Watch Out, Duke Togo!

Miyako has you figured out.

And I don’t know if your Golgo guile will save you from her wily clutches. After all, nothing is more dangerous than an airheaded girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Golgo 13: SEX! GUNS! TOTAL LACK OF EMOTION! THIS IS GEKIGA!

Ahh, Duke Togo. Not only is your name cooler than James Bond, and your codename cooler than 007, you are a true man’s man. The best way to sum up Golgo 13’s personality is to state that he has none. Literally. He has approximately 20 lines the entire episode. Women will fall over themselves to have sex with him, and while they enjoy the activity, Duke Togo just lies there, passively, his expression betraying nothing, least of all pleasure in this carnal act. I have to wonder how exactly a man can give a woman the best sex of her life by simply lying there. It’s possible that this is due to the fact that his very pores ooze manliness. So much manliness, in fact, that he can give furniture multiple orgasms simply by sitting in them. (I expect all of about three people to catch this reference)

There’s zero reason to watch Golgo 13 if you desire a thoughtful, provoking piece of work. Golgo 13 is mostly about sex, guns, sex with guns, headshots, broad shoulders, lack of emotion, etc. In short: manliness, distilled. This is not the Hokuto no Ken version of manliness, where Kenshiro sheds manly tears for the fallen and delivers justice to the wrongful and has emoitons, but deals with them like a man should. No. Golgo 13 is studly manliness, where one does not need emotions, one simply arrives on the scene, fires a single bullet, and then immediately leaves.

It’s all well and good if raw, uncut manliness is your thing. I’m not entirely sure that Golgo 13 is my thing, but given that it’s a manga that’s been running for about 20 years now, it must be doing something right. I think it would be, for me, something best enjoyed in a communal setting, where the viewers can shout things back and forth at each other while the episode is going on and essesntially provide a much more fulfilling viewing experience. There’s always something lacking when I watch an action series by myself, especially one as over-the-top as Golgo 13. The fun of watching an action show, for me,  is found not in the show itself, but in the act of watching it. It’s kind of like how watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 makes watching bad movies so much more fun–it’s not the actual content, it’s the running commentary and social experience. There’s just something missing when you’re watching Golgo 13 be Golgo 13 and you can’t share the expereince with someone. It’s like the difference between watching Rose of Versailles by yourself, and appreciating it as a classic work of shoujo, and then forcing it upon friends and the experience is distincty different. There’s very few anime I’d watch with a group of people for the finst time, as the focus there is less on the series and more on the experience.

With that, I don’t really know if I’ll be following Golgo 13 through its entire 50 episode run; I’m still waffling on whether I should make a scoring exception for it and give it a higher score on MAL or not. It’s difficult because it should be rated highly, because it’s a classic and a very well-done piece of action, but it’s not my thing, so therefore it should get a lower score to better reflect my personal opinion. This is probably why they give you the option to not rate a series. There’s too many other series to watch this season, and, while I most definitely find it awesome, my priorities for solo viewing lie elsewhere. If you’re a bigger fan of action than I am (this is not an especially hard feat to accomplish) then I heartily recommend you check this out. If you can take or leave action, as I can, you can easily give it a miss.

As for me, well, I’m just going to avoid doing anything that would attract the attention of Duke Togo. That would be bad.