Kintaro Oe. Age 25. Tokyo University Dropout. However, he independently withdrew from law school because he had mastered the entire curriculum.

Since then, he has been changing jobs numerous times, learning about life. Riding his favorite bike, Crescent Moon, he keeps on moving.

And perhaps someday, he may save the anime industry...

...oh, no. I mean, 'even the world.'
--from the ending of Ep 6

Gentle Readers, I bring you the ecchi-est show I've ever seen...

It's hardly a stretch to say that the plot of GoldenBoy is well-used. Young man hits the road, meets people, learns things, and then moves on, leaving those he's interacted with changed for the better.

The hook in this case is that Kintaro Oe, our hero, only seems to end up interacting with smoulderingly hot women. We'll get to them in a moment... first, lets meet Kintaro:

As you can see, the animators weren't afraid to go all over the map when drawing our lad. The upper-left pic, of Kintaro on Crescent Moon, is the usual way he's presented, but the others are not uncommon (save the lower-left, which only is seen in Ep 6... thankfully). As they say, 'SD happens.'

Kintaro is a genius, and I'm not just saying that for his choices in co-stars. The GoldenBoy really IS a 'golden boy.' For example, in Ep 1, he learns how to program computers... using only a "keyboard" that he scribbled on a sheet of paper. Ep 3, he winds up working in a family-owned noodle shop... where he quickly catches onto the art of noodle-making (which is an art... one that's a cast-iron b*tch to get right). Ep 4, he goes from not being able to swim... to being able to keep pace (barely) with an Olympic champion. And Ep 6, he (almost) single-handedly saves an animation company from certain doom. In every case, he's doing things he had NEVER done before... always with a smile, and always with his mantra "study, study, study, study, study...." He's also VERY humble, and most of the people he works with don't realize how brilliant he is until he's gone.

The humor is mostly of the 'cable network' type, blue instead of raunchy, and in a few cases, completely over-the-top (Kintaro has a thing for toilets, for example). There's a lot of humor, but it depends on the viewer if it works for them. In my case, most of it worked pretty well.

I picked up the Essential Anime version of GoldenBoy back when MediaPlay went under (for $9.99! Woo!), and truly didn't expect much more than eye-candy. Instead, I got an engaging story and an interesting character. The first five episodes are all stand-alone, and could be watched in any order without losing anything in the process.

Ep 6, however, ties them all together by bringing all of the people Kintaro helped in one place to help HIM. It doesn't hurt that they all have a soft spot for him... and in a couple of cases, a serious case of the yeehaws for him, too.

Now, lets move onto the fun stuff... need I say that everything from now on is decidedly NSFW? Click below! more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:55 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 And it gave us Chihuahua!, one of the greatest AMVs evar!!!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at December 30, 2006 01:10 PM (A9tur)

2 Which is where the "Many Faces of Oe" screencaps came from, by the way!

I've said in the past that Chihuahua! is certainly the greatest FIRST amv ever; it'd be in my top 10 or 20 AMVs ever.

I was thinking about mentioning it in the post, but I decided to concentrate on the actual show first. Thanks for bringing it up, Pixy!

Posted by: Wonderduck at December 30, 2006 01:13 PM (0Co69)

3 The way you teased us about it, I was expecting a negative review...

I like the subtitle, Sasurai no obenkyou yarou, or "the wandering studious bastard". Doesn't seem like my kind of show, though; fanservice vehicles demand well-designed female characters, and these look average at best, though I guess the anime studio girl is kinda cute.

Posted by: Andrew F. at December 30, 2006 01:31 PM (aGfYh)

4 Andrew, I was quite surprised by the fact that I liked the show. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's no CardCaptor Sakura. It wouldn't be in my collection except 1) it was deep sale at MediaCircus, and 2) the aforementioned Chihuahua!. I liked the AMV so much, I got the (cheap) series.

I actually DID find the female characters 'well-designed,' (hmmm... must try and use that as a pickup line), particularly the swimmer and the tease. But that's just me.

