Coming straight off the bat from Oshi no Ko S2, its a little hard to look at most anime with a critical eye. That show is just goated through and through so most contrast and compares end with a slight tinge of disappointment. This is why I started watching this. I wanted a good show and a good emotional hook. I can safely say Golden Time delivered on both fronts.
This isn’t to say I didn’t have my gripes with the show. Like how oblivious our main character is sometimes. I just wanted to punch that guy, just a little bit at least. These are thoughts I share with most romance anime so it didn’t bother me too much. Or rather I buried them as deep as possible in a corner of my mind. That aside, I genuinely enjoyed this a lot. I wouldn’t have been able to watch it all in one sitting if it wasn’t doing something right. It kept me intrigued the whole way through.
I did take a short break midway when the pacing slowed down and started to drag a little, but once the next arc kicked in, it was banger after banger straight through to the end. I wouldn’t call this peak however, its got wayy too many tropes that go overly hard that I’m not a fan of. But it did what it was trying to do. To an excellent degree at that. I didn’t fall flat on its face or make overly stupid concessions to get the story across. Especially the emotional parts of the story. They were quite solid and hit right where it needed to.
The soundtrack is amazing, but the OPs and EDs tho… I only listened to them once and once only. I skipped all of them. If they were just a tad bit better I’m sure I would’ve been more invested in how each episode ended but alas, that didn’t happen.