White Album 2 is an anime that shows just how good romance drama can be when it truly wants to be, and dares to be. It is a show that I recently finished, but I already suspect it will linger long within my mind, due to a truly memorable ending that manages to be both fitting and surprising. Most importantly, the ending was bold, reflecting how the full story is bold.
Before I continue, I should note that White Album
2 is not a sequel that requires watching the original. There is absolutely no need to watch White Album before watching White Album 2. White Album 2 stands strongly on its own, down to its very core.
At that core are three characters, all featured in the promotional image above. Each of these characters is somewhat reminiscent of certain common character types, but added realism and meticulous development ensures that the note of "generic" would never sound from their voices or the instruments that they play.
While this is a romance drama, there's also a lot of time spent carefully focusing on how these three characters work towards a high school music performance. Music drama makes up a large section of the narrative. It is portrayed with admirable accuracy, as it showcases the real time and effort and sacrifice that is needed if one even hopes to put on a successful showcase of musical talent at a live performance. Whether this hope is realized or not creates excellent suspense throughout the first half of the show, as our three hopeful life performers gradually grow closer to one another. A superbly sublime synchronicity takes hold of the three core characters, and of the plot as a whole, very well-fitting of such a psychologically rich and musically enchanting work.
But while the whole of these three characters is greater than the sum of their parts, each character also becomes very well-defined alone, as an individual. Haruki's practicality and diligence and sense of responsibility consistently comes through clearly, but there's also a strong sense that this feeds into a desire for something more colorful and exciting in his life. It is this desire for the different that draws him to the aloof and mysterious Kazusa, as well as the charming and beautiful family girl Setsuna.
Ah, but just as Haruki has inner desires that are shrouded by exterior calm and orderliness, much the same holds true for Kazusa and Setsuna. Kazusa's aloofness flows sensibly from her personal background, which also speaks to a great inner desire for deeper personal connections. Kazusa is indeed like many a kuudere in this respect, but I would argue that her sharp and sensible dialogue brings her character to life with a great fullness and integrity.
Setsuna may seem the simple-minded sweet sugary girl at first glance, with such a girl being common in anime. But as the narrative moves on, her doubts and insecurities and bold maneuverings gradually come into crystal clarity. Setsuna is actually clever and intuitive, shining light on a wily mind.
All three of these characters have their strengths and weaknesses, admirable traits as well as believable flaws. In their fullness they make the trio feel like real people, with complexities and contradictions that real people tend to have. But these contradictions do not inspire rage or a sense of terrible hypocrisy, but rather a sense of deeply emotional humanity. They have warm caring hearts that sometimes flow with, but other times against, passionate personal desires.
And so the anime has a delightful ebb and flow, avoiding both the weightlessness of a totally lighthearted show, but also the suffocating weight of a drama daily drenched in tears. White Album 2 does have strong emotions with powerful resonance, but they typically come at good points separated by seas of relative calm and amusement.
The supporting cast also does its job well, providing effective backdrops and foils for our main trio. The supporting cast are decent characters in their own right, but they know their role, and never steal the spotlight from the main trio. The cast as a whole is thankfully well-balanced with respect to gender ratios, as there are two male characters of note aside from the male lead Haruki. This is one anime that largely avoids silly harem hijinks, and is much better for it, in my opinion.
Befitting a music drama, the sights and sounds of the anime are frequently pleasant and beautiful to behold, even taken on their own. Used as they frequently are to effectively set mood or tone or atmosphere, they often capture flashes of true artistic brilliance.
All of the above being wrote, White Album 2 is not without its flaws. Impressively careful buildup creates excellent payoffs, but also slow plodding pacing at times. Some character choices and plot points have an air of cute convenience to them, which will likely lead to some events in the anime feeling highly predictable to more experienced anime viewers. Still, even in these areas of weaknesses, I can think of many anime that do it worse than White Album 2.
And in White Album 2's areas of strength, it is among the
crème de la crème. So if all of that sounds good to you, then sit down with a cup of hot cocoa, and enjoy this melodic melancholic masterclass work of musical ambitions and romantic drama, featured under softly sentimental snow.