History Manga / Golgo13

** Later, a yogi reading Golgo's soul is shocked that he effectively leaped to the sixth stage of yoga with no training or practice, only his own mental discipline. The yogi finds the ability to control one's body and mind at to kill with nothing but pure intentions terrifying in a murderer, and is deeply unsettled after Golgo leaves.

*** To begin with, the cops manage to get all the evidence they needed to incriminate him: they found him in the only hotel room the shot could be taken from, they found the custom precision rifle he used in the dust chute, they found the shell casing from the high-powered bullet(which a patrolman picked up ''when it was still warm'', perfectly matching it to the time of death), etc. For all purposes, he was caught.

* ImprobableWeaponUser: Golgo doesn't rely on them, but he can use them when he needs to, like a gun designed for zero-recoil shooting in space, a special bullet-reflecting beltbuckle, or special bullets made out of rare materials.

* DefeatingTheUndefetable:

* CowboyCop: Agent Daches in the story "An Offering to God" can be considered this and Golgo uses this character trope as part of a BatmanGambit. During the story, Daches, who is adamant to arrest Golgo, orders FBI agents steal some items from Golgo's car to cover for an illegal search. Duke reports the stolen items which includes a plastic gun capable of shooting a single bullet which he used in an earlier assassination. The FBI can't say he's lying without admitting to the break-in thus incriminating Daches for ordering the search.
* DatedHistory: Martin Bormann appears as the leader of a Nazi revial group in the 1980s. At the time, there was still speculation that he'd managed to surivival the fall of Berlin, but his skeleton was found in 1972 near a Berlin bridge and confirmed to be him in 1998.

** The TV series is no exception either. However, description laden conversations are noticeably shortened from their original manga versions given the half-hour time format episodes are in.

* DistressedDude: Golgo 13 commonly finds himself in this position though usually has little trouble getting himself out.

* TheDreaded: To the point that there was one story focusing on how the threat of his presence affected people.

* ContractOnTheHitman: Although Duke Togo is strictly a freelance agent, he's frequently been double-crossed by his employers. This never ends well for them, since it's the closest to his BerserkButton. And seriously, why do they even bother? The guy's so much of a ConsummateProfessional that, as long as you pay him and don't betray him, he'll ''never'' come after you (unless someone else hires him to do so later) or reveal your secrets to anyone.
** On some occasions these contracts are made by non-employers. "The Masterpiece Assault Rifle" for instance involves an arms dealer named Kaizer hire two mercenaries brothers to kill Golgo 13. This is to prove the superiority of the two technologically advanced rifles he's given to them which he holds render his preferred M16 firearm obsolete. Doing this, he believes, will result in military forces across the world flocking to buy them.

* BrokenWinLossStreak: Despite his legend as an "unbeatable" hitman, Golgo has indeed failed twice. The first happened in "Accidental", as he never followed up on the hit after he found out who sabotaged the job. The other happened in "Rockford's Ambition - Flaw in the Strategy" where his kill was stolen by a rival sniper woking for the Rockford family. Verly nearly averted in "Telepath", as he indeed tried to quit the job was convinced to stay on for longer.

** Another tme, the police capture Golgo, with his sniper rifle. But have to let him go because no jury on earth would believe the shot he took was actually possible. Among the difficulties: over 2km away, swirling crosswinds, a shot into the side of a moving car, visible only for a moment because of a narrow passage between two skyscrapers in the way, with the sun glinting off the windows of both the car and the skyscrapers.

* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Golgo does outstanding investigative work and research for every hit he makes, and measures every little detail to make sure he strikes at the exact time. He studies his victim's habits, patterns, henchmen, and any other factor that might contribute or hinder the assassination attempt. Even more interesting is when he investigates rival assassins, whom he sometimes has to work against. He also has myriad contacts, like investigators, weaponsmiths, etc. to provide him with all the information and equipment needed for the job. If any fictional character can give Franchise/{{Batman}} a run for his money in the CrazyPrepared department, it's Golgo 13.

* ScottyTime: Recurring gunsmith character Dave [=McCartney=] gets hit with this quite a lot, especially when Golgo comes calling for a special weapon. How he takes this differs from the material - in the manga he's almost always exhasperated; in the anime he frequently takes it as a challenge, or otherwise shurgs off.

