What They Say:
Banri Tada is a newly admitted student at a private law school in Tokyo. However, due to an accident, he lost all of his memories. During his freshman orientation, he encounters another freshman from the same school, Mitsuo Yanagisawa, and they hit it off at once. Without any memory of each other, their lives become more and more intertwined as if set by the hands of fate. But what is their fate, and will it lead to happiness or another memory to forget…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Golden Time has worked fairly decently, better than I expected really, in how Banri is coping with his past memories surfacing and all the problems that comes with it. He’s managed to challenge and push himself in directions that could unleash more memories while still being very afraid of losing himself in the process, to become who he was and lose who he is now. He’s even lost control of his own body to his old self in a critical instance that saved them, though that can be taken in a number of ways. With him admitting to a doctor that he’s starting to see more of himself, he’s at least showing a proactive approach to trying to deal with it since even though many see it as a simple problem, it’s complex and definitely has its issues not just for him but others.
With September having rolled around, Banri has headed back to school and is just excited to be back among his friends, the places he’s come to call his home now and, of course, Koko as well. And it’s good to see that his core group is glad to see him there as well, welcoming him back and spending time with him over a meal and just catching up in a way that returning college students do. It’s decent stuff and works nicely, though there are also some below the surface issues that are cropping up since Mitsuo is wondering what else is going on with Banri these days since he had issues before they all went their own ways for the end of summer break. But Banri just can’t bring himself to admit to him that he once had strong feelings in a past life for Linda since Mitsuo is so into her and he doesn’t want to impact things.
The second half starts to push Mitsuo into a bit of a new world as his activities introduces him to a new crowd and there are, amusingly, a few girls there that are quite interested in him. That dovetails nicely into the way we see later on how Linda is basically accosting Banri since she’s feeling really uncertain over Mituo and the way the two of them were getting along. She’s been having a hard enough time grappling with her own feelings towards him, having gotten things settled with Banri previously, and with Mitsuo moving into new areas she’s even more uncertain about things and that makes it easy to lash out at Banri who is just kind of oblivious to her anger in typical male fashion. There are some fun little quirks that come from all of this, especially since others aren’t quite so sure that Banri and Linda should be so close to each other, and seeing Oka show up in the last minute and totally berate him while trying to protect both Linda and Koko is comical, if damaging to poor, oblivious Banri.
In Summary:
Golden Time moves right along in this episode as we get Banri and everyone else making their way back to school for September and having a variety of small situations come into play. There’s some decent stuff going on with Banri but he’s getting caught up in other people’s drama at this point with Mitsuo wondering what’s being hidden from him and Linda just plain upset at him for his actions, which wasn’t what he intended in the slightest. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either. The small moments with Koko are the best but it just left me wanting more since I thoroughly enjoy their screen time together and we simply did not get enough of it here.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
