Notes of Golden Time Episode 11

The characters in this show who will never be given names have much better advice than our main characters

• Last week, Banri was stuck in bed after an injury took its toll on his health.

• Summary of Golden Time Episode 11: With Banri recovering, he decides to take action on his proposition of taking Kouko to the beach. He then gets told that without any money, he’ll have a hard time satisfying Kouko’s needs. The problem with that is that Kouko forbids Banri to get a job because she doesn’t want it to take up all of his time. So now Banri must find a job in secret. Nana says that she has a job for him but only if he brings Yanagisawa with him. They both agree, and find out that the job is to cater to a party while wearing provocative outfits. While there, Banri comes across Linda, who was also part of the service staff.

If this is “holding herself back”, I’d hate to see her “overbearing”

• My Take: After a dreadfully boring start to this episode, it somehow became something… amazing? Not quite, but it became entertaining for once. But we’ll get to that in a bit. First, the disappointment!

• The first part of the episode centers around how Banri doesn’t know if he has feelings for Kouko or Linda. Or something like that. But any trace of those conflicting emotions is thrown out the window when Banri asks the upperclassmen for advice on getting to the beach. They take it out of context and start giving him really strange advice on how to be “romantic” with Kouko at the beach.

• Kouko goes creepy in this episode. Okay, scratch that. Kouko goes really creepy in this episode. She still hates Chinami for some odd reason, and she won’t allow Banri to get a job because she won’t be able to see him as often. Then she goes off into one of the creepiest monologues about her “subtle” love for Banri. She’s just smothering the guy, and she can’t realize it! She’s making me feel bad for Banri! And I hate Banri!

• One quick note: Kouko stole the old picture of Banri and Linda. Is this out of jealousy? Scorn for Linda? We’ll find out later.

• But the episode did one thing very right; it felt like a real episode. It had a definite beginning, middle, and end. I wish every episode followed this formula:
  1. Beginning: Banri needs to take Kouko to the beach, but he needs money.
  2. Middle: Since Kouko doesn’t want Banri to get a job, he needs to find one in secret.
  3. End: Banri finally finds a job doing questionable work.

• The formula is easy to follow. Just throw in the main plot of the story in the background of these events, and you’ll have a good, satisfying episode.

Kouko has now crossed from “stalker” territory to “serial killer” territory

• I just realized; why is this anime called Golden Time? I never dwelled on it much, but it seems like it has no relevance. I know that the place our characters occasionally meet at is called Golden Time… but does it really serve that much significance? We’ll see… I guess.

• Okay, now time to talk about the entertaining aspects of this episode.

• In Banri’s pursuit to find part-time work, he and Yanagisawa are both approached by the Tea Club to work some odd-jobs for them. Although our heroes decline in a not-too-subtle way, this gives me hope: the Tea Club still occasionally pops up in the show! I don’t know what my fascination for this club is, but I like that they haven’t been completely written out at this point.

• Basically, the best part of this episode was the last (roughly) six minutes where Banri and Yanagisawa are hired to do an odd-job by Nana. This job turns out to be a serving job at a party. But this is no ordinary party or catering job; the best way I can describe it is a masquerade ball gone horribly wrong. This forces Banri and Yanagisawa to dress up as servants. First, Banri has to dress up in a French maid outfit with a wig on, and he takes it surprisingly well! It highlights one positive aspect of Banri’s character; he’s fairly optimistic. Second, Yanagisawa has to dress up in nothing but skimpy flesh-colored swim briefs. He takes this a little less positively than Banri takes his public embarrassment.

Seems like I’m running into a lot of cross-dressing male characters recently…

• I don’t know why, but the whole party ending was amazing. I think that it was just so out of the blue. At any rate, it was a nice change of pace from the empty void that is the rest of the show.

• I’m also happy that Nana is getting more screen-time. I hope they don’t screw it up and ruin her character. She’s easily my favorite.

Remember: this is anime. We need at least one character to do this pose and have this dialog. At least she’s not saying “onii-chan”

… and the response is kind of clever. I don’t know if it’s intentional parody of this stereotype, but I would like to assume so

• But you know what the best part of this episode was? It wasn’t the party, no… it was the absence of the Banri-Spirit and any trace of a flashback! It almost seemed like, dare I say, a cohesive episode! As we approach the halfway point of this series, I can only hope that we have many, many more episodes like this ahead of us.