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Golgo 13 - Episode 7 - A Shot In G

June 8th, 2008 by Brack

Duke Togo goes to London.

This is the best episode of the show so far. We have the exotic location. We have some real world politics (the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning is referenced). And we have Golgo’s skills used for something other than killing a man.

Moreso than the other episodes so far, this story isn’t Golgo’s, it’s the story of virtuoso violinist Thomas Simpson, who during an encore with the London Symphony Orchestra has a crisis of confidence. And so he does what any man would do to get over this, hire Golgo 13 to restore his reputation by means of an impossible gun shot.

The key scene is the one with Simpson and Golgo in the London Eye, where Simpson mistakenly compares himself to Golgo, saying they are both professionals, when in fact the very act of hiring Golgo to carry out his plan shows him to be unprofessional. Another great touch is how Simpson’s face becomes distorted with hate and desperation as the episode progresses, turning him from the relaxed musician we see before the credits to the contorted gargoyle we see waiting in a concert hall for Golgo to make the shot.

Also: Dave, Golgo’s gunsmith appears to be everywhere. Or Golgo knows a lot of gunsmiths who all look alike. Anyway I like the plot convenience of the character being in any country Golgo needs him.

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Golgo 13 - Episode 6 - A Present To God

June 6th, 2008 by Brack

After bemoaning the lack of time relevant content last episode, we get Golgo 13 going to a (fictional) US presidential candidate’s convention and killing one of the candidate’s advisors.

Once that’s done with we get the meat of the episode, a mind game between Golgo 13 and the head of security of the convention, as he tries to prove that Golgo was the assassin. The clues to how Golgo gets out of it are more obvious and less outrageous than the last episode’s clues to the mechanics of the hit, but the denouement still satisfies as it’s logical and doesn’t appear out of left field.

Another solid episode.

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Golgo 13 - Episode 5 - Superstars Appearing Together

June 5th, 2008 by Brack

A former Olympic marksman is hired by a Broadway producer to kill his wheelchair bound mentor. The mentor in turn hires Golgo 13 to assassinate his protege moments before the hit on his own head to be performed. Guess who wins.

This episode has the most outrageous hit of the series so far, and a lot the episode is spent giving clues as to how Golgo will kill the protege. You’ll likely put it together before it happens, and so you get a sense of satisfaction when you realise how he’s going to do the deed. Also during this, we learn that Golgo has a forensic scientist on call.

The rest of the episode details the relationship between the two targets/employees. The mentor character seems to be based somewhat on real life Broadway producer, David Merrick.

One of the better episodes so far, a nice mix of culture-specific international jetsetting flavour (making up for the lack of time-specific current event riffing that manga does so well) and an audacious hit.

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Golgo 13 - Episode 4 - Pretty Woman

May 15th, 2008 by Brack

Ladies, don’t fall in love with assassins, it won’t work out well.

Below par animation for this story of the wife of a Mafia boss who hires Golgo to kill her husband. Also the wife is a truly annoying character, a one note possessive harridan, who were it not for the fact everyone else in this episode is also as one note, and her husband just as possessive, would come off as a misogynistic stereotype. They are passionate people in a world where stoicism is the ultimate virtue, so it should not be a surprise that their personalities are shrill grotesques.

The only non-Duke Togo character who comes off looking respectable is the character who is essentially there as a mirror to Golgo. Ultimately the moral of the whole story is if you show your emotions, you are less than Golgo 13, and you are probably going to die because of it. And even if you are like Golgo 13, he’s smarter than you and you’ll die anyway.

The weakest episode so far, the main interest is in the mechanics of the hit. And in the shootout that the screenshot above comes from. A lazy show wouldn’t have animated the time difference in when the guns were shot. You can’t see it when watching normally, but slow it down, and yes, Golgo does shoot first by a fraction of a second.

Yay for attention to detail.

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Golgo 13 shills chewing gum

May 10th, 2008 by Brack

GolgoGum
by pocarisweater

via: Japan Probe

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Golgo 13 - Episode 3 - Masterpiece Assault Rifle

May 10th, 2008 by Brack

A weapons designer believes he has created the world’s greatest assault rifles.

Golgo 13 proves him wrong. With bullets.

Again, this is one of those stories where Golgo does amazing things and people are amazed that he does. However, this is in the subsection of those stories where the people being amazed are fools, who thought they were better than Golgo 13, and that amazement is the last thought that goes through their head before a 5.56 mm bullet follows.

In this episode Golgo is hired to blow a tire on a Japanese rally car by a European car manufacturer, so he has the recurring ratfaced weapons engineer, who learnt is called Dave in episode 1, build him a new barrel for his M-16. However it’s a trap set up by a weapons designer, who has created a new scope that he believes will create the world’s greatest assault rifles. Using it against Golgo 13 will be the ultimate selling point, he believes. As you might expect, it doesn’t work out that well for him.

