Golden Time Episode 1 [First Impression]

Eva’s First Impression:
*YAWNNNNN* Oh is it over? Thank god! That was so bland and boring! I am sorely disappointed with the premiere. I wasn’t holding any expectations whatsoever, the only thing that had excited me was knowing that this story is by the same author of Toradora which is one of my favourite romance to date. Golden Time definitely has a different mood and it’s clear there’s going to be a different pace and air since the characters are older and we’re in a different setting, but the kick off? Epic fail. There was nothing good about it. In particular I am not a fan of Tada Banri, his character came off as dull male lead. And don’t get me started on the part when he decided to hand out the roses Koko had used to bitchslap Mitsuo with, I was rolling my eyes. Instead it was Mitsuo who was a bit more interesting, just barely though. He used to attend a prestigious school that would act as an ‘escalator’ but decided to attend the current university in order to run away from Koko. Then we we have Kaga Koko, who appears to be quite an obsessed girlfriend- not to mention potentially might be a control freak (but it all varies on just how much Mitsuo has been exaggerating the story). Clearly she has her reasons for being obsessed with Mitsuo and wanting to ensure that she’s with him all the time, but her feelings are clearly one-sided. I don’t know whether they were ever in a romantic relationship though- it was too vague to tell (forget the roses), it has been confirmed though that they are childhood friends at the very least. Koko definitely is a lot livelier than our main guy, but still there seems to be something missing- heck that applies to every character that debuted this episode (INCLUDING Linda/Hayashida, however she wants to be called). They are all lacking something and as result as of right now: I simply don’t care about any of them.
It’s pretty clear that there’s going to be a love triangle in the picture but at the same time, I don’t know… I can’t help but feel skeptical. What I do know is that it is definitely too early to judge, and it’s probably the best idea to go along with the three episode rules to get a sense of direction- especially when I know shit will eventually hit the fan at some point or another. The only things that had actually caught my attention were the hospital call, and the way the episode had ended with Banri getting hit by a motorbike. Perhaps there is a bigger reason why Banri is attending Law school and if so, I hope it we will learn about it soon so that this show can have another chance of getting me hooked.
The background music, aka OST was extremely annoying to listen to. It’s been a while since an OST irked me while watching an anime, and on top of that; I don’t know about you but I felt at times the BGM was overshadowing the characters’ voices to the point I couldn’t hear them. The OP Theme was… really corny. I didn’t like it. Too cutesy and fluffy for my taste. I was also really surprised to see that no other characters were featured at all, it was only Koko and Banri. The song didn’t stand out to me at all because I don’t even remember it, and mind you when I like the opening songs, I rememberthem. The ED Theme however was a lot better and I was more fond of it because of it’s simplicity.
Then we have animation and character designs. First of all, I am not a fan of the character designs. They aren’t horrible, but they aren’t great either. I can already see the horrors of J.C. Staff flunking animation (unless they had a good budget), and it won’t be pretty.
Overall: It was a lackluster. I’ll follow my three episode rules, but there is no guarantee whether I will be on board for this.
Possibility of Blogging: Low
Possibility of Watching: Moderate