Thursday 20 March 2014

Golden Time - Episode 23

To compound Banri's misery at being dumped by Koko, she's now about to walk out of the festival club too - something which he simply can't countenance.

After chasing her down, he correctly guesses the real reason for their break up, that being that Koko simply can't stand the thought of being around and in love with a Banri who disappears along with his post-accident memories.  With this all out in the open, the pair agree to remain friends, with Koko also remaining in the festival club - unfortunately, Mitsu isn't so easily placated, as he refused to talk to Banri and makes himself scarce both inside and out of classes.


In an attempt to rectify things as Banri becomes more spaced out and Koko seems more upset by the day, Satou suggests another get-together for this group of friends - once again though, this meeting is short-circuited by the loss of Banri's recent memories once more, this time right in front of Koko, leaving it to Linda to pick up the pieces again.  With things clearly getting worse, Banri realises that it's time to return home and to seek medical attention, but not before one last hurrah at the school festival before all of these memories look set to desert him forever.

As flimsy as its amnesia plot point continues to be, I can't really deny that it's used to create some harrowing drama in this week's episode in particular - the idea of both losing cherished memories or knowing that a loved one might lose them, and even worse seeing them forget who you are right in front of you is hard to countenance and equally hard to watch.  Even Banri's acceptance of his fate doesn't really help with this, and I'm now interested to see how the final episode deals with things as they're left here... it feels like this may be a closing episode that resolves nothing in terms of the relationships between characters, but we shall see.  For now though, I will certainly give Golden Time credit for running with what is on the surface a lazy narrative conceit but managing to make pretty good use of it.

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