(CR) White Album 2

[Key Board]

Well.. that episode went how I expected it would be. For the better or worse.

And oh, there's more after the credit roll. Don't miss that.

[MCAL]

The biggest test of White Album 2 was seeing how they handle the classic misunderstanding and they did so excellently. That cliffhanger ending though... Completely took me by surprise.

[Reckoner]

5:

Normally in your standard anime romance drama, you would have the girl with the misunderstanding acting irrational for a few episodes while the lead is too dense to take a hint and putting his foot in his mouth. Not in Whilte Album 2. Setsuna was upset, but Haruki quickly defused the situation and had a heart to heart conversation. It was also done in a very restrained manner.

The real DRAMA of the episode actually revolved around Touma. That was no simple freak out and is indicative of some deeper emotional issues. What that may be? Hard to say at this point other than it having to do with the piano, but she's certainly got baggage. Seems she overworked herself though.

Anyways White Album 2 continues to be very solid.

[kitten320]

Beginning got me worried for a second, glad to see that things did not go crashing down because of something so small.

Looks like Touma is down with a cold and is hiding something important. Curious as to why that note book is so important to her.

[Requiem-x]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

5:

Normally in your standard anime romance drama, you would have the girl with the misunderstanding acting irrational for a few episodes while the lead is too dense to take a hint and putting his foot in his mouth. Not in Whilte Album 2. Setsuna was upset, but Haruki quickly defused the situation and had a heart to heart conversation. It was also done in a very restrained manner.

Pretty much my opinion on the matter. I was expecting the jump into drama to be intense, but I guess this series really isn't like its predecessor, for better or for worse.

And now, Touma is about to trigger one mega flag, but I have to be honest, the next episode is gonna have to be seriously great if it wants to beat kaminomi, which I believe pulled the sickness scenario beautifully.

Also, if it wasn't clear what type of character Setsuna is, I think this episode cleared it up quite nicely Tied up with Touma right now.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by kitten320

Beginning got me worried for a second, glad to see that things did not go crashing down because of something so small.

This unwarranted passive-aggressive behavior placed a scratch on my impression of Setsuna. Then again, with her backstory, it's understandable, and once she figured out that she was out of line, she took some effort to properly mend it, so I won't hold it against her too much.

Looks like Touma is down with a cold and is hiding something important. Curious as to why that note book is so important to her.

She's clearly composing. Even in the classroom, without an instrument, just inside her head. For those with no experience in music: This is pretty major magic. So much for her self-deprecating "means I have no talent" line from an earlier ep - after finishing her composition, with uplifted mood, she flip-flops entirely and muses if she's a genius after all.

This seems to be a pretty defining trait of Kazusa: She is _very_ focused and very extreme in her reactions, once something or someone pulls her out of her comfort zone (in which she remains pretty controlled).

[Ringil]

Man, this series is still damn good. I was quite happy with how they showed the anger scene.

[Kaoru Chujo]

Great, great episode. All feeling all the time. Terrific work from Yonezawa Madoka and the animators to make Setsuna's personality come across so fresh and immediate and complex. And Naba-sama gave us an incredible Touma freak-out there. The two girls are like planets whirling around a strong lead -- a lead who binds people by accepting, undertanding, and helping them. This was another of those "is it really over already?" episodes.

[Mentar]

The first litmus test of a show for me is "would I want to watch the next episode right away if I had it available?"

White Album 2 has a sequence of 5x "yes". Actually, closer to "hell yes, gimme NOW". Time sure is flying, and I can watch this show without needing to pause and regain composure (something which happens to me with many other romance shows, due to head-desk syndrome).

Simply a great, great show for people with my anime taste (character-driven anime with interesting leads).

[Arya]

Ahh, this is definitely my kind of show. I'm enjoying every bit of it. Even if I also worried for a moment when Setsuna over-reacted about Haruki staying overnight. Instead they resolved it nicely. But I had the feeling that they are warming up

Spoiler for Touma's cold speculations:

About Touma for a moment I thought that the cold was not just a cold, it would fit with her attitude perfectly, but probably I erroneously was just inducted thinking that by the coffee being soaked up by Touma's skirt. It seemed like something that was slowly consuming her. (Plus I'm a sucker for this kind of scenario).

[Tenzen12]

I think she was just overworking herself and that would fit your observation as well.

