Edocchi said:but I like the way the anime got its own unique charm by doing it in its own way, such as saving some important conversations to use later as a flashback.
Definitely, I only went through the VN some years after the anime was out, and looked up KTE in a youtube playthrough. Before that I read some dude called mdz's summary, who did great justice to the series. Also speaking of him & a great analysis on the relationship & character dynamics, there's this reddit post.
Imma just copy it here too:
There's not quite one person at fault within the dynamics of this relationship.
Setsuna's the good girl -- that's what everybody constantly iterates. The audience thinks that she's a good girl. Haruki and Kazusa thinks that she's a good girl. Every minor character, every passerby thinks that she's a saint.
In a sense, she is. In another sense, she's absolutely the most manipulative character in the series. White Album 2's visual novel isn't the highest rated visual novel on EGS [Japanese Visual Novel rating site] without a reason.
Setsuna believes that she betrayed Kazusa. Haruki is not aware that Kazusa had kissed him first. In fact, this is an incredibly large spoiler that's only revealed in Coda. The IC in the visual novel was bereft of most of these details. The anime chose to adapt it.
Kazusa and Haruki know that they betrayed Setsuna. How much more blatant of a betrayal can there be, other than physically cheating [not to say the emotional cheating that went on prior]. What happens when someone cheats? The other party breaks off relationships, and gradually, things rebuild after being shattered.
But what occurs in this case? Setsuna absolutely does not take it out on them. In fact, she thinks that she's the guilty one. This results in Kazusa and Haruki staying in the past. They cannot get over the fact that Setsuna's such a good girl -- that they chose to betray such a good girl.
But such a good girl selfishly refuses to allow the two to move on. Haruki and Kazusa are not sociopathic, they cannot move on without guilt. Setsuna is very important to them. If they were to continue dating, they'd only hurt Setsuna further. If they were to break up, then Setsuna would not have that -- she wants the three of them to be together, she wants genuine love. She wants the impossible, and she'll aspire for the impossible. The two want to be punished, to be condemned vitriolically -- that itself will be cathartic for all parties. If it never happens, it's the same as a boiling kettle never blowing.
Setsuna in the train scene, refused to allow Haruki to further speak. Even when he did enunciate further, his blatant disloyalty, she refused to scold him. She never exploded. She never allowed the built-up anxiety, the built-up guilt to shatter. She never allowed them a cathartic moment. In a sense, she operates benevolently in that she refuses to scold her friends. In a sense, she operates absolutely selfishly, because she wants her desired ending.
Setsuna's without a doubt the most complex character within the series. Everyone calls her 'good', but she believes herself to be the absolute worst. White Album 2's realistic in that it doesn't go for the simple cop-outs. Nobody's going to commit suicide. Nobody's going to go blatantly insane.
A period of bliss is followed by a lifetime of suffering. Pleasure and love will never supersede, will never ameliorate that suffering. But, it will keep the characters going.
I was going through the VN again recently since I forgot a lot of the juicy details but took a small break. ALSO, some great news ahead:
Full translation out sometimes next year.
SomeGuyWithHair said:Setsuna may be the the most complex character but at the end of the day, she's just a selfish, optimistic yet manipulative woman. And no one wants that in real life. Well Kazusa is bad in her own way, but not as bad as Setsuna.
Question is how much can we blame someone for confessing her own feelings even if she knew Kazusa liked Haruki & vice versa but weren't making any steps towards being together? She picked the perfect timing sure, but that's within her own right as well. She holds herself accountable for it of course, a bit too much perhaps even, IMO.
At the end of the day if she didn't join the light music club so it would've been revived, Kazusa wouldn't have either, they wouldn't have performed at the festival and those two might've not made any progress anyway. + The festival was a peak happy moment for them.
All that cannot be helped when feelings are involved. + She's actually a pretty good girlfriend.
|