A 50-Episode anime adaptation of a legendary seinen manga series that had been running from 60s spanning more than 100 volumes. Golgo 13 might not be well known internationally but it was one of the highly revered series in Japan. The series explore the adventure of a famous mysterious assassin named Golgo 13 who uses Scoped M16 rifle as his weapon of choice for killing his target. Often used pseudonym of Duke Togo, Golgo 13 is a gifted ruthless marksman renowned for his success rate as virtually nobody escapes from his assassination once someone paid for his service. Golgo 13 charges hefty sum for his service usually cost 3 Million USD at least but the target is assured to be absolutely dead as he will go to any length to perform the hit. However Golgo 13 enforces a strict rules for his clients and will not hesitate to kill them if they are found out to double cross him in some way.
Golgo 13 is probably the Japanese equivalent of James Bond, a man of danger living the high life and a symbol of masculinity created to fill up the void after Japan losing WW2. The 50 Episode anime itself is a solid work but plain as it is straight adaptation of the manga. However the anime rather lacks a sense of character development as every episode is just about Golgo 13 killing somebody and sleep with beautiful women, rinse and repeat.
If the anime was successful enough, perhaps we could have seen a further continuation of the anime which was just a glimpse of the massive Golgo 13 series. However it was unfortunate that Japanese anime market already mostly catered to moeblobs by late 2000s so Golgo13 didn't have the tailwind it needs. In any case the 50 Episode anime is still the best shot to get into Golgo 13 as majority of the works still remain untranslated.
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