Adapted from a novel written by the same author who also wrote the massively successful Toradora! you would obviously have very high expectations from it or at the very least expect a great romantic comedy series in the same manner Toradora! was.
What unfortunately unfolds is a very decent rom/com who does have some genuinely good parts ,but because of its heavy reliance on tired and extremely used plot convinces ,problematic cast and also because of its unnecessary long number of episodes ,fails to deliver as initially promised.
STORY 6
Starting off with the story : its centered around a boy named Tada Banri who has just graduated high school and is starting off his college life .There he and his close group of newly found friends,one of which he is romantically involved with and another who is a high school acquaintance ,make it trough their first year of college.
The twist is that he was involved in a accident the day he graduated high school and can no longer remember anything up to the moment of the accident,so he has to start a new life with his new found friends.
At first you might be deceived when you hear that the anime is set in a college setting and not in the usual overused high school one,but unfortunately that all falls apart very quickly.With very few exceptions here and there,some minors details (having a drivers license,being able to skip courses with no consequences) ,the college years theme is barely used ,nowhere near its full potential. There was no reason whatsoever why it didn't take place in high school especially since the main characters join a classic dance club (you cant have a high school without any kind of clubs or club related activities) So don't expect something in the lines of Honey of Clover or Nodame Cantabile,because Golden Time will utterly disappoint you in that regard.
Secondly you would also naturally expect a more mature cast of young adults characters that have already passed their troubled high school years and are just 1 step away from adulthood.This again is completely thrown out the window right from the very start.
For characters that are 18-20 years old they act,look and talk like they barely are in their first year of high school (some even middle school) Angst,sudden change of moods in a matter of seconds ,indecisiveness,quick to judge and not listen afterwards .... its all here for the viewers (dis)pleasure.
Now lets touch upon the main problem Golden Time suffers: heavy reliance on amnesia as a constant plot device.I'm sorry but in this day and age making the very dated and used to the extreme amnesia mechanic and not even giving it a proper serious tone (its used as a on/off switch whenever the plot dictates) is just a recipe for disaster.
This is also if made worse by the stupid decision of making Tada Banri past memories take form as a haunting ghost and not just a spiritual/narrator type presence ,but instead as a active physical presence who gets in the way when the story progresses to much and needs a urgent "hand brake".Basically what happened in Natsuyuki Rendezvous anime with the ghost happens here,although to a lesser extent.
And finally the last straw is when your main character Tada Banri is just a bland ,uninteresting,spineless,no goals or dreams type of main character and you still focus most of your screen time on him.Yes to be fair the anime does try to make him sympathetic with his back-story and emotional struggle ,but its all handled very poorly and drags on for a unnecessary long amount of time. You just wish they would get it over it and give some of the secondary characters their turn with some much needed screen time.
These 3 things combined really take down Golden Time from the heights it could have otherwise climbed upon and straight into the depths of mediocrity.
The other main character is Kaga Kouko,she is initially introduced as Mitsuo childhood friend and also stalker ,but is extremely quickly turned into Tada's girlfriend.The process where she gets over Mitsuo and falls for Tada happens so fast and is so badly handled that it really makes you question her character altogether.
She is very jealous,obsessive,quick to judge and act out,but in contrast also is very lonely (although this is barely touched upon),devoted to the people close to her and genuinely has all the best intentions at heart.
Nevertheless she is still the best thing to come out of this anime and would have honestly deserved a better series for her to star in.
The romance between the 2 main characters is very hit and miss,like I said earlier it starts off much to fast (Banri instantly falls for Kouko at first sight) and doesn't take enough time for it to properly build up.There are some genuinely good moments shared between them ( the beach part,the Eiffel tower scene) but overall its not a very convincing romance ,mostly because of how bad of a character Banri is.
It also doesn't help that there aren't all that many scenes for only the two of them to share screen time.There always has to be another friend just popping up,boring club activity ,the usual funny bit during a serious moment part.... for them to actually develop like a normal couple would.
Secondary characters are very bland and underdeveloped : Linda is nothing more than a walking plot device meant to start and stop the story whenever things progress to fast,its never made clear what her true intentions are towards the main male character until the very end of the series.
Mitsuo ,the best friend character, is just there to take out screen time.He starts out as the reason why Kouko joins the same university in order to follow him around,but that quickly goes by.His romantic progression with Oka and later on with Linda is very basic ,completely forgotten and thrown out the window like nothing ever happened.
"2D-kun" is a comic relief type of character ,who does manage to get a few smiles and chuckles out of the viewer here and there.But like the other secondary characters is completely underdeveloped.
Notable mentions goes to the Nana character who is literally taken from another series altogether ,well its not exactly 1:1 Nana from the Nana anime, but its extremely close to her original form.I'm not sure if this was intentional by the author or not ,like some sort of inside joke of sorts ,but borrowing a character from a series that is much,much better than your current one is a disastrous idea imho.
CHARACTERS 5
Art and Sound are ok-good for the most part.Nothing to noteworthy to report ,production values are what you would expect from a anime made in 2013.Nice character models ,decent backgrounds,good animation...
The VA who voiced Banri was the weakest part sound wise though,its true that he didn't have much to work with in the first place,but he didn't help alleviate the pain that was Tada Banri to deal with.
ART & SOUND 7
In conclusion enjoying Golden Time solely depends on what your expectations are.Hopping for a second Toradora! will probably leave you slightly disappointed but still able to enjoy it depending on how much you can suspend your disbelief ,tolerate the characters and overuse of plot conveniences.
Hoping for something like Honey and Clove ,where it follows the lives of a close group of friends during their college years, will really make you disappointed.The way GT handled its group of friends ,out of which two are romantically involved, was nowhere the level of Honey and Clover where comedy and romance was blended superbly well.
By no means is it a bad series, but its still a shame that it ended up the way it did. A lot of unfulfilled promise that was just badly handled.
