The recovery from the accident continues apace.
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 worked through the problems that arose from the car accident fairly well in the previous episode as we got to see how Koko’s father was handling it and some of the other fallout. Naturally, she just hid herself since she was so ashamed, angry and upset with herself over it that she couldn’t allow herself to be around anyone else. But that just gets Banri to force his hand a bit and confront her, which again gives us another beautiful if difficult moment where the two go at it by facing their fears and problems, with themselves and each other, and finding that they really do connect well and that they can support each other right to get through these difficult times. Neither is perfect, neither truly tries to be or appear to be, and both of them know they have their faults that they take too far. But they’re human, worried and scared.
When the two end up getting back into the swing of things, especially with the club, Banri arrives first and it’s a weird situation since everyone is so oddly nice to him in a way, and then with Koko when she arrives since they had believed that based on recent events and the way the two weren’t around together for a bit that they had broken up. It’s a pretty cute first half overall as we get to see how the graduating class members of the club are moving on and some of the quirks of it all, but it’s also nice just to see Banri and Koko out again and having fun as the celebration gets underway and the fireworks hit. But it also has a big of seriousness as well as one of the members has come back and he’s all despondent about the fact that he hasn’t found a job yet, which of course is a huge social issue.
The second half works through some simple material overall, but it also gives us some time between Koko and Oka as she recovers more and is in generally a good place after the accident. Getting the two of them back together is important since it shows that their friendship isn’t broken and that Koko can start moving forward again, which is important. We also get some time between Linda and Mitsuo that’s interesting since you can see the interest he has and the way he plays with her in a rather childish way but also makes some of the wrong remarks that just makes things tense between them instead since he has no idea how to properly show her he’s interested in her. What becomes interesting is that since he’s feeling problematic in this area, he lashes out in a small way with Koko, wondering just how much she knows of Banri’s past and condition and if the two are truly being truthful with each other.
In Summary:
Golden Time hits another one of those transitional episodes where there’s really not a lot going on here. There’s interesting material and I do like watching how the cast and the third tier supporting characters interact with the main and supporting cast, but most of what we can really take away here is to see what Mitsuo may really be up to when it comes to Koko and Banri and his own desires and ambitions when it comes to Linda. It’s a complicated situation made worse by his inability to connect with Linda in a non-threatening way that turns her away from him. There’s some decent bits throughout, but the episode just falls a bit short for meoverall.
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.