Golgo 13: The Professional Review

Hi everybody!

Well, I’m winding down with the amount of reviews I’ve got left. If you haven’t been paying attention to my Anime Acquisition Update (Quickie) post that I put up back in April, I have 19 reviews left to do. Today’s review was the 20th, so let’s not waste more time, and look at the infamous Golgo 13: The Professional.

Story/Setup
The 3rd film overall, and the first to be based off the source manga, Golgo 13: The Professional continues the violent adventures of Duke Togo, who’s better known as Golgo 13, professional assassin. He’s hired to kill Robert Dawson, son of oil baron Leonard Dawson. He succeeds in killing his target, but in the issuing process causes his target’s father to go on the most violent & brutal revenge spree in anime history. I can’t reveal anything (There’s lost of twists & turns in the movie, and just about all of them you won’t see coming), save for the fact that there’s action, violence, intrigue, and a host of other things. The story might be basic, but it’s actually really good & entertaining.

Setting
Just like Crying Freeman & Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture, Golgo 13: The Professional travels all over the globe. Over the course of the movie, the viewer travels to Sicily, San Francisco, the jungles of South America, and finally New York City. Also Like FF: TMP, the locations here all have their own, style, look, and feel to them.

Characters
See my Goku: Midnight Eye review for details.

Animation
For starters, let me just say that Golgo 13: The Professional is a product of it’s time when it comes to animation. Right away, you can tell that this movie comes from the 80s. There’s a certain cheesy quality when you first see the characters’s faces, and other aspect of the movies can be giggle inducing, but this OVA is far from ugly. In fact, there are many moments that are quite beautiful. There are certain deaths scenes that look gorgeous, and some of the more peaceful scenes can be quite touching. A lot of OVAs from the 80s don’t quite cut it in the looks department, but this one is an exception.

Voice Acting
The version I managed to snag/download was dubbed, and to tell you the truth, it’s alright. It not the most horrible thing to listen to, as the voices actors seem to do an okay job. I find that, more often than not, the characters sound rather plain. Everybody can sound like they have more emotion than what they provide, but more often than not there’s a flat feeling to everybody’s voice.

Episodes & Episode Length
Golgo 13: The Professional is a full length movie. Like Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture, this one runs over an hour. An hour & 33 minutes (And 32 seconds), to be exact. Watch this one at night, folks!

Availability & Pricing
Despite being an older release, you can still find Golgo 13 if you know where to look (My Suggestion.....Amazon). It was released ages ago on VHS, and while there aren’t that many copies, the pricing isn’t terrible (Ranges from 1 dollar to about 20 dollars). There are two DVD versions: one from 2005, and another from last year. The prices for new copies (For both versions) is actually really great: the price for the 2005 edition starts at $9.63, while the 2012 edition starts at a slightly less $9.04 dollars. Curiously, there’s a lot of used copies for the 2005 version, but hardly any for the 2012 version. The used prices for the 2005 copy start at almost 5 dollars, while the first of the 3 used copies of the 2012 edition starts at a little over 13 dollars. This is one of those situation where new or used really won’t cause any problems (Unless your used copy doesn’t work).

Extras/Other
Since I downloaded this, I don’t know what the extras are.

General Impression & Rating
While I’m not a fan of this movie, I can recognize a good film when I see one, and Golgo 13: The Professional is a good movie. Yeah there are a couple shortcomings, but they don’t detract the good things about this OVA. If you like more serious movies, then I suggest you find this and give it a watch!

Golgo 13: The Professional gets a 8 out of 10.

See you all later this week. Until then, stay Otaku!