There's the old theorem that an infinite number of monkeys randomly typing for an infinite number of years could write the complete worlds of Shakespeare, well give 6 monkeys a couple of weeks and they can out do Golgo 13.
Story - 2/10
When I think about it Golgo 13 is one of the first real procedural Anime series I can remember. Each episode focuses on a specific target and is in no way connected to the previous or following episode. There were so many possibilities to connect episodes, but not even a single aspect of episode X meant anything to episode Y, which really gave you little reason to look forward to the next episode.
Story wise things were okay. Pretty much every single episode was like the next. They'd give a little backstory to the target character, but by episode three or four you knew that meant nothing, as they were dead come the end of the episode. Every episode pretty much followed the same arc, Golgo gets job, we learn that the target is a Gangster, Business man or Politician, Golgo sleeps with random woman, Goglo kills target, rinse and repeat.
The dialogue writing for the show was truly horrendous, possibly the worst I can remember in any form of visual entertainment. So much of the dialogue was horribly cliche or just something no one would ever utter, “His (Golgo) body is as honed as Japanese steel and as hard as the Rock of Gibraltar" "He's a fearsome, virile Japanese sniper,” pair that with the stupidity of women throwing themselves at Golgo with lines like "If you won't take my money (proceeds to drop pants)" or " Don't you want my perfect mature body?" It was like the show was written by a horny school boy who was pulling straight Ds in his school work.
They also took liberties in the translation, adding political messages that weren't present in the Japanese version, mostly in places where they had no bearing on the show. Just out of the blue someone would criticize the U.S. for something that had no reason to be there.
Animation - 5/10
The animation to Golgo is somewhat crude. When I first started watching the series I gave it a double take, "was this made in the eighties?" and I didn't mean that in a bad way. The feel of the series, and its overall sheen, just felt like a much older anime, despite being very different looking than its eighties movie.
The character designs aren't really much to write home about. It's easy to mistake one person for another as a majority of the characters, sometimes even within the same episode, are drawn to look very much alike. Even though it says they were made by different studios, there is a huge similarity between the characters here and those in Moonlight Mile, be it facial features, body composition or even the coloring often used.
One thing that really stood out for me were the backgrounds. They went into great detail to get them accurate to the real places when they could. Many of the episodes take place in New York City and, as a local there, I could actually pick out what they were trying to portray, even when it wasn't a well known spot. The backgrounds also had great depth, which plays into the idea that Golgo is a master marksman that can shoot from unheard of distances.
Sound - 4/10
The music in the series leaves much to be desired. Throughout the show there is very little music, and when it is used I believe it's just a rip of five or so seconds from Trigun's “Big Bluff” (which makes little sense here as there's nothing "Western" about this series) or your typical suspense bass drum, plus one piano chord, and a screeching violin.
The Opening and Closing are actually good, though when looking at the series as a whole they might be considered great as they stand out as one of the few good things. There are two openings, the first isTake the Wave, which sounds very much like a Japanese take on late Nineties Post-Grunge Alt Rock, like Hoobastank or Incubus. The second song is very similar in feel, but with a female singer, which sounds absolutely incredible.
For the closings they changed things up just about every 12 episodes, with all coming in from completely different genres. The first group of episodes is concluded with “Garasu no Haiwei,” or “Highway of Glass,” an acoustic tune that seems out of place, but also seems to fit perfectly, as it mirrors Duke Togo's demeanor at the end of every episodes, cool and peaceful. The second song is “Yume no Hitotsu” (“One Dream”) a female fronted acoustic Alt-Rock song that I actually could see fitting perfectly in FLCL (Which is high praise in the anime world.) The third closing, “Sono Egao yo Eien ni,” sounds like what would happen if you took a Japanese singer, a classical spaniard musician, and threw them into an Eastern European recording studio, interesting, but not a home run. The final song to the series is “Mou Kimi wo Hitori ni Sasenai” a nineteen eighties dance song if there ever was one.
The English voice over work is extremely bad. Sure some of the main guys, like Duke, are okay, but the others are infuriatingly terrible. If you have an accent you shouldn’t sound like a parody of what that accent is supposed to be. The British characters sound like they are straight out of a Monty Python skit about the Victorian Era. Americans are either Brooklyn gangsters, Hollywood dimwits or southern yokels. And while some might try and chalk it up to needing to diversify things, Andrew Love (The voice of Goro in Moonlight Mile) voices a character in almost every other episode, without ever trying to disguise his voice. The same can be said for Greg Ayers (I believe it's him) where he'll be in multiple episodes, often voicing people who he doesn't fit in the slightest, like anyone over the age of fourteen.
The English voice over work is extremely bad. Sure some of the main guys, like Duke, are okay, but the others are infuriatingly terrible. If you have an accent you shouldn’t sound like a parody of what that accent is supposed to be. The British characters sound like they are straight out of a Monty Python skit about the Victorian Era. Americans are either Brooklyn gangsters, Hollywood dimwits or southern yokels. And while some might try and chalk it up to needing to diversify things, Andrew Love (The voice of Goro in Moonlight Mile) voices a character in almost every other episode, without ever trying to disguise his voice. The same can be said for Greg Ayers (I believe it's him) where he'll be in multiple episodes, often voicing people who he doesn't fit in the slightest, like anyone over the age of fourteen.
They also completely gave up on editing the last english episode, leaving such great lines as "Tedward thanks to your gwenerous cwoperation" and "As I was salying"
Take out the opening and closing songs and the series would get a solid Zero for sound.
Characters - 1/10
There are only two reoccurring characters in the series, Duke Togo (Golgo) and his firearms maker Dave McCartney. Every other character was a one off Gangster, Stripper or Assassin, all with no personality and no thought put into them.
Well it's not as if Golgo has either other those things. All we know is he's the greatest sniper ever and can do things that aren't physically possible (even being a great sniper doesn't mean you can alter the ability of a bullet continuing at a constant speed through multiple objects, they don't teach you physics manipulation in sniper school.) We also know he has no compassion for anyone, he'll sleep with you and shoot you the next second, and if you're an innocent bystander who can identify him, you're as good as dead. Granted we've come to adore such antiheroes, but he doesn't have the rare good traits about him like popular anti-heroes such as Tony Soprano or Walter White had, he's just an assassin who will do anything to get his money.
Dave is the typical weirdo, loner, madman scientist (or gun maker in our case.) He shows up in a few episodes as a way to explain Golgo's weapons, but much like Golgo himself, he's a completely useless character.
Overall - 2/10
Despite my pretty harsh assessment of the show, it's good if you just want to have a mindless series to watch. You can put it on, turn off your brain and watch the pretty pictures.
It's shocking how a series as bad as this was given fifty episodes, especially seeing they only put two episodes worth of thought into it. But seeing how much of today's entertainment fits that description, I can see why. People like the mindless stupidity of a CSI or SVU where, despite having the same exact plot every week, you can watch it and feel fulfilled, because there's no chance you'll miss anything or have to use your brain.
Positive Reasons for Score:
* It’s a decent time waster where you can watch a single episode with no context.
* Not a new concept, but they had good ideas that just went unused.
Negative Reasons for Score:
* The worst dialogue I can remember in almost any form of entertainment.
* The overused “Golgo is the sexiest man on Earth” plot in every episode.
* The show’s direction being absolutely pointless.
Ways to make the show better:
* Give us some bigger overall story.
* Don’t make every episode exactly the same.
* Basically do the opposite of everything they did.