Goldenboy Review

Happy week before Valentine's Day! With such a sweet (or depressing, for guys like me) holiday around the corner, I figured it would be fitting to review a sweet anime series. A dirty, sick, twisted, and demented series, but a sweet series regardless. So, here's a review for Goldenboy, another sleeper series among the sea of popular shows.

Released between October 1995 to June 1996 in Japan, and put onto DVD in 2007 by Anime Works, Goldenboy tells the tale of Kintaro Oe, a 25-year old prodigy that wanders Japan and tries out various temp jobs. It's found out that he was at the top of the class in Tokyo University's Law School and was going to pass with flying colors, when he suddenly dropped out for no reason. Now, he wanders the land, learning about life and enjoying all the lovely ladies he sees.

We've got some interesting and normal positives this time around. The first is Tatsuya Egawa. If you remember from my Plastic Little review, I credited Satoshi Urushihara as being a positive for that show, and Mr. Egawa is no different here. Although he didn't work on the show itself, he did work on the manga that the show is based off of. Mr. Egawa is very well known for drawing over the top faces, and you'll see a lot of them throughout the show. Even when there isn't a crazy face on the TV or computer screen, the normal faces of the characters can show a lot more than expected.

The second positive of Goldenboy is the story structure. For starters, there is no overall story. Instead, the shows plays out like a journey (across 6 episodes). Kintaro Oe wanders Japan, works at a job that's populated with lovely women, gets in trouble or witnesses someone causing trouble, fixes the problem that he or someone else caused, and leaves for the next job. Meanwhile, the lead female in each episode learn something about Kintaro and themselves, and become smitten with him in the process. It's a structure that works out quite, and lasts until the final episode.

Goldenboy's third positive is Kintaro himself. He's one of the most likeable male leads in an anime that I've seen in a while, and that's because of his character. He's kind, caring, always believes in what's right, and is ready to do some good...even if his methods aren't conventional. Perhaps what makes Kintaro such a good character is that he best described by the quote below:


"Don't judge a book by it's cover."


If you're already a fan of this show, you'll know what I mean, but for people who may be new, I'll explain. You see, Kintaro doesn't look that smart. In fact, he looks like bag of rocks some of the time. Hell, he even sounds like a bag of rocks most of the time. However, the facade of stupidity hides one bright individual, and a decent individual at that.

Goldenboy's fourth and fifth positive is availability and price. Having just come out out back in 2007, it's still widely available on the internet, and especially so on Amazon. Pricing isn't too bad either, as new copies start out at just over 11 dollars ($11.46 to be exact). Ironically, there are hardly any used copies on Amazon, but the prices are just as good as a new copy. Although I wouldn't recommend it, there are some of the original tapes of Goldenboy on Amazon, as well as the original ADV films (R.I.P.) release. If you go for the ADV films (R.I.P.) version, be warned that the few new copies that are left are a fortune ($139.06 is the price for one of the copies), but the few used copies that are available a very well priced ($9.50 is the starting price for the first used copy).

I almost forgot this positive, so please forgive me. The final positive of Goldenboy is the length of each episode, as they clock in at a half-hour. So you can watch one DVD, wait a day or two, and watch the other one. This is definitely one of those shows that you might not want to watch in one sitting, unless you're a diehard Otaku.

In all honesty, Goldenboy is one of those shows that is just about perfect. The animation, the characters, the stories, and all the other things within the show come together to create a nice viewing experience. However, there is but one thing that tugs on my collar. That one thing...is the voice acting.

Over on animetric.com, there's a review of Goldenboy, and within that review the author says that the dub is okay for the most part. I disagree, however, for the most part. The girls (whether older or younger) definitely have good voice actors, as do a few of the side characters (male or female), but most of the male characters don't sound all that good. There's a couple male characters in the second episode that sound like they're not even trying. As for Kintaro, allow me to quote the animetric review:


"Kintaro's dub voice sounds like it was done by a stuffy-nosed guy who has watched one too many "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" movies. I was half-expecting him to blurt out "dude", "awesome", and/or "totally radical" at some point. The fact that he practically screams the majority of his lines doesn't help either."


Goldenboy gets a 9.5 out of 10. Tatsuya Egawa was behind the manga used in this show, the story structure has a wandering vibe to it, Kintaro is very likeable, the availability and pricing are quite good, and the length of time isn't too bad, but the dubbing can leave something to be desired. 


Until next time, stay Otaku!