Notes of Golden Time Episode 8

Yeah, I think we’ve all come to realize that

Summary of episode 8: Opening with a flashback, Linda discusses with some of her friends why she and Banri aren’t dating, but Banri overhears and becomes very distant from her. In the present, Banri goes to check on Yanagisawa after he gets a call from Kouko saying that he might be in trouble. Banri comes to find him in his filthy apartment as he speaks about how Chinami’s rejection has taken its toll on him. Banri then resolves to have a party to cheer Yanagisawa up, but through a turn of events, Chinami is accidentally invited. This causes Kouko to finally realize her hatred towards Chinami is pointless. Banri, Yanagisawa, Kouko, 2D, and Chinami all proceed to hang out together, where they all make a pact of friendship. After the party, Banri talks to Linda about his past self, and we learn from his spirit that he’s still in love with Linda.

How many of you would honestly pretend to be gay to help your friend out? Respect.

My Take: Golden Time seems to be getting back on track. I’ll say that I liked this episode more than last week’s episode, but it still had some flaws. If you read my recap last week, then you’ll probably already have a sense of what I felt was wrong with this episode.

First, I have to comment on how misleading the cliffhanger from the previous episode was. After Banri got the call from Kouko saying, “[Yanagisawa] might be in trouble!” But what was this trouble? He left early. I mean, I know that cliffhangers are supposed to be over-dramatic, but this one was over-dramatic to an obnoxious level. It had the dramatic music playing and an extremely serious tone in Kouko’s voice. I thought that Yanagisawa was acting out in self destructive ways. But no, he was just acting a little out of the ordinary.

The opening to this episode exemplified everything I despise about Banri as a character:
1. First, he runs away from his problems. We see him literally not talk to Linda just because he overheard something relatively minor she said about him. I can understand if he feels hurt by that, but if you really love somebody, you talk to them about it. You don’t run away.
2. Second, he runs away so far to the point where he forces others to deal with his problems for him. Linda had to apologize to him? How about he apologize for being a distant person when he gets a tiny bit of unsettling news? He’s such a self-centered character, and that makes it hard to have any sympathy for his past situation.
3. Lastly, he doesn’t even talk to her when she tries to talk to him about it. I can understand not wanting to initiate a conversation like that because of how awkward it might be, but once it’s out there in the open, it doesn’t make sense to avoid it, especially in the way that Banri does by physically running away. If he really did love her and she was willing to talk about it, then he should have that conversation.

Ugh. That stupid spirit returns. There’s even a part where it seemed to be taking over Banri’s body and trying to become him again. This is admittedly an interestingly abstract take on regaining lost memories. But if Banri becomes his former self, he’d become an even less likable character. So I don’t like this.

So, now that I’ve got my negative comments out of the way, it’s time to be positive because this episode actually had more aspects to it that I liked than disliked.

I know I give Banri a lot of flack for being an overemotional, one-dimensional character. But in this episode, he actually proved to me that his character has a little bit of depth at times. I’m speaking specifically about how he saved Yanagisawa from that overbearing woman by pretending to be his boyfriend. I don’t know how many friends would do that for somebody, but I have to give respect for that.

Minimalism for the win. The “2D” over 2D’s kart is pretty clever

We finally get a little insight into how Yanagisawa is reacting to him being rejected by Chinami. Like Banri, he runs away from his problems. However, it works better for Yanagisawa because we start to delve into his mind. He runs away from it because he feels that everybody knows just how much of a fool he thinks he made of himself. It shows him becoming a paranoid mess. And it’s also understandable when he doesn’t want to talk to Chinami because he’s shown not only to be afraid of rejection, but of discussing his rejection. It’s kind of like talking about his flaws, and we’ve seen that he does not like to have his flaws known, much less discussed. Sometimes it seems like these two should have been the main focus.

Kouko has a great revelation in this episode. At this point, she still despises Chinami. But after Kouko tries to suffocate her, Chinami asks her why she hates her so much. She makes the point that she originally hater her because Chinami was spending time with Yanagisawa when she herself was in love with him. But now that she has Banri, why should she continue the hatred? After this sequence, it was nice to see the cogs turn in Kouko’s head as she finally realized that her hatred was completely dumbfounded.

Well, this is anime. And you are a lonely young man. It’s only natural

I don’t think Linda should have to settle for Banri. She shouldn’t chase him. I know that she says that she didn’t have feelings like that for him, but we need to remember that this is anime, and she’s the childhood friend. So there’s a big chance that these two will get together.

This is the official point where this conversation needs to end

Lastly, sometimes it feels like Linda’s with Banri not in a romantic sense, but out of guilt. It’s like she feels guilty for causing his memory loss, and wants to make up for it by spending time with Banri. I would hope that this is her intent rather than one that is more romantic.

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