This fourteenth episode of White Album takes us to Christmas Eve 1986, and in case you've forgotten what happened last time around we return to the source of the bad news received by Touya back at the end of the last episode, with his father hospitalised (even though I seem to him collapsing several episode beforehand, but I digress). So, come this instalment's start we see pretty much all of the usual suspects gathered at the hospital, and I think it's fair to say that little is changed - Touya is still an asshole, lying to Yuki about his father's illness (or does he genuinely not know?), Haruka is still decidedly weird (introducing herself as she does to someone as a Zashiki Warashi), Yuki is still overly emotional and Yayoi is still taking every possible opportunity to jump Touya's bones for whatever reason.
Still, this episode isn't all bad news, as we see confirmation of Yuki and Rina's victory over the Sakura Girls in terms of supporter numbers at the Christmas concerts, which sets them (and Yuki in particular) up nicely for the new year, while Mana recovers from a cold thanks in no small part to Haruka, as her mother traipses around being miserable on account of the Sakura Girls loss, and slapping about one of its members for not turning up to the big concert -It appears that the girl in question, Menou, could have quite a part to play in the second half of this series.
All in all then, there's little change thus far for this second half of White Album (if you exclude the animation quality largely taking a nosedive), with Touya's reprehensible behaviour standing out once again as the one thing most likely yo make my blood boil this anime season. To be honest, given the long hiatus for this series a recap of sorts would probably have been in order, but thankfully I managed to pick everything up easily enough, and I suppose we're now ready for more of the same throughout the remainder of the series. At least there are actually some interesting threads for discussion here (Yayoi's real feelings towards Touya and whether his father told him the true severity of the cause of his hospitalisation standing out on top of the list), which could bring this second half of White Album into a position that is far more worthy of its time and effort than the first, which admittedly proved to be entertaining enough despite acting a little too much like a trashy soap opera at times.
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