ANIME: Golden Time

I've been watching an anime (Japanese animation) called Golden Time. It's about college students, in law school in Tokyo, and their messy pasts and love lives. It's about how who you were defines who you are, and how when plans fail you can find yourself really lost. I know all about THAT. The dating scene at this college is pretty desperate too, and those with any self respect at all are surrounded by those who lack it. That's like real college. You have to respect an anime that shows teenagers what college life is actually like, and how unpleasant romance is going to be. I wish American women would understand that, but whatever. They're clueless or mean beyond words. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground.

Last season, there was even an amusing anime, a comedy, called Servant Service, which is about how college graduates with mediocre grades could take the civil service exams, something we have here too, and get jobs working at a local city govt office accomplishing filing of properly filled out forms, and directing poor people which lines to stand in for assistance. Its pretty awful work, but if you're not a great student, this is what you do. In the story, there were some amusing romantic relationships, but romance in anime is usually either tragic, where one dies, or comedic, where events conspire to prevent happiness and in Japan, they fade to black with the kiss. They'll give you nudity, but won't admit people have relationships beyond a kiss. I think, maybe, this could be a cultural problem. Upside to college stories is you get really messed up circumstances, believable ones, for why things aren't working for couples. Beyond the usual "money".

Golden Time has some pretty serious adult themes in it, like obsession and codependency and grief and betrayal and even really serious injury. In many ways it is similar to Honey and Clover, which is two seasons long, the first being mostly charming and the second being a serious tear-jerker with a gut-stab of an ending. I keep wondering if this show will do similar, but it is made by the same group that made Tora Dora, which did eventually pull off a happy resolution. Hard to say. This isn't a simple and limited high-school world, but an adult college with adult problems, like alcoholism, cultists, sexual consequences, and walking wounded resulting from all the trauma they've survived. It isn't easy. I'd say that Golden Time is how I would have written it, which surprises me most of all. I would have written a story like this. And that's the highest praise I can give.