the show. The animators poured their hearts out into this work. And if they didn’t, you could have fooled me. The still shots and the far shots were both absolutely fantastic. Watching the snow fall down from the sky is always inspiring within anime and watching those shots of the sky being lit up by the twilight is something else, especially when it fit so well with the overall tone of the show.
Getting into the season a bit, Winter was definitely the perfect time to do this story. The love season of Spring is over and Summer is long gone. Winter is often seen as the “death” of the cycle and when Spring comes around it starts things anew. Unfortunately for the characters it seems like Spring didn’t come fast enough. The show did a very good job of including those cold colors when they were needed and the warm colors if it could.
As for the character animations themselves, I take a little bit of issue with it. It wasn’t a big thing in the slightest but I couldn’t turn a blind eye towards the hair styles. As if I needed to be reminded that I was watching an anime, the hair physics almost seemed laughable at points with Haruki’s spiky style and Io’s weird ass… whatever you call it. Overall it was about the only criticism I could find. The other colors worked perfectly.
To go a bit further into the designs of the characters, I enjoyed how they were drawn to trip you up. Setsuna is the goody two shoes and Kazusa is the anti-establishment bad girl. But that’s not true at all. Yet they were drawn in such a way that the betrayal of their characters felt even more real. The small things stood out to me as well – the detail in the hair was astounding. Then again in the first two episodes there were so many hair flips I thought I would lose my mind. I loved the changes of clothes the characters went through as well although I noticed there seemed to be uniformity in the coats (school coats I guess).
Even things like Setsuna’s jacket during the festival were important. It was bright red against a dark classroom. Red could mean many things – love, reproduction, so on and so forth – and when Setsuna confessed it seems to be a sure thing that the red is not just a coincidence. It’s always nice to find small details especially to a viewer like me who doesn’t always spot the subtle foreshadowing or themes or things.
As for my favorite shot of the show, it’s definitely the ending of episode one where Haruki finds Setsuna singing on top of the roof with the sunset in the background and the sky all around her. It only lasts a few seconds but it’s played again for emphasis at the very end of the show to amazing effect.
Music
It seems like I’ll be defeated by the loneliness which piles up even as a single, uneasy day passes…
Of course. It’s called “White Album 2” isn’t it? And no, it’s not the sequel to the White Album by the Beatles. It’s a song that came from White Album 1 – about the only parallel that the shows share. Some may say that the song was overplayed or overused in the early episodes. I don’t necessarily agree – it had relevance to what they were doing in the plot and was the song that brought them all together. If it hadn’t been for that song would they even have met in the first place?  The song symbolizes so much importance for all of them and it’s echoed again along with “Love Beyond Reach”.
Now, “Love Beyond Reach (Todokanai Koi)” is what I consider an instance of shoving things in your face. Without the viewer really thinking about it the show takes the liberty of saying “yes they are doomed lovers” within the song by naming the song that Haruki made the lyrics to the very result of what would happen in the show. Some obvious foreshadowing, some pushing the viewers to feel a certain way, not the worst thing in the world. I don’t like how it’s not showed until the end either. It makes the song feel unnatural, like it was shoehorned into the plot in order to be used solely for the ending credits of the show. Additionally, the “day of practice” doesn’t seem realistic with the guitar riffs that were in the song (in my musically uneducated opinion).
Needless to say the music was absolutely phenomenal in every regard. When you needed to well up with happiness it was there to provide the right tones. When the Christmas season was approaching it played the songs that got you in the Christmas spirit with that signature Christmas-y feel. “White Album” was played both for happiness and sadness in several instances. Everything was on point and the OST – all 60+ songs from the piano playing of Kazusa to the singing of Setsuna was wonderful and something I plan on listening to for a while. I already must have listened to “White Album” at least ten times.
What I enjoyed more about the music is that it wasn’t overplayed for the sake of the show. Yes, the dream of Haruki was to play in a band at the school festival and yes that dream was achieved – but it wasn’t the focal point of the show and the viewer was reminded of that because the concert happened in the middle of the show and not the end. The music simply served as reinforcement for the main story. It was almost like layering. The staff put down the first layer of the show and then used it to reinforce the next part of the story which strengthened the overall feel.
Characters
“It’ll be all right!” you said as you patted my shoulder, by your smile, you gave me energy
Here is really where everything comes to a head. The characters and their interactions. This is what the story was focused on, this is what the art emphasized, and this is how the music was made. These characters made the show what it was and they were so unique that they were the only ones who could have made it work as well as it did. So now let’s take a look one by one at the characters and their relationships.
Haruki Kitahara. Arguably the weakest of the bunch, he receives criticism from viewers for being too typical of a main character. I tend to be in the middle. He seems to be pretty bland at least from the beginning but he’s got enough hobbies and interests to keep him unique in his own right. Playing the guitar, helping others, trying to keep his cool while his dreams seem to fade away. Helpful and despicable for what he did he is the one the two girls seem to not be able to get enough of. Even though he was doing what he did out of true love I can’t forgive anyone who cheats – once a cheater, always a cheater.
