Salaryman Kintaro

TheStampede01 Sep 5, 2012

6.5

Some anime are just so manly that they no longer can be considered mere anime. They fall into the rare niche genre of MANIME!. Anime for men! Yes this anime is very manly! Its so manly infact I cried manly tears several times during my time watching this. If anything I'd say it was Silver Fang Gin, but instead of dogs... it actually had people and was much more realistic... but thats not saying much considering how realistic Silver Fang was >_> Story- The story... is very contrived, prepare to suspend you disbelief if you plan on watching this anime lol. So the story centers around our protagonist in his late 20's Yajima Kintaro! A man among men who was once the leader of the Hosshu League Gang and commanded the respect of motorcycle gangs all over Japan. However the story takes place at a time in his life where he is simply an ordinary salaryman. As the anime progresses we soon realize that, that won't last for long. Like I mentioned the story is hard to believe at times and has some really cheesy dramatic moments, but contains many emotional scenes of comradarie, men standing up for their fellow man, chivalry and all that good stuff. I wouldn't be lying if I said I watched this anime just for those scenes, just waiting to shed tears of manliness.  Animation- Its bad I won't lie, even the fighting scenes look pretty terrible. For an anime made in 2001 the crappiness of the animation is just inexcusable. However I did cut it some slack for having fairly decent char designs. Although many of the female designs are used over and over and the male designs sometimes don't have as much detail as I'd like.  Sound- I swear they ripped most if not all of the sound effects from Silver Fang Gin. Either way the soundtrack is quite inspirational with many uplifting tracks and the opening and ending themes are pretty decent. Oh yea and don't forget the cliche dramatic sound effects XD Characters- Somehow every random character that Kintaro ends up saving somehow helps him in the future... whether it be helping him get his next contract or rewarding him with valuable information. Almost every character in this anime succumbs to the extreme manliness of Yajima Kintaro. Aside from the main character himself there are several important side characters including the chairman of the company he works for, several of his fellow salarymen and other powerful and influential people who help him out along the way.  Overall- Despite all the faults of this anime I still enjoyed it a lot. Kintaro's story is tragic and compelling, albiet rather cheesy. Obviously not for everyone but if you enjoyed anime like GTO, Rainbow and Silver Fang Gin you might just enjoy this anime as much as I did.  

TimOverboard Dec 11, 2020

10

tl;dr: It's about a genuine, honest leader rocking the corporate world simply by being himself and not holding back. And I fucking love it.Bit of a waste to watch this if you are under like 25 or so? Like it's seinen alright. The story runs out of steam at the end, I feel it was looking for an optimistic future but didn't want to be fake and therefore couldn't quite get there, because let's face it, we haven't got one! But apart from this it is a great story, remarkably accurate in terms of how shit goes down, how education really doesn't matter, and how people are drawn to merest scrap of genuine human in the modern world. Whoever wrote this knows what life is.The animation is pretty cheesy but gets everything across very well indeed.The voices are all superb from memory and the opening theme is a fantastic song which fits really well. One of those that makes me want to learn japenese just to sing along to. It's very funny too which is why my overall can be higher than other scores :PYes I am fanboy but watched for 2nd time only a few months ago so I stand by my review.