On a personal note, Golden Time Anime stood as one of my more favourite iterations of the typical Rom-Com story told in the unnerving world of Anime. There was one simple reason for that, and despite being quite personal, the reason still reminds me of that character. Linda senpai. Yet another thing that has been of particular interest to me whenever I recall Golden Time, is that of Tada Banri losing his memories. How exactly did he lose them?
What is Banri Tada’s problem called?
The basic premise, or the gist of the answer is that Tada Banri suffers from Retrograde Amnesia. That is a form of amnesia that renders an individual incapable of retrieving memory due to a previous accident or illness.
And before proceeding any further, it feels justified to explain to this reading lot, that Amnesia is quite different from the typical understanding of it. It is not and has most probably never been, as simple as people losing their memories completely. Amnesia on many fronts is quite a complex phenomenon.
The thing about memory
- Memory is a difficult and complicated matter. Equivalent (almost) to the functioning of computer hardware, our brains wire like an electrical circuit, running through the synapses and connecting the neural gush of cells into retrieving memory stored in different units of our brain.
- You may have heard how first kisses are remembered and stored in the Hippocampus (said Kurisu Makise, our favourite scientist herself). Similarly, not all memories are always lost forever.
Oftentimes Amnesia looks like remembering a ghastly shape yet not being able to recall the shape’s name. That’s a metaphor, now apply this to remembering people, events, and things about your life whose outline you barely seem to recognize, yet never fully grasp.
Though, I would dare reckon that most rom-coms’ portrayals of amnesia tend to stray to a path of fantastical visualization of the illness. Even perhaps inclining individuals to want to induce amnesia upon themselves, in the hope that their Disney Princess fantasy (or Korean Drama fantasy, if I may) play out in actuality.
How did Banri lose his memories in Golden Time Anime?
On the day of the graduation ceremony, as Tada Banri approaches to confess his love to Linda Senpai, he slips and falls from a bridge, resulting in severe brain damage, resulting further in his Amnesia.
Is it realistic?
Now the incident with Tada Banri and his retrograde amnesia does take a wee bit step away from a realistic approach, typical to Anime or KDrama or Disney Princess fantasies maybe.. Appeasing to the audience, Banri’s forgetting of his memory serves as a gush of lubrication that paves a much-needed way for Golden Time Anime’s plot to blossom in all its golden-ness.
Banri is portrayed as hallucinating a ghost that follows him, a ghost that is apparently a ghost of his past self. Wandering and wanting to merge with his body. The kind of approach Golden Time Anime takes in dealing with Tada Banri’s forgotten memories is that of the complete death of his past ego.
Concluding
GOLDEN TIME is a good anime 💅🏼 https://t.co/nK1MbevAQn pic.twitter.com/RQdqDx2dwM
— Divina Extravaganza (@DivExtravaganza) August 23, 2023
This happens prior to the beginning of the story. When Golden Time Anime begins, we follow the journey of a newly born Tada Banri, who’s more or less devoid of any understanding of his past self’s thinking, actions, memories, or even, and in this case, the most important factor – love.