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Golgo 13 - Episode 2 - ROOM NO. 909

May 10th, 2008 by Brack

From my reading of the selected Golgo 13 stories that Viz put out over the last couple of years, the character of Golgo 13 can be used to tell a variety of types of stories. I’m not sure how many of the more real world politics based stories we will get in this series, or those where Golgo 13 is more a force of nature, who only makes his presence known in the story at the time of the hit. What we are getting are the stories where Golgo 13 does something amazing, and other characters react in awe to his amazingness.

Which is not to say these anime episodes have been completely absent of real world politics, in this episode the Securities and Exchange Commission hire Golgo to kill a Wall Street trader, but like the previous episode the focus is on the mechanics of the hit, rather than the reasons behind it.

Golgo accidentally leaves a clue to his involvement in hit and the bulk of the episode involves a NYC detective trying to break Golgo and prove he was the assassin. It’s simple stuff, with a predictable outcome, but it works well as a single episode story.

The animation is functional, the staging of the hit being the highlight. The strength is in the writing which effectively creates mini TV size thrillers even when the entire script is pretty much exposition as this one is. By which I mean it’s mostly characters discussing how the hit would have been carried out and how impossible it would have been for the hit to have been carried out by the man in the position that the hit appeared to be carried from.

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Golgo 13 - Episode 1 - AT PIN-HOLE

April 15th, 2008 by Brack

Takao Saito’s iconic assassin comes to TV in this 40th Anniversary series. And I’m not disappointed. Yay!

Episode 1 acts as a Duke Togo primer, focussing more on his methods than anything really resembling a narrative. Golgo 13 is hired by the US government to kill a CIA informer turned hijacker. In terms of setup, it’s plain and simple. Without a gimmicky mission, the episode introduces Golgo 13 through his preparation for the hit. Which, as a character without internal monologue for the most part (most his thought bubbles in the manga are ellipses), offers the best way of understanding the character.

The animation is like Golgo 13 - it does it’s job. The Answer Studio provide some slick, if not breathtaking visuals, with 3D CGI roughly on a par to their FLAG work. The best use of 3D is in the bullet camera which follows Golgo’s final shot, offering something you can’t get from the manga.

I mentioned in my Cinderella Boy post yesterday that Saito’s peer, Monkey Punch, often has adaptations that don’t capture his look 100%. Thankfully, unlike some Lupin III works, this doesn’t feel like Duke Togo just walked into another anime. It’s solidly the world you’d expect to find him in. In part this is due to the Saito Pro house style not being so idiosyncratic, however a number of the supporting cast characters, the CIA agent for example, do have a carved in stone look about them that makes them look like they have stepped straight off the page of a Golgo 13 manga.

I’ll be interested in how this does in the ratings, as the more general TV credits of the writing staff, and film and TV actor Hiroshi Tachi in the lead role, suggests they are aiming for a general adult audience, rather than the typical late night anime audience. There seems to be a definite market for revivals of 60s and 70s series - the Kitaro revival has been huge and Yatterman has matched that too. I think similar numbers to the recent noitaminA slot Kitaro series must be what they are hoping for.

A satisfying opener, and the episode features so many recurring elements to the Golgo 13 stories, that I’d say if you don’t like this first episode, Golgo 13 probably isn’t for you.

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HATE FUN? - Uninformed Judgments on Spring Anime Part 8

March 17th, 2008 by Brack

Kaiba

Masaaki Yuasa. Madhouse. WOWOW. Everything is in place for greatness. I’d be happy if this was the only anime I watch all year.

GOLGO 13

Yay! Looks like Answer Studio, who did a decent job on FLAG, are animating. I think it’s Shunji Oga directing, who was asst. director on Golgo 13: The Professional. And the writers are TV veterans that look to have Lupin III projects in their credits. So it’s looking pretty solid right now, the only concern I have is it being on TV Tokyo might mean it gets watered down a little from the manga. Still that one image on the site is reassuring - Golgo stoically walking away from shit blowing up!

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki

This appears to be some kind of moe-tinged nutty sci-fi comedy about really, really weird “family” (Mother is a catgirl, son is a lion, daughter is an alien jellyfish, you know the drill). I have the feeling it will not be anywhere near as a funny as it thinks it should be. I will probably still check it out, as high concept comedies are always interesting just to see if they crash and burn.

By the by, those character designs remind me of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s work somewhat. Especially in facial proportions.

Sugarbunnies

I believe Sanrio did this as a stop motion series a while back, and now it’s a cartoon. I like the character designs on the adult characters, but man those bunnies look depressed on the webpage.