Posted by: Wonderduck at December 30, 2006 06:40 PM (YadGF)

5 Andrew - seriously, watch Chihuahua! It gives you a good idea of what the show is like - and it's great fun.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at December 31, 2006 01:05 AM (A9tur)

6 Watched!

Enjoyed!

May pick up show sometime in future!

Thanks!

Posted by: Andrew F. at December 31, 2006 08:16 AM (SARav)

7 yep, looks like hentai, but not. haha~. But damn funny.

Posted by: Clazirus at January 01, 2007 02:16 AM (T5pq+)

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The "Just This Side of Hentai" anime post is coming... as soon as I can figure out where Chiyo-chan's DVD player is hiding the screenshot folder.

*grumble grumble grumble*

Update 1226am: Saturday, I swear.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:32 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Over at Chizumatic, there's this:
Elfen Lied begins with a bang, all right. Only difference is that the "bang" leaves behind lots of guts, blood, and gore. Elfen Lied is almost a slasher feature, given how much violence there is and how explicitly the violence is presented, or so I've been told. It's a good thing they created it digitally, because the bill for red paint would have bankrupted them.

The "bang" it begins with is Lucy's escape from the laboratory where she and the other diclonius's (read "demons") were being studied. To escape, she killed all the guards, by cutting them into pieces. Ick... (I've seen screen caps, and you don't want to.)

Elfen Lied is a mixed bag. It is, as Steven says, extremely violent and very graphic in that violence. It makes Hellsing (either version) look like Azumanga Daioh, actually.

But, for all that, I found it to be incredibly absorbing, and I don't usually groove on shows of that style. What ultimately makes it work is the dichotomy of the Lucy/Nyu character... one side is an awesomely powerful creature that thinks nothing of, say, tearing the head off an innocent secretary then using her pens as head-shotting missiles, using her 'arms'. The other side of her is a sweet, caring, brain-addled cutie who can only say 'nyu.' Yes, I know, it sounds awful, but it hooked me.

Look, there's no easier way for me to describe the show's violence level than to tell a story from the Duck U. Anime Club. The Club receives monthly screener DVDs from ADVocates, the ADV club group, and one month had the first episode of EL on it. Nobody having heard of the show, we sat down to run it.

ADV throws up a black screen over nudity and extreme violence on their screener DVDs, and the FIRST EIGHT MINUTES were nothing more than black screen and subtitles (except for brief flashes of non-graphic animation).

Best darn OP ever, though. Bar none. EVER.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:18 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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1 Lucy/Nyu sounds like Pai from 3x3 Eyes. Only more so.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at December 17, 2006 05:21 PM (xyVrU)

2 You're not wrong, Pixy. In fact, now that it's been mentioned, I don't know why I didn't notice the similarity before...

It bears repeating: Best. OP. EVAR.

Posted by: Wonderduck at December 17, 2006 05:33 PM (YadGF)

3 I'll agree with you that EL is 'incredibly absorbing'. This was the first series I watched that hadn't been already released, so I had to wait a couple of months between disks. The waiting drove me nuts - I wanted to know where it was going now. I still consider it one of my favorites and rewatch it from time to time.

I'll almost agree with you that the OP is the best. I still rank 'Lain' higher, just because of the awesome BoA tune...

Posted by: astro at December 17, 2006 06:08 PM (FyzEs)

4 According to Wikipedia, Lucy kills 23 staff and guards in the first 10 minutes of the first episode. And she kills all of them by tearing them apart.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 18, 2006 10:07 AM (+rSRq)

5 I loved the intro sequence's song and the visuals go along nicely. It's one of the few series whose opening sequences I don't mind sitting through (the others being GITS: SAC season 1 and 2).

Posted by: Cineris at December 18, 2006 01:34 PM (6xvdl)

6 Wow.

One has to wonder, given that policy, why Elfen Lied was put on the screener DVD in the first place.

...then again, I can certainly see that working to get someone interested in the series, so perhaps it does make sense after all.

Posted by: Aaron Nowack at December 18, 2006 01:39 PM (hW9mq)

7 But, for all that, I found it to be incredibly absorbing, and I don't usually groove on shows of that style. What ultimately makes it work is the dichotomy of the Lucy/Nyu character... one side is an awesomely powerful creature that thinks nothing of, say, tearing the head off an innocent secretary then using her pens as head-shotting missiles, using her 'arms'. The other side of her is a sweet, caring, brain-addled cutie who can only say 'nyu.' Yes, I know, it sounds awful, but it hooked me.

