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)
Banri’s past continues to haunt him, all the more so since he went back home for a brief visit and a lot of things started to bubble up under the surface. There’s some real problems that he suffered when he was a bit younger and we see that in the prologue here as the graduation period was hitting in high school and a problem hit with the formalities of it all that really hit hard for him. Whether it happened that way or not, it shows the kind of intense need to be recognized that he has which stems from a lot of emotional issues likely from a young age. Being excluded in this way from the class listing on the shirts they were getting has him in tears, which can explain some of the fallout from after the accident later in that he lost his memory of his youth in entirety.
The focus on the episode here does stem from that incident in the past where he’s trying to find out the relationship he has with someone and whether there really is one. And tha tkind of problem hsa cropped up into the present as well as we see him and the others in his little group hanging around as usual, doing activities at school and generally going through life as they have been. There’s been a certain closeness to be sure as of late with Koko and Banri, but that’s also been dealt with in a difficult fashion because of what she’s been doing when it comes to Mitsuo. While she’s put him behind her in a lot of ways, she also can’t not stop talking about him, his impact on her and some things that he does when simply around. And that’s really starting to hit more for Banri.
So much so that he actually gives her a kind of choice about things, but doesn’t follow through completely and instead just makes it one of those uncertain events. For Koko, she’s caught completely offguard by it and even others are noticing the change in Banri since things for him started falling apart. A lot of it is definitely a problem of his own making, but it’s one built on so many other problems because of his mental problems that have happened. What’s making it all worse is having Linda back in his life in this fashion, her being close, and not really remembering what happened before in a clear way. She’s wanting to be helpful herself for him, especially since she does think he’s really serious with Koko, but she’s also carrying around huge amounts of guilt over what happened to Banri with his accident. These are fairly damaged people in different ways that are all coping with it as best as they can with limited social outlets to truly deal with it.
In Summary:
Golden Time has a bit of an off episode here in a way, but part of that is just in trying to understand all the problems each character has and why they act like they do. They’re not really being irrational, but they’re struggling and lashing out, hiding from each other or looking for absolution in some way. It’s a difficult show to watch in some ways if you’re like most people and have your damaged moments as well, but it’s such an engaging show because things of meaning are said, reactions aren’t plastic and expected and there’s more layers underneath being peeled away. This is a difficult episode but it has some good potential payoff to it as we see the core trio of the moment struggle through their issues.
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.
