With only half a year of school left before graduation, Kitahara Haruki and his best friend are the only members left in the light music club. In an effort to practice for the school festival, Kitahara would play his guitar by an open window in the club room after school. To his surprise, a piano starts to play along side him, soon leading to more than just two lonely members in the light music club when Kitahara goes to investigate this newly appearing singer and the pianist who was playing with him for sometime.
Story
From the beginning, a lot of what White Album 2 had to offer was a pretty standard high school set slice-of-life, following a rather bland male character named Kitahara Haruki. And that kind of reaction is my main reasoning for having such an unimpressed reaction first going into the series. However, that initial unsatisfying taste I got quickly went away as the three main characters started to foster a relationship together. And when it picked up, White Album 2 made sure not to be as slow as it previously was during it's beginnings.
With a series like White Album, most of the character interaction and story is reliant on music, and White Album 2 is no different. Although you don't have to watch previous iterations of White Album, most of the songs being played by the characters come from there and it only really serves as a nice nod to those who have seen the other seasons.
The series use of music really did help establish the beginning, middle -- or it's turning point -- and end of what was a conflict of characters; though it didn't have much of an overarching story, most of more interest pieces are between the characters and the resulting romance and drama that get stirred into a complex mess of emotional soup.
Art
This is the other part that kind of made me want to skip this series; the art, as far as characters go, isn't that appealing to me. A lot of the style overall looks a bit dated, and to a certain extent, a simplified and softened version of what the original White Album's art style was like. However, I did see the beauty to it after a few minutes of watching the first episode.
There were brighter colors, a lot of lens flares, heavy focus on how characters eyes looked that made up for what it lacked in detail. The art style overall set the tone as the series continued to go on and made understanding how each character really felt -- despite the words they were saying -- easier to interpret and that much more impactful if the character happened to be lying.
Characters
As I said previously, the story itself is far more focused on the characters involved; so with that, you are going to need some interesting characters to carry something like this. I would say that White Album 2 delivered on the female side of the equation, but Kitahara wasn't that much of a stand out character for me. I'm not sure why I have a higher standard for males, but most feel like a catalyst for female affect, rather than an actual character. And this is how Kitahara felt to me, most of the conflict is between Setsuna and Touma, which are the more interesting bits.
The females have similar characteristics, that being, on the outside they try to carry them self the opposite of what they really are feeling, and they feel guilt about those kinds of feeling. And that light and dark character design gets carried though their personality, but more than likely you will be surprised by how they really act outside their own masks. And this dynamic is far more interesting than the neutral Kitahara, but character interaction between the three is where the series shines.
Overall
| Good | Bad |
|---|---|
| great character interaction | a pretty bland male character |
| art complements character emotions | art felt outdated |
| beautifully complex love story | |
| music tied the development together | |
| believable character drama |
Even with a slow start, White Album 2 managed to make an interesting conflict of love between three people. Although I personally don't like the male interest that much, he played a decent role that sparked most of the trouble between friends. And that genuine torture between self interest and friend's interest, is what plays a big part in character drama -- that you will have to watch to find out what happens.
White Album 2 is simply a well crafted romantic drama that ties many aspects of it's medium together. And despite many of it flaws, I managed to look past and enjoy the development that quickly gets displayed over these thirteen episodes. For those that like no-so-perfect romances, this one is something I would recommend.
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