YMMV / Golgo 13

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Due to how enigmatic Golgo 13 himself is and how little emotion or inner thoughts he expresses, it gives the viewers enough ambiguity to interpret what kind of person he really is deep down. Is he just a Punch-Clock Villain who sees killing as little more than a profession and doesn't take any pleasure in what he does? Or is he indeed a sadistic misanthrope who sees his job as a way of venting his hatred and bloodlust? There is enough to make the latter plausible, such as the fact that several of his most astute clients have observed that behind his eyes is a lot of wrath and sadness, along with the fact that he will kill literally just about anyone, regardless of their age or whether they are innocent or evil, willingly too, which gives one the sense he has a complete detachment from human life.
  • In The Professional, did Cindy sleep with and gave Golgo a chance to escape because she fell for him and in the vain hope he would leave or did she leave him to die because she was done playing with him? Of course, she could have ordered his death because of self-preservation, but one does have to wonder how that accounts for her choice to sleep with him in the first place...
  • From the same movie. During the San Fransisco hit, it's mentioned that Dawson's men interrogated Golgo's client for details of the job. Previously, during the Messina hit, they are seen watching Golgo before he makes his move on Dr. Z. Might it be possible that they also leaned on Moretti for information beforehand?^note Pago, Moretti's sexton confesses to Golgo later in the movie that he told nobody about the hit. If so, perhaps the "unforgivable sin" (his sanctioning and request for murder aside) that Moretti referred to before his suicide may have very well been him betraying Golgo - and as we all know, that's the his biggest Berserk Button.
  • Regarding Snake and Golgo's duel in the finale: was the helicopter attacking on the elevator both were in and killing the latter an accident, a case of Shoot the Hostage to kill Golgo regardless of the circumstances, or one of Unfriendly Fire as part of Dawson's disgust of Snake? The fact Dawson didn't have too high of an opinion of him despite his accomplishments and was (initially) reluctant to have Snake have his way with Laura reinforces this.
• Complete Monster: The title character is a ruthless, coldhearted assassin, but he's practically a saint compared to the following miscreants:
  • Queen Bee: Thomas Waltham, the political adviser to prospective President Robert Hardy, is a sleazy and corrupt political operator who plots to be Vice President and the endless voice in Hardy's head. Having dealt with Hardy's mistress and illegitimate daughter, Waltham had the former murdered, then raped the young girl and sold her into white slavery for profit before lying to Hardy about it. Seeking to have the girl, now Sonia the Queen Bee, killed, Waltham hires Golgo 13 and allies with a corrupt general to annihilate an entire village full of civilians before attempting to exert his influence to crush Hardy even further.
  • Top Secret Episode: Adolf Hitler himself (aka "Smirk" in the US version) is the true ruler of the so-called Drek Empire and mastermind behind the theft of The Virus and vaccine. Framing Golgo 13 for the theft and steadily killing his contacts and anyone who knows of it, Hitler plots to unleash the virus on the world before attempting to set off a nuclear bomb when Golgo confronts him.
  • The Gun at Am Shara: Saddam Hussein is the dictator of Iraq. Recruiting the weapons inventor Izumi Murai, Saddam funds the design of the "Supergun", capable of reaching even the United States. Provoking an attack from the US by bombing and destroying Kurdish villages, Saddam intends on firing a shell to annihilate Washington DC, including a nerve agent with a 45 percent mortality rate to completely erase the city.
  • 2008 anime:
    • "The Glass Fortress": Vargas Walton is a seemingly philanthropic millionaire who lives in an untouchable island fortress. Funding terrorist groups to kill tens of thousands of innocents, Walton gets the money by playing a charitable man who takes in lost women, giving them hope, only to have them harvested for their organs in titanic numbers, proving himself to be, as one victim's father calls him: a heartless monster who deals in hearts.
    • "The Brutes' Banquet": Gabriel Rosmacdonald and Ignmar Petensen are a pair of sadistic millionaires who derive pleasure from the pain of others. Having filmed numerous atrocities, the two have seen numerous villages massacred and ethnically cleansed to be filmed by them, and many others tortured with some even fed to swarms of piranha. The two now bet on blood sports to pit others to the death in arenas where some will inevitably be killed, including the skilled assassin Spartacus whom they send against Golgo 13 on guise of protecting them. Their behavior so revolts Spartacus that he uses his final moments to pay Golgo 13 to make sure they do not outlive him long.
  • 1973 live-action film: Douglas, is the right-hand man of Max Boa, is a thuggish killer who engages in torture and Human Trafficking. Managing operations for his boss, Douglas captures women en masse to be traded as sex slaves and brutally tortures Golgo 13 for information. Upon Golgo managing to come for him and his boss, Douglas uses the women as hostages and begins gunning them down to intimidate Golgo 13 away.