Exactly my feelings. The show as a whole is also like that, containing the well-known bloodbaths but also some of the most touching scenes I've seen in any anime.

The OP song and animation are both beautiful (I was actually introduced to the show via the OST), but the ED also bears mentioning. Mainly because it's so ridiculously out of place in a show like this--you see Lucy commit some unspeakable act of violence to end an episode, and then it's "BABY I WANNA BE YOUR GIRL". So delightfully warped...

Oh, and Wikipedia is wrong. She doesn't kill them all by dismemberment. There's the ballpoint-pen-through-the-head guy, and the one who had his heart ripped from his chest. ;-)

Posted by: Andrew F. at December 18, 2006 01:58 PM (/TVYf)

8 I'm seriously considering a post of screencaps from the first 8 minutes, showing the various methods of death.

Andrew, the ED song is completely wrong for the show, and I love it, too. Actually, most of the staff of the Duck U. Bookstore like it, as well... even the ones that don't watch anime. It's just catchy as all heck.

Posted by: Wonderduck at December 18, 2006 02:02 PM (0Co69)

9 Sounds like it's just as out-of-place as the ED for Divergence Eve.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 18, 2006 03:26 PM (+rSRq)

10 Elfen Lied was a high stakes effort. To their credit, they kept alot of different plates spinning for quite some time ( horror, ecchi, harem, coming of age romance). Unfortunately, the whole thing came crashing down at the end. It was quite a wild ride while it lasted, though.

Posted by: Mark Brinton at December 18, 2006 06:07 PM (8dVqy)

11 ... and EL has the best OP. I was left speechless.

Posted by: Mark Brinton at December 18, 2006 06:23 PM (8dVqy)

12 It's a good thing you liked it. I posted something on my blog a zillion years back about how EL had a good song (which I translated and annotated, since the munchkins weren't doing it), but that I had no intention of ever watching the show. I know my violence limits, among other things.

And people keep sending me emails to tell me how bad I am for not watching their show! Or for having an opinion about what I'll probably like and what I won't!

*snicker* 'Cause no anime fan ever has opinions or tastes of her own....

Posted by: Maureen at December 21, 2006 11:39 AM (Ct5LW)

13 RE: EL's OP. Yes, it's quite good. But I think the OP for the Hakkenden is still one of the best in all of anime. The series is from 1990. I've seen a lot of anime since, and I can honestly say I've never seen an OP that comes close to comparing.

Too bad the anime itself was mediocre at best.

For some reason I have the entire series on LD. Some of which are still unopened. Heh.

As Steven often says -- everyone's entitled to their opinion. But if you want to see a *real* OP ...

Kidding, kidding.

Posted by: bkw at December 27, 2006 06:52 PM (KhFAm)

14 Hmmm. Just went back and watched the OPs to Hakkenden and Elfen Lied, to make sure I remembered them correctly.

My memory of Hakkenden may be slightly rose colored; it's a little dated, but (imo) still generally superior to the typical j-pop soundtracks. One of the things that I like the most is that it is pretty evocative of the series itself.

This is where I think the OP for Elfen Lied falls down a bit -- I would argue that it fits the tragic aspects of the anime, but misses all the other facets that make up the series. The OP doesn't give you a clue as to what to expect, except that it all very likely ends in tears ...

But anyway.

Posted by: bkw at December 27, 2006 07:17 PM (h/KQ9)

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:16 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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SDB: "If Ron Karenga can do it, so can I. The newly-formed Otaku religion celebrates Anime Day on December 25. It's a jenn-you-wine traditional Japanese holiday (that I just made up) which otaku celebrate by putting up life-sized cardboard cutouts of Sailor Moon. We demand that Usagi be placed next to Rabbi Bogomilsky's menorah, and if they won't do that then we'll sue."

Let's think about this. Pikachu, Sakura and Chiyo-chan would be in attendance as prophets, kawaii be their names. Various mecha would have to serve as angels, and the Space Battleship Yamato playing the role of the Ark.

