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apr · 2013-03-17, 14:31

I was kind of hoping for a live-action adaptation of this, since it would reach a bigger audience (and Yuyuko-sensei deserves it).

This is what I wrote three years ago when I'd finished the first novel:

---

Made it all the way to the end of Golden Time tonight. After Toradora I was a huge fan of this author, and had no clue what to expect. The summary sounded way too similar to her previous series, and I was worried it'd be a boring retread, but I think GT manages to feel different enough that it wasn't a problem at all.

In fact, I find it hard to think of it quite as a light novel. It's just a bit too mature, compared to all the other series I've read under that label, and the illustrations are so tiny that I can't help but wonder if they just stuffed them in there to abide by some kind of publisher regulation. That's not to say it's, you know, proper adult literature. Still, it's a lot more like seinen manga, and with a character called NANA-senpai (seriously), it's easy to make the connection to the manga with that name.

To put it bluntly, Golden Time is a love soap in college setting.

If you ever watched the j-drama Orange Days, that's not too far off in feel. Mind you, I liked Orange Days. And I really enjoyed reading GT. It's not as funny (comical, that is) as Toradora was, but then Toradora floated away from the comedy gradually as it went along, while GT pretty much starts at the end of Toradora's spectrum. It's fascinating to read about the life of a Japanese university student, and compare it to how I felt moving away from home to study in a new town, getting used to living without my parents, and encountering all the strange people at campus. Fresh, is a simple way to describe the book.

It's not a masterpiece, though. To begin with, the protagonist lacks any real character, so he feels pretty bland when you're used to light novels where everyone is easily identified by certain strong features. At the outset, the plot is also very loose, with no discernible goal to work towards, which makes it, well, not boring, exactly, but somewhat difficult to follow. Events occur a bit too haphazardly and disjointedly, much like real life, and at times I had to wonder what the point of a certain (absurd) chapter was, and why it was given so many pages. It doesn't help that the writing is ruthless to foreigners like me, who still struggle with slang and modern youth talk not found in a dictionary, which made some of the conversations tricky. Narrative sentences are also longer and more complex than I'm used to, so I'm definitely putting this title down as one of the harder light novels I've encountered.

Anyway. What really makes Golden Time interesting is the delicate time period it uses as setting: late teens, early twenties. The characters are right at the age where love and relationships are starting to grow complicated. It's no longer about running around drunk on emotions, instead it's an age where you approach emotions carefully -- or stumble over them -- and have to reflect on what they really mean, and how pursuing them will affect you and your future. And perhaps you'll reach the wrong conclusion the first time, and end up with a massive failure on your hands. Then grow as a person, trying to overcome that pain.

The author expresses all this perfectly, with vivid scenes that often made me think back on what it was like to be their age. The pages are teeming with the passion of youth. And that, strangely, is pretty rare these days.

2013-03-17, 14:31	Link #23
apr Pedestrian Join Date: May 2003 Location: Sweden	I was kind of hoping for a live-action adaptation of this, since it would reach a bigger audience (and Yuyuko-sensei deserves it). This is what I wrote three years ago when I'd finished the first novel: --- Made it all the way to the end of Golden Time tonight. After Toradora I was a huge fan of this author, and had no clue what to expect. The summary sounded way too similar to her previous series, and I was worried it'd be a boring retread, but I think GT manages to feel different enough that it wasn't a problem at all. In fact, I find it hard to think of it quite as a light novel. It's just a bit too mature, compared to all the other series I've read under that label, and the illustrations are so tiny that I can't help but wonder if they just stuffed them in there to abide by some kind of publisher regulation. That's not to say it's, you know, proper adult literature. Still, it's a lot more like seinen manga, and with a character called NANA-senpai (seriously), it's easy to make the connection to the manga with that name. To put it bluntly, Golden Time is a love soap in college setting. If you ever watched the j-drama Orange Days, that's not too far off in feel. Mind you, I liked Orange Days. And I really enjoyed reading GT. It's not as funny (comical, that is) as Toradora was, but then Toradora floated away from the comedy gradually as it went along, while GT pretty much starts at the end of Toradora's spectrum. It's fascinating to read about the life of a Japanese university student, and compare it to how I felt moving away from home to study in a new town, getting used to living without my parents, and encountering all the strange people at campus. Fresh, is a simple way to describe the book. It's not a masterpiece, though. To begin with, the protagonist lacks any real character, so he feels pretty bland when you're used to light novels where everyone is easily identified by certain strong features. At the outset, the plot is also very loose, with no discernible goal to work towards, which makes it, well, not boring, exactly, but somewhat difficult to follow. Events occur a bit too haphazardly and disjointedly, much like real life, and at times I had to wonder what the point of a certain (absurd) chapter was, and why it was given so many pages. It doesn't help that the writing is ruthless to foreigners like me, who still struggle with slang and modern youth talk not found in a dictionary, which made some of the conversations tricky. Narrative sentences are also longer and more complex than I'm used to, so I'm definitely putting this title down as one of the harder light novels I've encountered. Anyway. What really makes Golden Time interesting is the delicate time period it uses as setting: late teens, early twenties. The characters are right at the age where love and relationships are starting to grow complicated. It's no longer about running around drunk on emotions, instead it's an age where you approach emotions carefully -- or stumble over them -- and have to reflect on what they really mean, and how pursuing them will affect you and your future. And perhaps you'll reach the wrong conclusion the first time, and end up with a massive failure on your hands. Then grow as a person, trying to overcome that pain. The author expresses all this perfectly, with vivid scenes that often made me think back on what it was like to be their age. The pages are teeming with the passion of youth. And that, strangely, is pretty rare these days. __________________ ...in my humble opinion.