Golden Time Anime Review

GOLDEN TIME SCORE: 8.75

INTRODUCTION & SYNOPSIS

Golden Time is a highly enjoyable romance anime with comedic elements set on a college campus in Tokyo. Tada Banri is the main protagonist who moves to Tokyo after dealing with an accident that caused him to lose all of his memories from that point prior. On his first day he meets another male freshman student, Mitsuo, who he seems to have a lot of common interest with; however, as they start to bond and become friends a limo pulls up on the side of the street – out pops Kaga Koko with a bouquet of roses. She struts up to Tada’s new-found friend, repeatedly slaps him with the roses, and walks away. Leaving Mitsuo on the floor crying out in angst, and our lead character, Tada, love-stuck and in awe of the beautiful Koko. &So our story begins…

Throughout the series Tada and his group of friends go on different misadventures and form/break/grow relationships with one another. As this goes on, our main character Tada consistently struggles with the resurfacing of old memories as he tries to live a new life free of the restraints of the past. This is the overlying plot-point that is focused on; he has an internal battle – should he take this chance of losing his memories to invent a new person, or try to become who he used to be once more? This turmoil is manifested into his two love interests for the series Koko (representing the present) and Linda (representing the past), which are surprisingly both quite likable. The first time I watched the series I wanted him to be with Linda and didn’t really like Koko, and the second time I actually much preferred Koko - she is now one of my top favorite female anime characters. 

PROS

What Golden Time handles most excellently throughout the series is character development. Many a time have I seen a decent slice-of-life series that just fails massively in character development; each character is the same from beginning to end. That is not the case here, in Golden Time most every character (even side characters) are different people from episode 1 to episode 24 which speaks volumes for how well they developed. 

Another pro is that all of the characters are really enjoyable. They brought the show to life and made for an entertaining story. The side characters were also a lot more involved than in other romance animes. Some of my favorites were Nana, Tada’s rock star neighbor, and 2-D-Kun the nice bring-everyone-together kind of guy. I really loved seeing them grow and have the “college experience.” It’s actually kind of rare to see an anime set in college (normally being high school/middle school), so seeing them try to pick a club to join, survive nights with crazy college partiers, and live on their own was just plain fun to watch! 

Golden Time cracked the mold of standard romance animes and took some risks which I appreciated. The one that stood out to me was that there were two female characters that weren’t interested in our male lead Tada, yet still get good screen time and date other guys in the group. Other guys in the show can actually get girlfriends, and don’t just serve as comic-relief props, which was a nice change of pace. While they did follow some stereo-typical romance anime tropes such as the classic “beach vacation” episode, it kept things pretty original and was a breath of fresh air for me. 

Lastly, the ending theme for the first season was on-point! I really enjoyed it, and wish it was longer than 1.5 minutes. Character designs were all very good in my opinion as well. 

CONS

I really did enjoy this show, but it still has a couple of cons and annoyances in my book. First off, Tada and Mitsuo ("Yana") didn’t seem to be that close to me and they didn’t have enough friendship-building scenes for me to feel like they were authentic friends. This in turn made most scenes they did have together seem a little forced. Mitsuo doesn't really develop much either. 2-D-Kun on the other hand seemed to be the more natural friend and I wish he would have gotten a little more screen time. It interested me right away when we found out that he has given up on 3-D girls and wants to be known as 2-D-Kun; what is the backstory to that? 

Additionally, the show can get unnecessarily dramatic at times. I think the anime could have benefited from a more lighthearted tone in certain scenes. In particular, Kaga gets into a car accident at one point, and the way her father reacts is too over the top for the situation. Also, one of the characters cuts her hair short towards the end of the series, and she has her own kind of drama surrounding that, which I felt was really unnecessary.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Golden Time is an anime I would definitely recommend to a friend – guy or girl and all ages can enjoy. Even though it’s light and fun a lot of times, it still has weight and depth that you remember. This lead me to give Golden Time the score of 8.75 – an anime definitely worth watching!

Watched on: www.dubs2go.net (free source)