I’ve come to the conclusion that Nana is supposed to symbolize the audience’s perception of Banri
- Last week, we learned a little bit more about Banri and Linda’s pasts, specifically that Linda has an older brother.
- Summary of Episode 10: As Banri’s spirit permeates his body in the middle of the night, he accidently slips and falls. This causes the spirit to exit the body, and Banri doesn’t know what had just happened. However, his injury from falling takes all the energy out of him, and while on his way to see Linda, Nana finds him and takes pity on him and takes him to the hospital. After he is released from the hospital, he goes to his apartment where Linda is waiting for him. She stays by his side until Kouko, 2D, and Yanagisawa show up to comfort Banri. All of them start to talking, but Banri falls asleep. When he awakens in the middle of the night, he sees that everybody went home except for Kouko, who stayed by his side the whole time.
Nah, but would you mind doing so next time?
- My Take: Talking about an episode with no substance whatsoever isn’t going to be easy, but I’ll do my best.
- I stated in my recap of episode 8 just how much I hate misleading cliffhangers. Golden Time is completely littered with these. Last week, you’ll remember my absolute distain for the ending where it appeared that the spirit came back to Banri. Yeah, it does come back to him, but it does so for a minute until Banri slips and scrapes his chin. Okay, I should be incredibly happy about the fact that this annoying spirit isn’t going to be our main character from now on, but I’m not (half lie, I really am). I’m not happy because of the false advertising. If you have a cliffhanger like that, then go with it. The people involved in this anime can’t be that desperate to drum up people to continue watching this show every week, can they? Do they really need to pull stuff like this? It’s just so blatant and obnoxious.
- The entire episode is fluff. There is no substance here. Nothing to further the story. Episodes like these are obviously dialog dependent, but even the dialog is dry and unnatural. It’s not that they’re just spouting exposition, it’s quite the opposite. They just…talk. Episodes like this can be very interesting if the characters can play off each other well, but it doesn’t work here. Kouko has the personality of a block of woodGolden Time Episode 10 and Banri kills any mood by becoming randomly serious with internal monologues that all say the same thing. In a show with a premise like this, how can they have made these characters so bland that they can’t carry a dialog episode on their own?
- Basically, what I’m trying to say is that this episode was not only pointless, but it was also boring.
Because we really need a reminder that these two are dating
- When Banri and Kouko have scenes alone together, I don’t know, it just seems so awkward. Just sitting there while they try to have romantic or meaningful moments is just so uncomfortable. Also, why are they trying to set a time or place to have sex? I mean, do they have no clue on the natural progression of a relationship?
- This whole episode revolved around Banri slipping and falling, and somehow getting sick. So all the characters skip classes to be with him. Even though all of our main characters are present here (with the exception of Chinami), 2D and Yanagisawa barely have any lines. It seems that 2D’s only dialog he’ll ever have is explaining why he is called 2D. I hate it when any character with potential to be great is pushed aside, and 2D could be a lot of fun to follow. Same with Yanagisawa, all of his lines seem to be there just to piss Kouko off. This isn’t as much a complaint as it is a call for something to be given to these characters to make them more three-dimensional.
Yanagisawa’s melodramatic nature is just one of the reasons he needs more lines
- Okay. I’ll quit bashing these characters for a bit and talk about something I actually liked about this episode. Nana finally gets some lines! And she actually shows some compassion! She is the one small beacon of light in this series for me in terms of likable characters. But it seems off because she seems to be written with the intent for the audience to hate this character. But she points out everything that pisses her off about the people around her! How can I not like a character who has the exact same thoughts as I do?
- Anyway, she was great in this episode because of her willingness to actually help Banri out. I like that about her, she seems like a nice person who just wants to be an individual and have her alone time. I usually like characters like that, so I pretty much have a bias for her.
- In the end, though, this episode was just so bland. Nothing happened. Hopefully it’s just a slight detour from wherever this show is planning on going.