• Escapist Character: Just like Duke's inspiration James Bond, Duke is a consummate assassin who is very, very successful with the ladies.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "Wasteland", a story about Golgo 13 just barely managing to avert a nuclear meltdown which would have rendered Los Angeles uninhabitable for millennia, reads somewhat differently after the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. In that story, Golgo was hired to prevent a nuclear accident from happening in Los Angeles. What's more is that the higher-ups in the story attempted to cover it up before one of them revealed the truth to the press.
  • "The Ivory Connection" sees the World Wildlife Fund - yes, that one - hire Golgo to shut down some ivory poachers. In the 2020s, they were accused, in real life, of doing just that, with mercenaries in lieu of a lone professional assassin.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In the 1973 movie, the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist (okay maybe not so sympathetic since he's seen torturing suspects to get information) is dubbed over by Yasuo Yamada, a year removed from Lupin III: Part 1. Ten years later, Gorō Naya and Kiyoshi Kobayashi, aka the then-voice actors for Inspector Zenigata and Daisuke Jigen, show up in The Professional as Leonard Dawson and his henchman, General Jefferson.
• Ho Yay: Robert Hardy and Thomas Waltham are quite... close to each other, to say the least. The fact that Waltham had Hardy's mistress taken away enforces this even further.
• Magnificent Bastard: "Golgo 13" himself, real name Duke Togo, spends most of his stories coming up with a complex gambit to fool his target and get him in a position to take his shot. A master sniper, Golgo has been active decades with incredibly few failures and a sterling reputation as a professional. In one instance, he tricks a CIA traitor into leading him to her boss while wearing a red coat against the snowy background to snipe them both in one shot. In another, knowing a mobster was faster on the draw than him, Golgo fools the mobster into being occupied with his dominant arm holding on to a woman so Golgo could outdraw him. Throughout every story, Golgo is characterized by his cold charisma and unreadable expression, always having a plan to take out his target, no matter who it is.
• Memetic Badass: Golgo 13 himself, as he's been portrayed as capable of assassinating just about anybody, to the point where he's arguably the manga equivalent of Batman (but without the Thou Shall Not Kill rule) due to his extreme feats, prep time, and general badassery.
• Memetic Mutation: Duke's face has gone memetic much like the Yaranaika face among Japanese artists, and gets slapped on just about any character's face as a source of quick comedy due to its out-of-place 'coolness'.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • In the first anime movie The Professional, Corrupt Corporate Executive Leonard Dawson, seeking revenge for the assassination of his son Robert, crosses the horizon when he becomes desperate enough to concede to a Psycho for Hire's demand to be allowed to rape Robert's wife. And things get worse from there.
  • In the series, Togo passes a potential MEH of his own when he sleeps with and later kills an innocent who makes the mistake of following him to a job. This is played around due to Togo's Pragmatic Villainy: He won't betray a client even under torture and one of the few times he failed ("Telepath") he tried to return the money (he later made good on it). However, he doesn't care who his client is, who his target is, or the reasons behind the hit. As long as he's paid and not double-crossed, eh, anything goes.
• Narm:
  • Some of the dialogue in the movies can invoke this, such as Rita's come on line to Duke:
    I don't want your money. I just want you to pull my trigger lovingly and softly.
  • Most of the voice acting in the 2008 series, while not great, usually served its purpose well enough and was an overall adequate experience. Some of the voices, however, were decidedly off the mark. Case in point, a group of Italian gangsters in one of the earlier episodes.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: Takao Saito originally wrote Golgo 13 as a way to continue making James Bond-style stories while bypassing any copyright issues with Ian Fleming.
• Special Effect Failure: The infamous CG helicopter scene in The Professional. It was the very first use of computer animation ever (beating The Adventures of André & Wally B. by one year), and it shows.
• Superlative Dubbing: Even Bennett the Sage, in a review that was largely critical of the film, was blown away by Dwight Schultz's performance as Robert Hardy, specifically singling out a scene where the character screams in anguish over his lost mistress and daughter.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: A likely reason for why Golgo 13 is less popular outside of Japan is due to how bleak and nihilistic the series is. The titular protagonist himself, Duke Togo, is pretty much a textbook sociopath with little to no redeeming qualities, who has no problem killing innocents if they are his targets, while the antagonists he is put up against are either just as bad or worse. Any character that is likable or even remotely moral often gets killed off, either by the antagonists or by Duke himself. As a result, it can be pretty hard to get invested in this series for many.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: The codename "Golgo 13" is apparently a reference to Golgotha, the hill where Jesus Christ was crucified, and Judas Iscariot, considered the 13th person at the last supper Passover meal, (though, in reality, there were AT LEAST 14 people there, it's a common association). For bonus points, the Japanese logo for the series prominently features a skeleton wearing a crown of thorns...

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