Golden Days is a shoujo manga with boys' love undertones created by Shigeru Takao. It was serialized in Hana to Yume from 2005 to 2007, and collected into eight volumes.
The story is about Soma Mitsuya, who cares only about his violin and his hospitalized grandfather. One night his grandfather’s condition suddenly worsens, an earthquake hits, and Mitsuya finds himself lost and alone in Japan of 1921. Jin, a childhood friend of his grandfather, mistakes Mitsuya for his grandfather and takes Mitsuya home.
Contains these tropes:
- Big Fancy House
- Bittersweet Ending: Mixed with Earn Your Happy Ending for some characters.
- But Not Too Foreign
- Cool Big Sis: Yuriko
- Chekhov's Gun: Yoshimitsu's chessboard as well as several photographs throughout the series.
- Did Not Get the Girl
- Despair Event Horizon: almost all of the main characters at some point.
- Yuriko in particular after one of her sons dies in the war.
- Domestic Abuse: Kei's father.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Ubukata Matsuri to Aiko.
- Downer Ending: By the time Mitsuya returns to his time every single person (excluding Yoshimitsu) he met in the past is dead - which is all the more sad, since there was a possibility they would still be alive because he only went about 70 years back in time.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Tsuyuko.
- Identical Grandson: Mitsuya and his grandfather are identical. Subverted, because Mitsuya actually is Yuriko's biological greatgrandson, not Yoshimitsu's.
- In-Series Nickname: Knight(Mitsuya/Yoshimitsu), Bishop(Aiko), King(Jin) and Queen(Yuriko)
- My Beloved Smother: Mitsuya's mom is really protective.
- Replacement Sibling: Aiko
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Mitsuya thinks this is why he went back in time. Though it takes him a very long time to figure out what event he was supposed to change.
- The Atoner: Kei
- The Roaring '20s
- Time Travel
- Time-Travel Romance: between Kei and Setsu &
Jin and Mitsuya. - Traumatic Haircut: Aiko's mother cuts off her hair to make her look like her dead son.
- Unrequited Love: Jin, first for Mitsuya's grandpa and later for Mitsuya himself. Though it might not count as completely unrequited by the last volume.
- Worth Living For:
- Knowing that Mitsuya will be born in Japan in the future is the only thing that keeps Yuriko from giving up on the world after her son dies in WWII.
- This also keeps Jin going during the war.
