Golden Time (Volume 1) - The Hand of Fate Holds Roses

It’s Tada Banri’s first day at college and he’s lost. Luckily, there’s another guy with the same envelope as him so he must be going to the same place. Unfortunately, he’s lost too.

Golden Time (Volume 1) – The Hand of Fate Holds Roses

What happened?

Tada Banri and Yanagisawa Mitsou soon become friends as they search for the college building. On their way there, Yana reveals that he left his old school because of a girl. Tada wanted more details, but then a stunning girl stepped out of a car carrying a bunch of roses and slapped him in the face with them… Kaga Kouko was the girl and she has this grand plan for her and Yana that he is not on board with.

Tada can’t quite understand his reluctance. She’s gorgeous after all. However, Yana so tells him about her perfect life story and how she won’t leave him alone. She even secretly enrolled in the same college and spends her days trying to find Yana. She regularly asks Tada about him, but he’s not giving up any details, despite how sorry he feels for her. She may be beautiful, but everyone seems to give her a wide berth.

Tada and Yana spent the next week attending club parties, however, Kaga had not been invited to one. The more Tada saw the more he felt sorry for her, even if it all was just an act to get him to talk about Yana. One such conversation got highjacked by a girl that wanted to invite them to an overnight camping trip for new club members. It wasn’t until they got there that they learnt that they were a cult. Tada sacrificed himself to let everyone else leave, hoping to get the contact sheet that they all filled out and destroy it. However, Kaga came back for him.

Golden Time Volume 1 Kaga hits Tada with roses

What did you think?

This was actually a funny and cute story. At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of Kaga, but the more time she spent with Tada the more interesting she became. Tada clearly likes Kaga and seems to be prepared to take his time getting her to take her attention off Yana. However, there was also Linda who appeared at the end of the volume to save them from the cultists. She seems cute too and could help in the process, especially if Kaga starts to get jealous.

It was interesting to see a series focused on university-aged students rather than high school kids. I definitely got some flashbacks from freshers’ fairs as I was reading it. I also see that this series has an anime that aired back in the fall of 2013, so I may have to check that out at some point.

Of course, the truly fascinating part of this was that Tada lost his memories after high school. His entire personality was reset and every now and then he gets flashbacks. I get the feeling that Kaga will help him recover his memories, although I like that he’s not that keen on becoming someone else since he is who he is now. I’m intrigued and will definitely be reading more.