Communion would be given in the form of Pocky and caffinated drinks.

I think Steven's onto something here!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:13 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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1 I like Sailor Moon! It's my favorite anime. We should celebrate this!!!

Posted by: Rob at December 11, 2006 07:12 PM (wMSNf)

2 You can go much worse than Serena... ah I beg your pardon... Usagi. And she is iconic.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at December 11, 2006 07:53 PM (9imyF)

3 Then I've just lived the ultimate "Anime Day" sacrilege. I ordered 3 DVD sets through the Amazon marketplace and all were bootleg! Is that like getting a lump of coal in your stocking? What kind of "bad karma" do I have to deserve this?

Posted by: madmike at December 11, 2006 08:01 PM (P1mII)

4 Count me in!!!

Posted by: Sir Sefirot at December 12, 2006 12:27 AM (UnABp)

5 That's all well and good, but I'm making popcorn and bringing a chair for when the debate gets to defining the Otaku Virgin Mary.

Posted by: Will at December 12, 2006 03:41 AM (SOx9v)

6 I nominate Rosette Christopher from Chrno Crusade for the Otaku Virgin Mary. It isn't exactly right, but she's probably as close as it will get.

Posted by: astro at December 12, 2006 07:58 AM (FyzEs)

7 The ones you speak of are false prophets, and those who follow them shall be cast into the fiery pit of dub-only edited-for-TV anime. The forces of Haruhiism will not be denied; we demand our own display separate from the otaku blasphemers.

There is no god but Haruhi, and Kyon is her prophet.

Posted by: Andrew F. at December 12, 2006 11:26 AM (tPdFK)

8 > Pocky and caffinated drinks

Heretic!! It's Pocky and Pocari Sweat!!

Posted by: Anon at December 12, 2006 11:48 AM (+qnHA)

9 Otaku Virgin Mary: well, I don't know about the virgin bit, but the Abh can not only provide Immaculate Conception, but Immaculate Gestation! (top that, Yahweh!

And if Kyon is the prophet, does that make Itsuki/Mikurur/Nagato the three wise men^Hpersons? After all, they are the first to recognize the new-born god...(they followed signs to her that no one else could see, too!)

Posted by: Intrope at December 12, 2006 01:43 PM (GljWn)

10 If you guys are looking for an anime virgin, wouldn't that be Chi from Chobits?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 12, 2006 02:13 PM (+rSRq)

11 We don't need weak analogies with Christianity here, so no virgins. Usagi works just fine, it's a respected symbol hailing to us from the dark ages of 1-episode per VHS tape, when true devotees had to walk miles barefoot to get those tapes... Haruris may come and go, true symbols stay the test of time.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at December 12, 2006 03:11 PM (9imyF)

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Recently, The Pond got it's first visit from an anime-hating troll. While I generally prefer to starve trolls to death and then jump up and down on their corpses, since this is MY VERY OWN first troll, I wanted to say a few words.

Dear Troll...
Thank you for the comment you left during your recent visit to The Pond. While it was poorly written and hard to understand, it certainly showed that you are either a terribly prejudiced, perhaps racist, person, or maybe just a profoundly ignorant one, with a taste for censorship to boot.
While I have only a handful of regular readers, and losing any reader is something small bloggers hate, I'd prefer it if you never bring yourself to my Pond ever again. In conclusion:

Have a swell day,
-Wonderduck

Posted by: Wonderduck at 02:17 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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SDB muses:

Tomorrow UPS will deliver my latest DVD order, and I'll get to watch yet another incarnation of Yamato in anime. It will, at least, be a bit more realistic. Or maybe not. They're not going to lift it into space, but a 13 year old girl is going to single-handedly lift it from the depths and move it back to a Japanese port.

Now I'm curious: when the girl/god in question raises the Yamato, will it be in one piece, or will it be in historically accurate shape (i.e., in two chunks, with the main turrets out of their barbettes)?

Considering that it's a god doing the raising, she can probably repair the damage while she's at it. Maybe a new coat of paint. Buff out the dings...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:07 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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