Golden Boy Review

story 6.5/10

Golden Boy follows the story of Kintaro, a 25 year old man who dropped out of school because he finished early. On a quest for knowledge, Kintaro decides to become employed in a variety of jobs, to learn everything he can about the world. Each episode takes him to a new profession, as well as a new girl, and new challenges to overcome.

There are two aspects of the story I'd like to talk about. The first is the actual plot, which I felt was very well done. Golden Boy is a lot like Great Teacher Onizuka, so you'll see me compare it in this review. Like GTO, Kintaro is misunderstood, but really is a good guy at heart. In each situation he finds himself in, he has to prove himself to his co workers, as well as the female interest of the day. By the end of each episode, indeed, he's won over the hearts of all involved, and usually has helped someone in the process. Kintaro also learns valuable lessons at each workplace, and teaches the people there important life skills as well. For someone that comes across as bumbling and insensitive, this is a nice way to end each episode. I liked the good feeling you get when you watch Kintaro save a business or person, and I liked seeing a little bit of a few kinds of workplaces in Japan. Unlike GTO, which I felt was way too long for its randomness, Golden Boy is a short six episodes, which is a good length for the content.

The other aspect of the plot is the humor, which unfortunately (in my opinion) was extremely excessive ecchi. GTO was great because it had random humor, whereas Golden Boy relied solely on the ecchi for laughs. As a person who doesn't necessarily enjoy ecchi, this wasn't terribly exciting, but nonetheless, I *can* enjoy ecchi sometimes. The problem with Golden Boy's ecchi, I felt, was the extent of how extreme it was. For example, watching a woman get herself off from the vibrations on a bike (naked, even) is excessive in my book. The humor also extended to such things as showing Kintaro's erections on a regular basis, extremely jiggling breasts with nipples that looked like rubber, and of course, nakedness. Granted, there were some aspects of the humor I enjoyed, such as Kintaro constantly worshipping the toilets that the women used, but for the most part, I don't think ecchi humor needs to be that prevalent. If it is, I think it detracts from the overall plot, which WAS good. Because of the distractions, I rated the plot lower than I would have otherwise.

animation 7/10

Animation-wise, Golden Boy had fairly crude visuals, but they were very appropriate for the style and mood. The character designs were somewhat minimal at times, with a palette of colors that was bland and varied. The facial expressions are very reminiscent to Great Teacher Onizuka, and were shown on a regular basis to make you laugh. For example, if Kintaro messed up with something, he'd get this extremely grotesque and horrified expression. Sometimes he'd look like a sunken skeleton, and other times, he'd look like a revved up fighting machine.

The ecchi was definitely a point of interest, since it dominated a large part of the series. The women tended to have very large jigging breasts (with very defined, scary looking nipples), and also tended to be naked a large amount of the time. Panty shots abounded, which tended to make Kintaro's nose bleed for the umpteenth time. Standard stuff for an ecchi series, really, though Kintaro's expressions definitely were the most hilarious of all the animation features.

sound 7.5/10

The audio for Golden Boy was light and comical, which fit the mood perfectly. The tracks were synthy with occasional instruments such as light guitars. Besides the music (which there isn't much to say about), the voice acting was good for everyone involved, especially Kintaro, who had a very intense set of tones to use in various situations. Golden Boy is notorious for having one of the best (and most hilarious) dubs around. I've seen episode one of the dub, and I can agree with this. The English voice actor sounds SO incredibly excessive that it makes every scene hilarious, regardless of if it was supposed to be or not. Keep that in mind when you choose to watch this, you might want to watch the dub for one episode at least to get the full effect.

characters 7/10

Golden Boy's characters are varied, given the fact that every episode is involved with different characters, but there is one that remains throughout the entire series: Kintaro. He's a bumbling genius who wants nothing more than to get laid, and always gets himself involved in interesting circumstances. Kintaro might be a horny guy, but he's also good at heart, and helps people out wherever he goes. Though I could have done without the excessive horny nature, Kintaro was a great character.

The other characters were not as exciting to me, especially the useless ones like the bouncy woman in the first episode. The ones that contributed nothing to the story except a naked body and ditzy personality just didn't do it for me, as I felt the ecchi could have been curbed a lot to make for a better story. Some of the other secondary characters, though, were a lot more interesting and you could tell they grew in a short period of time (with Kintaro's help, nonetheless).

overall 6.7/10

Overall, Golden Boy was good, but it could have been better. I admit that had I liked strong ecchi, I probably would have rated this a tad higher, but personal preference does have some part in a review, doesn't it? As I've said, I do like ecchi sometimes, but not this extreme. The story would have been much more effective, in my opinion, had the ecchi been toned down a little. Besides that, though, the music and animation were good for the type of show this was, the characters were decent, and the story besides the ecchi was good as well. Even had there been zero ecchi, I probably wouldn't have rated this extremely high to begin with. Golden Boy was good, but wasn't inspiring enough to be excellent or one of my favorites. If you want a short watch that has a decent story and interesting characters, try out Golden Boy. Just be forewarned: if you dislike ecchi, the experience will probably be lessened for you.