Golden Time Episode 23 | TFP Review
Sensuifu: Huh, that was rather anticlimatic. So Banri loses his memories but was promised by Koko that if he doesn’t forget her, she’ll be on his side forever and ever. From the looks of it, he seems to be out of luck. Or will Koko break her promise and restart new memories with preamenesiac/original-Banri?
Hitsugi Amachi: It was, especially the way they ended it there. Dancing into oblivion. Of course, I don’t have much regard for preamnesiac Banri, so his return is not something I’m all that happy to see. A whiny crybaby who panics extremely easily.
Sensuifu: For once almost all the characters seemed reasonable, but Koko’s decision to give up on Banri, despite all she had done to support him through his issue, didn’t seem consistent with her emotions from the previous episodes. It could be a result of bad writing, but the two ending their relationship like that was rather dull…as if it never really mattered to Koko in the first place. Sure she had tears over the entire incident, but then they had no meaning once she said “if you don’t forget me, I’ll always be with you.” What?
Hitsugi Amachi: Yeah, I think the writing has begun to let us down as we approach the end. Did the author just run out of steam? It happens. You come up with a great premise, you build complex characters around it, you execute one or two really powerful scenes that you had in mind from the start but then…you have no idea how to end the story. We’re treading water until the author figured out the ending.
Sly05: The character writing hasn’t been that great, mainly because most of what the characters do doesn’t make much sense. I get that both Koko and Banri are supposed to be deeply flawed people. That can be interesting if it was handled more realistically. That’s what made the author’s previous work, Toradora, so enduring. Here Banri and Koko are both such a mess it’s hard to believe they’ve been able to function in society so long.
Hitsugi Amachi: You do make a good point about both of them (Banri and Koko) being so deeply flawed, it’s a wonder that they’re able to function at all, though with Koko there’s a ready explanation: she come from a wealthy family, and in reality wealthy families are more able to cover up for their offspring’s obvious lacking in the intelligence and stability departments, assigning them helpers and minders of various sorts to make sure that they don’t wind up in jail or a mental hospital. Money can cover for a great deal of faults.
Banri is far less explicable. He seemed to be bipolar at the least in his preamnesiac form (the whiny crybaby in class, and yet he suddenly became this menacing tough guy during the situation with Linda’s brother’s fiancee) and seemed utterly helpless at times. Even his reactions to regaining his consciousness, when his original memories have returned, have been exaggerated to an outlandish degree. To suddenly find yourself in a strange place surrounded by strange people would be utterly disconcerting and it’s not unreasonable to expect someone in that situation to even feel panic. But to run around like a scared little animal, crying out Linda’s name (and why Linda specifically? One could argue that his last memory is being on the bridge, so she was in his thoughts, fine, but still, it’s obvious that you’re not on the bridge anymore, why should you expect Linda to be nearby?) was just too much every time they did it.
Sensuifu: There were a lot of unanswered things I wanted to have clarified, even if they may not have any bearing in the end. Things like the bridge incident (who ran him over, or was he..); what was Linda’s true, honest answer to Banri (and why was she even late)…the ghost personification disappearing (which doesn’t quite coincide with how Banri managed himself to the end); why they made Mitsuo’s disappearance bigger than it should’ve been..and some other things..
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Sensuifu: Yes, [Koko] admits being selfish, but that only reinforces the earlier presumptions of her only wanting to live with a ‘particular’ Banri. Way to go Koko… It may seem sympathetic toward Banri, but didn’t he disclose his problem with her earlier on? I thought Koko knew this and was supportive despite his instabilities. After the camera incident, everything turned superficial, which I didn’t think was the point of Koko’s character development. Perhaps I mistook her, but I didn’t expect her essentially say ‘Oh, about that, yeah, it’s over…I played you, sorry! But if you remember me, I’ll continue to love you like I did…when you were that Banri’.
Uh….yeah.
Hitsugi Amachi: There always was a basic shallowness to Koko’s character. That may be why she was created so beautiful: the surface beauty distracts you from probing any deeper and realizing that Koko is very superficial. It’s actually not entirely out of character for her to be like this, when one thinks about it. Koko’s a simple being.
But, I agree that this doesn’t make for great romance. “I’ll always love you if you remain exactly the guy I fell in love with. Don’t ever change.” But people, even when they retain their memories, change over time. Change is the only constant of existence. So, how long would this relationship have lasted anyway?
Sly05: I think I get what they are trying to do with Koko. Having the person she loves forgot her is too much for her to handle as she’s not ever been the most stable of people so breaking up with Banri is her trying to limit the emotional damage that would do to her. However, given Koko’s actions throughout the series, I think she’s someone who is more in love with the act of being in love. Who her partner is seems to matter less than the drama. That has made her a difficult character to sympathize with.
Hitsugi Amachi: It has made it difficult to sympathize with her, though the author and the animation team have managed to do it a bit, since there are times where I have felt a little sorry for Koko, but perhaps it’s not so much sympathy as pity.
Sensuifu: True, I give them that. But maybe it was just for convenience sake, and spur of the moment reactions just to have emotional impact, teh drama. 
I understand Koko breaking up with Banri might’ve been a selfless act for his sake, and perhaps for her’s too, but I still don’t understand why she was characterized as someone having unconditional love during Banri’s trials and tribulations; then she ends up as friendzoning him in the end despite alreading knowing he was mentally unstable. But maybe her shallowness is ultimately what the author was really making a point about. That could be the case and it may as well be given some other clues I just remembered. Koko’s dad mentioned something to Banri about being careful with her..so I suppose he saw this coming a long time ago.