[Leon_Lelouch]

A really good episode, making Setsuna a bit more aggressive regarding the situation as not to fall down from Kazusa, how Kazusa holds the note dearly no Suwa though lol
and this still show that Haruki is not your average hetare protagonist as to let something be slipped away, he properly do a follow up when something goes wrong
But looks like Kazusa's past were just shown in a flash... just like how previous episodes just showed her past with Haruki for a minute....
hope they will make it into one full episode telling about Kazusa's past...

Well some interesting/funny parts are being left out, well that just makes people who curious can just buy and play the game lol

Setsuna for singing all songs, Haruki with his guitar solo, which will show their performance and make them to stand out, and Haruki is thinking hard how to make it more stand out which lead to conclusion Kazusa will play bass and guitar too (?)

still really good for an adaptation, showing interest part for both players and anime-only-watcher

[Tenzen12]

I have sort of mixed feelings about Ogiso now. Did she actualy stopped idealise Haruki or she just tried put distance without actualy beliving her own words? If it was former she might be actualy interesting character, but I am afraid it was later.

[Key Board]

she was being passive aggressive
what she really wants to say is "don't exclude me from your group"
"don't do things on your own together. I want to be part of this too"
.

[Kyuusaisha]

This episode made me feel like Setsuna is actually somewhat interesting. I want to see her "image" crumble even more.

Like some people have said, each and every episode has been consistently good and in my opinion they've been improving by each episode aswell.

[Tranhieu]

Those English lines near the end make no sense. What does 'carry out money on hire' actually mean? And it sounds more like he was saying 'here' instead of 'hire' to me, not that 'here' makes better sense either.

[Leon_Lelouch]

"koko ga ano onna no hausu ne
This is that woman house, huh?"

lol, I don't know why but many fans like this quotes and it was being said not only by Setsuna but by the teacher too lol then again why is it being used as the password...

[Key Board]

it's a White Album 1 internet meme

[Pocari_Sweat]

And after 5 episodes White Album 2 continues to stomp on the vast majority of anime romance dramas out there. It's a very subdued, restrained and dignified series and it uses moments of emotions where it needs to and in a timely manner and does not dwell in excess. A stark contrast to another romance series airing this season in Nagi no Asukara.

I can't make up my mind who I'm shipping, and this is clearly a strength of a series. When your personal reception of romance centric series is dependant on whether your "ship wins" then that in my eyes results in said series being a failure. In this series, I like all the characters. I slightly liked Setsuna more than Touma in episodes 1, 2 and I liked her slightly more also in this current episode, whilst in episodes 3 and 4 I liked slightly Touma more. It's at a point where I don't give a damn who wins or loses but how the story is told and how the relationships turn out.

I liked how we are beginning to see cracks in both Setsuna and Touma's character but I particularly liked it more that it wasn't handled in with banal theatrics and mugging. It's handled in a very adult manner and not like one of those wangsty teen romance melodramas where everything is overacted and conflicts dragged out. All the characters act rationally and bloody talk about their problems rather than keep it to themselves and wangst about it for aeons and the Haruki is one of the best non-idiotic assertive male leads I've seen in some time. I love it.

I'm sure this isn't the end on the drama end of the things for both of the girls and there is obviously more baggage that both characters are carrying, and I'm very interested to see what they are and how they deal with it.

Oh and the music in this series continues to be fantastic. Very glad to see a series that takes one of its focal points seriously instead of you know... eating cakes and drinking tea. Reminds me of Tari Tari, but I think it's even slightly better than that in its usage at this current point. Definitely going to be one of the better OSTs of the year.

Continues to be one of the two favs of the fall season.

[Archon_Wing]

Ah! I watched the first two episodes and found the perfect pic for what I usually think of people's posts on the internet:



But yea I also like how she buries her head in her desk all the time; it reminds me of how I usually approach romance anime as well when people hype whatever is big this season.

This show really knows how to end its episodes really well; it doesn't just fuck around with "you'll see more later" shit. The sequence with Setsuna singing to herself in episode 1 was beautifully choreographed and flowed to the very end with that very nice song Likewise the introduction for Touma was of an extremely magnificent kind, though I was like WTF with the window climbing scene. Also, I like piano moe.

Setsuna herself seems to be a pretty decent character as shown mostly through the amusing conversation on the swings but she doesn't turn out as inaccessible as she initially came off as. It gets quite relaxing minus the numerous ass shots she gets in episode 2 (Yea, wtf was with that?)

Anyhow it certainly seems like it's worth keeping up with even though I usually don't watch anime in this area.