Golden Boy Was the Best Anime to Ever Air
at their peak, adv films were the greatest english anime dubbers. yes, the actors did the exact same voices for every character. yes, their translations were about as "accurate" as working designs'. now tell me something bad about them >:). it wasn't only the scrappy charm, though, it was the catalogue. watching adv's catalogue is nothing short of the definitive late 90s/early aughts anime experience. we've got sonic the ova, which has knuckles in a cowboy hat. we've got gunsmith cats, which i watched yesterday and like... it's literally one of those "russia bad!" 80s action flicks, down to the car choices, but starring the cutest amine girls you have ever seen. we've got a.d. police, ghost stories, plastic little (TITS!), gantz, demon hunter yohko, elfen lied, and i GUESS evangelion... the list of classics drags on and on. but there was no better show nor dub that adv released than golden boy.
if the show wasn't based off a famous manga, it would have been called some shit like "kintaro oe: professional himbo". we are operating on 100% stupid ecchi energy, which means i should hate it. however, golden boy has mastered that tightrope other great sex comedies like panty & stocking walked, where the pretty-girl-horny never delves into misogyny or objectification. it's more like "enthusiastic" appreciation. kintaro is a good boy and his horndoggin' only ever manifests itself in the form of subservience or pushing his body and mind to their limits to impress a girl. it ends up being a kind of monster-of-the week-format! which bodacious babe's love will he be battling for this time? will he still be totally oblivious when they make advances on him? who knows! kintaro himself is fun to watch too. his facial expressions are perhaps the most memorable of any animated character and doug smith's accompanying voicework is CAREER-DEFINING.
i am happy to report that the show is wholly an artistic feat, not only in the pretty girls and funny faces departments. how many other shows could open with an animation sequence as wildin as that bicycle car crash and then continue to ramp it up in every episode? if people moved this expressively in real life, maybe i wouldn't have such a hard time with body language. and joyo katayanagi's ost? brilliant stuff. i need to find out if he did soundtracks for anything else, cuz as a lifelong owner of a yamaha synthesizer with 200 presets, this dinky midi rock and folk is hitting all kinds of spots. for most shows, an instrumental op is a copout. here, it's a flex. suck it losers; we don't even need singing to be cool.
and like, we can be honest with ourselves. at least half the reason one watches a show like golden boy is for the pretty girls. and look how lovingly designed these girls are! my favorite is episode 3's noriko. she's got plain fashion and yet small details like her twintails or how varied her simple outfits are help her stick out in my memory. plus, she's INCOMPREHENSIBLY cute. episode 3 is def the best one.
all that said, it's not the humor or the art or the boobs that "make" this show. it's the heart. if you don't end up vibing with everything i've gushed about, it's worthing pushing through to the 6th and final episode if only for the spectacle of it. while 3 is my favorite, 6 is this big trumphant celebration of the art of anime. i think even a hater could enjoy it. so screw it, golden boy is the best anime† i have ever seen (and maybe ever will).