3ET: Golden Time

That's right, ladies. Slapping the guy you stalked to his college with a
bouquet of roses will totally win over his heart!

Studio: J.C. Staff

Director: Kon Chiaki (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Junjou Romantica)

Writer: Shimo Fumihiko (Infinite Stratos, Clannad)

Main Cast:

Furukawa Makoto as Tada Banri

Horie Yui as Kaga Kouko

Ishikawa Kaito as Yanigasawa Mitsuo

Character Design: Hasegawa Shinya (Revolutionary Girl Utena)

Music: Hashimoto Yukari (Mawaru Penguindrum, Sankarea)

I'm going to start this post by adding one more piece of information to what's above the cut. Golden Time is based on a series of light novels by Takemiya Yuyuko, who also wrote the light novels of the popular and highly regarded Toradora series. While I haven't completed Toradora (I'll go don the cone of shame), I'm hoping that there is a good portrayal of romance, especially as Golden Time deals with college students, instead of the normal high school setting where the majority of romance shows take place. Does this show meet my expectations? Let's find out.

While not the viewpoint character, the first three episodes are centered around Kaga Koko, a beautiful heiress to a hospital (which we are told multiple times as people pass her by). Koko has stalked followed her childhood sweetheart, Mitsuo, to the college that our main character, Tada Banri, attends (more on him later). To put it succinctly, Koko is the epitome of the psycho ex-girlfriend. Yes, she's an ex-girlfriend. Despite her protests to the contrary, the object of her obsession, Mitsuo, wants nothing to do with her, and this puts our protagonist, Tada Banri, in an awkward position. She keeps running into him, trying to force him to divulge any information about Mitsuo (which he thankfully denies her). And when the show tries to make her out to be a sympathetic character, because no one wants to talk to an immature brat hung up on a guy who doesn't want her, it's terrible. The only positive I can say about her is that she has a personality, unlike Tada Bunri.

It doesn't matter how much you like him, Koko. You are not his girlfriend.

I keep referring to him with his full name because he's so forgettable he has to introduce himself multiple times to Koko. At least, that's what I like to think. Tada Bunri is a first year law student at a Tokyo university, doesn't really know his way around, and is living on his own for the first time. He has no real distinguishing characteristics except a complete lack of a spine when it comes to saying no to people. He's a grown up version of the boring anime adolescent protagonist. This is attempted to be explained away by a reveal that Tada Bunri has amnesia, with his entire personality being wiped away after an accident in high school. Instead of showing us his difficulties in dealing with people who have known him his entire life, but who are strangers to him, a show that could work by the way, he just rambles his way through this in an conversation with Koko in episode three.

And there is one other thing about Golden Time that really bugged me. It was manic in its transitions. One moment, there would be serious conversations about how insane Koko is and how hard it is to keep lying to her. Then, during the next scene, the cast is involved with drunken club parties or being kidnapped by a cult. The emotional whiplash may have been meant to portray the insanity of college life, but my college days were never that crazy.

Get drunk! Wrestle dudes with your shirt off! COLLEGE!

It should come as no surprise that I failed Golden Time. More than that though, I want to reiterate that a girl being crazy obsessed about a guy, to the point where she is chasing after him and begging his friends for any information about him is not romantic. It's insane and creepy. How do I know this? It's quite simple. I thought about all the crazy shit Koko pulled in the first three episodes. Then, I reversed the genders.