Oct 13, 2008 Comments Off
The Milestones of Quality and Quantity – The “100 Million Copies” Best-Seller Comics Award ComiPress.
Astro Boy, Black Jack, Doraemon, Dragonball, Slam Dunk, Touch, Fist of the North Star, Detective Conan, One Piece, Golgo 13, Oishinbo & Kochikame – the twelve 100 million manga sellers. Comi Press has a translated article from ACGTalk about these landmark titles.
Oct 4, 2008 Comments Off
The CIA are caught stockpiling WMDs, so Golgo 13 is sent to erase the evidence. However the CIA are not the only people who want this swept under the carpet.
For the first time I can actually compare this directly to the manga. This episode is based on a 1976 strip called Shadow Of Death, which is collected in volume 12 of Viz’s recent Golgo 13 collection.
The manga more explicitly makes the opening investigation the Church Committee and delves more into the politics during the opening scene. However both the anime and the manga keep the identity of the man who orders Golgo’s hiring secret (are we suposed to assume it’s the President?). There’s one other change regarding the politics of the story, the second professional AX-3, is hired by the KGB in the manga, whereas he is hired by some nebulous Middle Eastern country in the anime.
Beyond the politics, the episode plays out very closely to the manga. Outside of a couple of extra scenes the manga has to play up Golgo’s awesomeness the story is exactly the same. The key part of the story as it pertains to the philosophy of Golgo 13 is again in the difference between Golgo and the episode’s main guest character.
In terms of his skill as a gunman, AX-3 is Golgo’s equal, so what is the difference between them as men? Well AX-3 shoots to kill, Golgo it appears, based on an exchange here, shoots to shoot. A target is a target to Golgo, it matters not if it is man or hairpin. And I think that’s a key part of Golgo’s appeal, in that it’s glorifying the skill he has, rather than the end result of it. He’s a man to be admired for his skill rather than what he uses that skill for.
Oct 2, 2008 Comments Off
A paparazzi tries to capture Golgo 13 on film.
At face value this is another episode where the intent is to make you wow at the awesomeness of Duke Togo. What is interesting is it revolves around another character who is supposedly the best in his profession. However the photographer Lance isn’t the cold professional that Golgo 13 is. Lance is driven by a need to prove he’s the best, hence taking on the challenge of taking a photo of Golgo pulling the trigger. Golgo on the other hand, is simply the best. He doesn’t have to prove it, and you don’t get the feeling that it even matters to him that he is the best.
All in all another good episode.
Jul 27, 2008 Comments Off
Here is that Golgo 13/CSI crossover you requested.
When quarterback Lionel Blue is assassinated on the field of play, a detective and a CSI team clash over how to investigate the murder.
Another episode involving the authorities who have to pick up the pieces after Golgo has done his job. The CSI team in this episode are trying to prove Golgo 13 was the murderer, but the detective realises that Golgo is only the weapon, the real murderer is whoever hired him.
There’s also a false nostalgia at work here, that only really comes to the fore if you look at Golgo 13 as a whole. The detective wonders if the times have changed so much that the world has created a man like Golgo, when of course Golgo has been with us 40 years and when you take into account his “origin”, even longer. Golgo isn’t a creation of modern times, he’s a timeless entity of amoral stoicism.
Jul 25, 2008 2
Two departments of the US government pit Golgo 13 and the young sniper Katz against one another, as Golgo attempts to kill a Jordanian envoy and Katz tries to stop him.
Oh, and we also get the most Osamu-Dezaki-y episode of Golgo 13 TV yet.
By which I mean… POSTCARD MEMORIES~!~!
And in a callback to Dezaki’s cinema outing with Golgo 13, a CGI HELICOPTER~!~!~!
While I’m not expecting this to be Dezaki (I’m assuming he’s busy with Ultraviolet & Cobra), I would be interested in seeing who directed this, as I’m surprised with not seen the Postcard Memory technique used more often in the series. Admittedly the episodes tend to be packed as it is and there may not be time such a pace slowing technique, but it’s almost something you are expecting from the series.
Storywise, it’s another mind game as people try to out-think Golgo, with some modern politics thrown in as background. It is a shame the television isn’t as brave as the manga and refuses to use caricature when real people turn up. This episode’s US Secretary of Defense looks nothing like Robert Gates, and only looks like Rumsfeld if you squint and imagine glasses.
Jul 21, 2008 1
We now return you to your irregularly scheduled hitman themed content.
If this TV series has had a moral so far, it is “Do not dick around with Golgo 13″. And I’m sure you’d agree that’s a lesson we take with us in our daily lives. We should be thankful we have this series to teach us this, as to actually learn it as a character in Golgo 13 tends to involve a bullet through the temple.
This episode opens with a hit on a mafia boss who had turned himself into the FBI, and the story proceeds to get more complicated from there. In fact, it’s the most complex story we’ve had so far into the series.
And also one of the cheapest. The good news is that this time the budget shortcuts are also visually interesting. We’ve had shots where we’ve seen a Golgo’s eye view through a sniper sight, now we get shots from the same distance, this time without the benefit of magnification. It’s a credit to the animators that the small blobs Golgo shoots at are still recognisable as people, and it’s an different perspective to what the series has shown so far.
Jun 29, 2008 Comments Off
Golgo 13 goes to prison.
Sentenced to life imprisonment, Golgo arrives at a high security Alaskan prison, run by a weasel-like, sadistic warden. But what is Golgo really there for?
After the best episode of the series, we now get the worst. Good grief, the animation is bad, epitomised by some scenes early on, where the chief warden pulls a gun on Golgo and the perspective is reversed. Things closer to us get smaller and things far away get larger. It’s really quite poor.
The actual mechanics of the story are fine, though mostly stereotypical for prison stories. One exception is the spotlight scene, which I’d not seen done before. However the rough looking animation detracts from the positives that are there.
Finally, the eyecatch looks like it belongs to an entirely different episode. Who is that guy? He’s not in this episode for sure.
Jun 29, 2008 Comments Off
In which some people mistakenly think they can shoot Golgo 13 before he can shoot them.
Golgo is hired to assassinate the Don of a New York mafia family that has moved in on the turf of his rival. However with his client dead and his target protected by “special” bullet proof glass, will Golgo 13 complete the hit? It’s Golgo 13, I think you know the answer.
This is the best of the Golgo 13 episodes I’ve seen so far in terms of animation. The background artists do a fantastic job in making New York seem a wet, miserable place to be. The visuals marry up well with the bleak inevitability of the plot. Golgo doesn’t toy with his targets, their desperate struggle to survive once they learn of his intentions is always of their own doing, and that is the crux of this episode.
