On the surface, Kanon seems to be a harem rom-com. We meet a boy named Aizawa Yuuichi as he moves in with his aunt and cousin on a cold winter day. We meet a whole collection of young ladies in the first episode alone. He gets acquainted with a kudere, dere-dere, a loli, and of course (because this is harem) a twin-tailed tsundere.

The connection this anime has with Golden Time is memory, or the lack thereof, for Azawa Yuuichi. He apparently has lost his memories from the time he lived in that town seven years prior. Azawa Yuuichi is constantly crossing paths with people, including the girls he meets and befriends, who knew him during his previous time in the town. The search for memory is a central part of the plot of Golden Time and Kanon. We watch two characters cope with trying to understand their pasts and reconnect with friends that are now strangers. The story of Kanon leaves you to wonder if, without memory, we still make the same connections with the same people.

Yuuki Hase has a crush on the beautiful Kaori Fujimiya. Yuuki gathers up the courage to speak to the beautiful girl in his class and asks if she will be friends with him. Yuuki is rejected. Kaori is a quiet and reserved girl who has isolated herself from her classmates and spends most of her time alone. Yuuki doesn’t let the rejection discourage him. He decides that he will eat lunch with her and try and figure out the mystery that is Kaori.

The mystery of Kaori’s isolation, and what makes this anime similar to Golden Time, is due to an accident in middle school she loses her memory at the end of each week. She loses the memories associated with everyone not directly connected with her (i.e. her family) at the end of each week and she starts anew on Monday. One Week Friends is the story of determination. Yuuki decides that each Monday, however long it takes, he will ask her the same question, “Would you like to be friends?” He doesn’t do this because he’s selfish. He does it because he realizes that life is lonely for Kaori and he wants to make her life better if only one week at a time.

Red Data Girl is a vague reference to the Red Data Book, which lists endangered plants and animals. The story is that of Izumiko Suzuhara, a sheltered girl raised at a shrine in the mountains. The isolation made her extremely shy and wary of outsiders. She also has a gift (or curse, depending on how you look at it); when she touches electronic devices they tend to short out. The people of the shrine believe she is someone special to be protected. She doesn’t share that opinion and wishes to leave the mountain and go to school. Her guardian forces his son to be her protector for the rest of her life, wherever she may be. The classic story of two people who can’t stand each other being forced together is built from there.

The part that makes this story, despite its supernatural leanings, like Golden Time is Izumiko and her special gift. She is the reincarnation of a goddess. We watch Izumiko struggle with the memories, personality and the power of the goddess inside her. The goddess is supposed to reemerge and bring on a major magical event for the betterment of humanity. Izumiko just wants to be a normal girl and doesn’t want to in effect die as the goddess takes over her mind and body. We see a similar struggle as Banri in Golden Time fights to hold on to the person he is now, in personality and memory, against the resurgence of his old memories and old personality. They both leave us asking: Is our personality the creation of our memory?

Youto Yokodera is a closet pervert. He finds himself continually lying about his true feelings. Youto feels like he has to constantly lie about who he is. He is even commended for his dedication to the track team and is chosen to be the next captain. He wants with all his might to say, “I’ve only joined so I can stare at girls in their bloomers,” but lies instead. He is convinced that not telling the truth is ruining his life. He decides to go to the Stony Cat, a statue on a hill outside town that grants wishes. The statue apparently will take something you don’t need and give it to someone else in exchange for what you need. He exchanges his belt and hug pillow for the ability to tell the truth… and now he can’t lie -- at all.

We find many problems with memory in this story, the most perplexing being with the characters of Tsukushi Tsutsukakushi and Youto. In Tuskushi’s case she has vivid memories of her life with her mother, a mother she seldom saw because she lived with her grandparents. We can easily assume these memories are exaggerated by her willingness to view the past through a rose-colored filter, but we find out later there’s a far more compelling reason. Youto also has a problem with memory; he comes across many people, mainly girls, and has amazing times with them, but remembers nothing about it. The story may have a little bit of magic involved but it’s pretty grounded otherwise. We look at the importance of our memories in Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat, a theme that’s ever-present in Golden Time.

Naho Takamiya is our central heroine in this ensemble cast. She is a normal girl attending high school. She has a small collection of friends and is living a happy life. Then she receives a letter from herself 10 years in the future. The letter describes the events of the day in detail, including the transfer of a new student named Kakeru. The letter goes onto explain that this boy won’t be around in 10 years. The letter pleads with her to save Kakeru from himself.

We see connections between Golden Time and Orange because the mature topics they delve into. Golden Time is story of a person suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) that changed his personality and its associated problems of dealing with family and friends from before the TBI. Orange considers mental illness, namely depression, the stigma associated with it and our reluctance as friends of the sufferers to step in to take on the role of support network and to confront someone if we think they are in trouble. Orange is a story of friendship and regret. A story of friends who regret not stepping up and saving a friend’s life who miraculously get a second chance.

The future is amazing in the world of Plastic Memories. You can have a highly advanced android called a “Giftias” as your servant, child, or lover created by the Sion Artificial Intelligence Corporation (SAIC). The personalities, the emotions they portray and the look and feel of these Giftias make them very hard to distinguish between artificial and human. We do find a tragic flaw in their near-human creation, a lifespan of only 81,920 hours (a little over 9 years). If they stay online longer than 9 years, Giftas begin to malfunction -- often with violent consequences. A department in SAIC is dedicated to the retrieval of the Giftias as their lifespans end. The story begins as we watch protagonist Tsukasa Mizugaki begin his job at Terminal Service 1; he’s tasked with collecting and decommissioning Giftias.

We find similarities between Plastic Memories and Golden Time again for the way they treat the subject of mental illness mental decline. Plastic Memories is a good analogue for how families cope when dealing with terminally ill loved ones. We watch Tsukasa Mizugaki try to wrap his mind and emotions around the fact that the person he loves is going to, in effect, die far too soon. He is tortured by questions like do we pretend it isn’t happening? Do we forget everything and live just for the moment? Do I feel sad or happy for meeting this person who makes me complete? As the story progresses in Golden Time we the inner turmoil of a man fighting his own mind as he attempts to hold on to his sense of self as well as the way his loved ones past and present do their best help him cope with his mental illness.