* StatuteOfLimitations: Golgo typically relies on this trope expiring in order to escape police custody if ever arrested. As he is actually very good at covering his bases, especially of killing his human target, and being very knowledgeable about using the law to his advantage, it's unsurprising that most of the time this tactic works out.

* ThrowAwayGuns: Golgo sometimes discards the weapons he uses for a job after it is done. Given that he charges seven figure fees for his services, he can afford to replace his guns whenever he wants to.

* BolivianArmyEnding: During "The Orbital Hit" a general who was working with Golgo under duress (and makes racist statements about him to boot) secretly sabotages the maneuvering unit on Golgo's space suit so that after the completed the mission, he'd be lost in space. Golgo figures a way out, and the capsule that he was meant to come back in is empty when the American forces find it. Believing the assassin dead, the general tenders his resignation and is driven home...but then his car passes Golgo alive and well. Although the horrified general isn't dead by the end of the story, well...

* BriefcaseFullOfMoney: Golgo is often paid with one of these.
* TheCasanova: Explored to an extent in Golgo 13. The title character tends to have sex before a job, and does have good luck at getting women to join him in bed. However, he just as often hires prostitutes, and due to his notorious blank expression not changing, a number of readers have theorized he doesn't actually enjoy it.

* DatedHistory: Martin Bormann appears as the leader of a Nazi revial group in the 1980s. At the time, there was still speculation that he'd managed to escape Berlin before it completely fell to the Red Army, but his skeleton was found in 1972 near a Berlin bridge and confirmed to be him in 1998.

* HitmanWithAHeart: Mostly averted. Once he accepts a job, he'll do it. He just usually doesn't accept "easy" jobs, but will kill anyone he does agree to kill, be it man, woman or child. The latter is just very, very rare. Besides, while some of his rivals tend to kill their targets in gruesome ways (like Snake in the Professional), Duke does get rid of his targets quick and easy.

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: The story "Accidental" features a supposedly routine hit get sabotaged when his rifle refuses to fire. Despite pleas from his client, Golgo straight-up quits the job. The story ends with him uncovering the mastermind: [[spoiler: it was the weaponsmith who gave him the gun in the first place. Just before he kills the man, the guy gives his reason: [[ItAmusedMe he thought it would be a good joke to sabotage the reputation of the world's greatest hitman by giving him a faulty weapon.]]]] Seeing as we never see Golgo follow up on this failure, this can be definitely counted as one of the few, if only times the great Golgo 13 failed to do the job. [[StatusQuoIsGod Not that it affects his reputation anyways]].

** Story #79, "Accidental" features the one and only time Golgo has failed a job. This was given a subtle nod at in "The Last Will of Mao Zedong" where it's mentioned, by that time, Golgo has a 99.4% success rate.[[note]]The story was #168. 167 is 99.4% of 168.[[/note]]

** The 1969 story ''The Yellow Rose''. Duke is hired to kill a playboy only known as The Yellow Rose, who's infamous for seducing rich, famous women who later turn up dead. A pornographic film featuring a Creator/MarilynMonroe-expy leads him to a rug factory in Iran, where he discovers countless other films, where he also notices that all the men appearing in the films are different people and can't be the Yellow Rose. Finally, it turns out [[spoiler: The REAL Yellow Rose is a hermaphrodite living as a woman, who's the brains behind the operation. She sells the films for high prizes to her rich clients, and smuggles them around the world hidden in expensive persian rugs. Her motivation? She hates the world because of her condition and takes it out on rich, beautiful women. This revelation is even enough to make Golgo surprised.]]

* ToThePain: Golgo's threatened to shoot people one body part at a time without killing them in order to get information. He's also done more than threaten.

* AchievementsInIgnorance: An experienced yogi noted that Golgo achieved the first six stages of yoga without any consciousness of what they were via his own mental discipline.

* UsefulNotes/BillClinton: "Flagburner" features Bill Clinton... [[{{Narm}} having smiley sex in the Oval Office]]. This was also hinted at in "Eye of God".
** President Clinton is one of the few people to hire Golgo 13 more than once ("Supergun", and "Eye of God" - indirectly in the latter case. "Okinawa Syndrome" had Golgo working with U.S. Special Forces with Presidential authority during Clinton's administration, although he was hired by someone else).

Fifty of the manga stories were adapted for TV Tokyo, a Japanese television channel. The series ran from April 11, 2008 to March 27, 2009. The stories are almost entirely direct adaptations from the original stories with some modifications namely that they were [[SettingUpdate updated for modern times]] and shortened to fit a near half-hour format.