Setsuna Ogiso. The cute dream girl of every guy in the high school who only has eyes for the main character. Enough to make a bad character but Setsuna reveals herself to be so much more than that. She’s also emotionally manipulative. She was so scared of being alone she took a poor short term solution in favor of an unknown long term solution and lost pretty much everything because of it. She’s the worst offender – she’s the one who really caused everything to come tumbling down. Honestly I liked her at the beginning. Cute girls are usually what I go for. But even with her admitting to her mistakes I couldn’t bring myself to see her as anything more than a manipulative, cold person.
Kazusa Touma. The bad girl who is really a sweetheart. She’s cold and distant for seemingly no reason to Haruki until you realize that she’s been alone for the last three years and needed someone to annoy her enough until she opened up. But she never did fully open up, did she? Not to her best friend, not to her love interest, not until it was much too late. Equally at fault with the others, at least, for not confessing when she had the perfect opportunity. I thought she would be annoying at first. I hate those girls who abuse the MC while he just accepts it. I was wrong. SO WRONG.
So now with the characters themselves out of the way, we should look at the relationships they had. First off, we have Setsuna and Kazusa. The two best friends. Setsuna hasn’t had any real friends since middle school and she’s very scared about making new ones and who knows when Kazusa had friends. They were supposed to be able to tell each other anything but Setsuna ends up betraying the relationship for her own personal gain in the end. It’s tragic that Setsuna felt the need to betray the girl who was allegedly her best friend.
Then we have Setsuna and Haruki. The “perfect couple”. After Setsuna confessed and kissed Haruki, he was the one getting the “credit” for confessing to her when she was the one who confessed in the first place. I always found that strange. Was Haruki just lying to himself to feel justified? The relationship was built on deceit in the first place. Haruki knew he was more in love with Kazusa but he lied to himself in order to convince himself that Setsuna was a good choice for him. He didn’t realize his mistake until too late and it cost Setsuna her relationship with him in almost any way shape or form.
Of course, we finish with the starcrossed lovers, Kazusa and Haruki. We see that Kazusa was slowly falling for Haruki and refusing to admit it, even after kissing him in the piano room. She had always wanted Haruki to reach out to her but never let on. Kazusa seemed to keep running until she couldn’t run anymore and Haruki didn’t catch up until she was leaving. And there was no “stop her from getting on the plane.” Her mother was important to her as well and she couldn’t go back on it now, even as she kissed the love of her life in front of her best friend. Watching her make the decision to leave was painful to see because we as the viewers knew the lies and manipulation that had caused this.
All of these relationships and characters felt utterly human in their flaws and their strengths. They never acted out of character and they did what was expected of them even if it meant sacrificing something close to them. Even Haruki kissing Kazusa seemed realistic when he doesn’t know what else to do after realizing that he really loves her. All of them regret their decisions and know nothing can be changed due to the mistakes they made.
Overall
Even if we’re apart, because those words exist, I’m able to say that I’m happy from my heart – it’s a miracle. Light snow covers my secret thoughts, and dyes the pages of this pure white album.
This is what I consider the prefect romance drama. The epitome of romance drama. The pinnacle of roma…. Okay you get it. I really like this show a whole lot. I’ve been in similar situations to all of these characters. I’ve had female friends complain that they wanted their boyfriend to reach out to them when they were pushing him away. I know what it’s like to want to cheat and what it feels like to be cheated on.
This show struck me at the core of my… heart, I guess it would be. I could feel all these things the characters felt and I could understand why they did the things they did. And I don’t blame them for any of it. They grew up the hard way and sacrificed so much to learn some important lessons. Moreover, the characters acted totally within their limits. Setsuna made stupid choices because she was scared and self centered. Haruki made an unforgivable choice to cheat because he didn’t know what else to do. Kazusa made the cowardly choice because she had no confidence in herself and couldn’t accept her feelings. And even though two of them got to stay with each other it was almost meaningless thanks to their choices.
Conclusion
The treasure which the passing seasons left is a puzzle missing an important piece. Just like the white snow gently piles up in the streets, we’ll fill up all the blank spaces in this album.
Thanks for reading everyone. It’s hard to make me cry at just about any show – After Story made me shed a tear, maybe, and so did Toradora. Tearing up is essentially my limit and that’s kind of hard sometimes too. But this show made me tear up and almost cry more than one time within several episodes.
I honestly had no idea what to expect from this show. It was hyped up as the “best anime drama” by even the harsh critics. I kept my expectations at a reasonable level to make sure the hype didn’t ruin the show for me. I’m glad I did too because this show hit me like a freight train. During episode eleven I had a miniature freak out and it was all downhill from there. But the ending just made the show for me. It was done in such a way that it made the whole show relevant. The viewer gets to see the supports of friendship built up and torn down in a way that I’m not sure will be repeated anytime soon.

Massive props to the directors who seems to have only ever been a director for this show alone (having only done episodic directing) and the staff behind it. Managing to improve on Aya Hirano’s singing is no easy feat but I honestly liked Madoka Yonezawa’s “White Album” better. I never thought a visual novel could be adapted that well – I saw some of the “flaws” of the show being pointed out by the VN readers but as an anime only viewer I feel that they didn’t make a gigantic impact.
Anyway. Thanks for sticking with it until the end if you did. My name’s zerojustice315 and this is my first non-shitpost (/s).