Recap: Koko becomes increasingly concerned when she can’t get in touch with Tada Banri. She eventually tracks down the party where he’s working. THIS CANNOT END WELL.

Jel’s Thoughts: Despite panning out exactly the way you expect it to, this episode of Golden Time did a fantastic job of making you feel tense and uncomfortable. I think the key factor is making situations that should be black and white, right or wrong decisions a little more gray than you would expect. For example, at the party it was definitely a poor life decision for Tada Banri to grab Linda in such a suggestive way, but the build up with Mitsuo and everyone slowly eroding their inhibitions made the results very believable.

A more straightforward example is the final conversation with Linda. On paper Tada Banri is doing the right thing by setting boundaries with their relationship, but the body language of the characters and tone of the scene makes you feel like it’s not. It’s pretty clear Linda does love him despite what she says, and asking her to just forget her high school life is a selfish request after what he just did. You might try to blame Amnesia Ghost as he tries to force his way back out, but it’s really present day Tada Banri’s bad timing that ends up hurting both girls. Had he just been honest with Koko about the job in the first place, maybe she would have come along and the whole group could have had fun. Instead, no one is really happy, and you can’t blame Amnesia Ghost for that.

Basically I felt really bad for both girls as Koko started to blame herself and Linda’s feelings got curb stomped harder than ever before. If Tada Banri made one good decision in this block of episodes, it was slowing down Koko as she tried to accelerate their relationship. Her insecurity might have been the most painful thing to watch of all. It should be interesting to see what happens next week as the previews seem to make it out to be a much lighter episode, but with the lingering tension and Koko’s now justified trust issues it might be even more tense to watch everyone try and mask them with fun.