Sadly, Takao Saito, Golgo's creator, passed away on September 24, 2021. With his story seemingly planned to have an ending that would be ready to publish, it would [[PosthumousCollaboration still continue with his assistants at the helm, according to his last will]].

** On one occasion, two goons". One cop was surprised, the other disgusted.

** On one occasion, police officers arrested him while he was having sex. When he stood up, he didn't... how shall we put this... "lay down". One cop was surprised, the other disgusted.

* DatedHistory: Martin Bormann appears as the leader of a Nazi revial group in the 1980s. At the time, there was still speculation that he'd managed to escape Berlin before it completely fell to the Red Army, but it's now generally accepted that he either committed suicide or was killed by Soviet troops.

!![[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife Do not stand behind these Tropes, if you value your life:]]

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: A number of earlier stories don't even bother masking the backdrop of the Cold War. Golgo himself gets tangled in hijinks on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

* {{Mukokuseki}}: Very meta on this one. Golgo 13 is a worldly, adult-oriented manga sometimes incorporating world news events, where people will actually be drawn with something approaching recognizable ethnicity, especially the many portrayals of real people (Even Nelson Mandela needs Golgo, sometimes!). However, Golgo's own {{Mukokuseki}} good looks (along with his polyglot abilities) become one of his greatest assets for being undetected, and even the other characters are confused about what ethnicity he is. Even then, however, people tend to vaguely assume he might be at least partly Japanese.

** ''Rockford's Ambition - Flaw in the Strategy'' sees the Rockfords consult a dead ringer for [[UsefulNotes/HenryKissinger]]... except his surname is Breziner.

* VillainRespect: In The Impossible Hit (anime episode title: Room 909) Detective Sam Shire is determined to find something that would convince a jury that Golgo was the assassin. Golgo sits quietly in his hotel room and allows the detective and his assistant to search the room and analyze everything. The detective was right but the physics and other technical aspects of the kill worked against him. Golgo was never condescending to Shire and actually threw him a [[CombatCompliment "Nice Try" type of line at the end]].

Saito has mentioned in recent interviews that he has made draft plans on how to end it should it be necessary, either by him or by the editors. The manga ended its run as the longest running manga without a single interruption in May 2020, at 52 years, due to [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic the COVID-19 pandemic.]] It came back with the first chapter published on July 2020.[[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-07-05/golgo-13-manga-breaks-guinness-world-record-for-most-volumes/.174827 Regardless, it now holds the record for most manga volumes in history with a whopping 201 and counting as of July 2021.]]

Saito has mentioned in recent interviews that he has made draft plans on how to end it should it be necessary, either by him or by the editors. The manga ended its run as the longest running manga without a single interruption in May 2020, at 52 years, due to [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic the COVID-19 pandemic.]] It came back with the first chapter published on July 2020.

[[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-07-05/golgo-13-manga-breaks-guinness-world-record-for-most-volumes/.174827 Regardless, it now holds the record for most manga volumes in history with a whopping 201 and counting as of July 2021.]]

** Golgo's target, Nuols, in the two-part story consisting of "Checkmate" and "Stalemate" is a good example. A wealthy man and an expert at chess, he decides to play an elaborate game with the hitman [[spoiler: [[SecretlyDying dies of an illness that will kill him in six months.]]

Sadly, Takao Saito, Golgo's creator, passed away on September 22, 2021. With his story seemingly planned to have an ending that would be ready to publish, it would [[PosthumousCollaboration still continue with his assistants at the helm, according to his last will]].

Sadly, Takao Saito, Golgo's creator, passed away on September 22, 2021. With his story seemingly planned to have an ending that would ready to publish, it would [[PosthumousCollaboration continue with his assistants at the helm, according to his last will]].

Sadly, Takao Saito, Golgo's creator, passed away on September 22, 2021. With his story seemingly already having an ending in mind and ready to publish for the series, it would [[PosthumousCollaboration continue with his assistants at the helm]].

Sadly, Takao Saito, Golgo's creator, passed away on September 22, 2021. With him seemingly already having an ending in mind and ready to publish for the series, it's future seems uncertain as of September 29, 2021.

Sadly, Takao Saito, Golgo's creator, passed away on September 22, 2021. With him seemingly already having an ending in mindand ready to publish for the series, it's future seems uncertain as of 29 of setptember, 2021.