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[series:2805#628] | ||||||
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(All episodes watched): First of all, this show has virtually nothing to do with the two previous seasons of White Album and could easily have been given a different title altogether. It shouldn't be confused with White Album S2, which was the second half of the first incarnation. A brief mention of an album produced by one of the characters in the original series is the only link between them. That said, WA2 managed to pique my interest by presenting itself as likely a high school romantic triangle. This one will apparently involve performing musically on a lower level than the original series; there it was professionally, here it is at a high school level. Haruki is a gruff, mature, matter-of-fact sort of guy, who would get on your nerves if he went a little farther than he does. Him winding up with a girlfriend seems virtually incomprehensible, which only makes us want to find out how it will come about even more. I was left curious to see where things were going to go. Maybe WA2 is based on a more advanced version of the video game that spawned the original anime. I just hope this series won't end in the muddled manner that the first two did. In episode two Haruki manages to recruit one, maybe two, renowned girl musicians for the Light Music Club, Setsuna and Touma; did they join because of an interest in music, or an interest in him? For a good while it was unclear whether a romantic triangle or the success/failure of the Light Music Association would be the focus of the show. The show didn't thrill me, but seemed modestly interesting and worth watching. The pace seemed slow as an extremely demanding program of practice, practice, and more practice for the Summer Festival gets underway. It wouldn't have hurt if exactly what's going on, and what really matters, had been made more clear. If the series was indeed just about whether the Light Music Association manages to pull off a successful show at the Cultural Festival, then it ends with episode seven. I couldn't help wondering if there was any place in the plot for any more episodes--but then I remembered that I had already downloaded number eight. I guess the show consists of two arcs, the performance arc and the romance arc. But it pretty much seems as if Haruki has already made a choice which girl will be his girlfriend, and the loser has gracefully accepted it, so what is there left to do? She could always decide that she can't let him go after all, or a problem with Haruki's first choice could arise, but for now, things seemed kind of boring. To be honest, I can't really care a whole lot which way the romantic triangle works out. I don't understand what the logic (or emotion) that is driving these people to do the things they do is; or perhaps I do understand, but just don't find their motivations to be particularly interesting. Maybe we never got to know the characters well enough for their affairs to matter to us; Haruto's initial gruff personality seems to have evaporated at some point along the way and now he has a thoroughly average one. Other than the 'sweet girl' and 'haughty girl' contrast, Setsuna and Touma really aren't all that different; perhaps nothing much has been done to contrast them since their basic personalities were introduced 'way back at the start of the series. I don't see why one would be any better for Haruto than the other, and while I'm sorry that somebody has to be the loser, I don't really care which way things work out. The struggle to prepare their musical act for the Cultural Festival was more interesting than the romance that sprang from it. I wonder if this might be similar, in a way, to the original White Album: I recall that the male protagonist there was a maddeningly shallow guy who made me want to beat my head against a wall when his final choice was announced. I was tempted to abandon the series altogether when it had only two episodes to go, but decided to watch the rest. I think the resolution went like this: Setsuna was never really serious about romance (so no need to feel sorry for her love going unfulfilled), she just wanted the three of them to be friends indefinitely, even though that might demand that Haruto and Touma's relationship not go any farther than friendship either.. But I was pretty unexcited; this seemed like the sort of convenient resolution that a dating sim might provide a player to tidy things up. In the end I couldn't help wondering, did the story have a happy ending or a tragic one? I haven't a clue. Last updated Monday, January 06 2014. Created Thursday, October 17 2013. | ||||||||
