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I thought Tokyo Grandfathers was pretty good. A surprisingly heartwarming story from Japan.
Never saw any of the others, though.
And for what its worth, I'm watching episodes of an anime called Golgo 13, which is about a highly skilled assassin, a master sniper who favors a scoped M-16.
I've watched two episodes and, while it had the promise of being a manly show about a manly badass who nails hot babes left and right and blows guys away with his awesome marksman skills....its not very good. I mean, I didn't expect my mind to be blown, but I at least expected to be entertained.
WARNING; WHAT FOLLOWS IS A VERY, VERY, VERY LONG RANT/REVIEW OF THIS SHOW. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT, STOP READING HERE.
First episode, Duke Togo, Alias Golgo 13, is released from prison by the CIA to take out a man who has hijacked an airliner with a cellphone full of explosives and an Air Marshal's gun. The plane is being fueled up for the Hijacker's ultimate destination: Columbia, where he plans to sell US Missile tech secrets to the highest bidder. Duke has to make a shot from down a runway and through the windshield of the plane. Duke tells the CIA he will need four hours to get ready for the job.
What does he do in those four hours? Track down a master gunsmith to make custom mods to a swiss rifle he has picked out and then nails a high class prostitute while he's waiting. Duke is so good, apparently, the bombshell Prostitute offers to clear her schedule just for another round with him.
Begin eye rolling.
But of course that option is cut short as Duke's spidey sense goes off. Some mafia hitmen, pissed off at Golgo 13 about something he did in the past are led by an informant to the hotel where Duke is getting it on. Duke chucks the woman into the closet and dives behind the bed as bullets miraculously miss him, then he pops back up and caps all five mafia guys in the head with his revolver, never missing.
Meanwhile, back on the runway, s**t's getting real as the SWAT team deployed has to shoot out a tire on the plane to keep it from immediately taking off. So, since he's getting paid to keep the scumbag from getting away, Golgo 13 finishes putting his pants back on, picks up his gun from the store and gets to doing the shot a SWAT team couldn't handle.
The plane's moved, making the data the CIA provided for Duke's aiming calculations obsolete, so Duke has to recalculate his shot on the fly. He does this by flying in on a single prop civilian monoplane, landing it, and caping the dude in the head just as the man looks over at the now grounded propeller craft.
Job done, Golgo 13 takes off in his plane, the CIA letting him get away because that was part of the bargain.
First episode pretty much sets up the idea that Golgo 13's a manly badass, but the first job he's given is one in which time is a factor, and he demands four hours so he can have a gun made and so he can bang a hooker. So while an entire plane full of innocent civilians is being threatened by a man willing to kill them to get his ticket out of the country, our protagonist is, literally, ******** around. I'm not going to assume that Duke has any morals whatsoever, but considering that he's being paid to do this job and, if he ******** up, the CIA knows where he is and his a** would go back in the slammer, you would think that he would respect he has to take care of this NOW, not four hours later.
Second episode is where I really call bullshit. Golgo 13's hired to take out a Mafia Boss who's got his claws into wallstreet and plans to manipulate the market to his advantage, threatening global economics for his own, short term, personal gain. Golgo 13 takes his time, does his research, learns his target's habits, finds his spot and makes his shot just at the right moment with another European sharpshooter rifle and nails the target right between the eyes. Unfortunately, as he's sliding back the lever of his gun, a cat startles him (a cat, on a balcony, 25 stories up) and he fails to catch the spent shell.
Now, we don't watch all that much about how Duke sets up the hit, just him looking at his target;s office from street level, the set up for the shot and the shot itself. The NYPD detective on the case summarizes the preparation required for us so we know what Duke had to do to get that shot timed right. Nothing unusual about it and all pretty logical.
Its the rest of the episode that gets me.
Thanks to the shell casing, this detective figures out where the shooter shot from and finds Duke at the hotel room he paid for, where Duke is in only a minor hurry to catch his plane out of the country but indulges the cops.
They find the gun, thrown down a dustbin into the trash. They match the casing to the gun and the bullet to the casing. They determine that the room he rented, the furthest from the elevator on a floor full of available, more convenient rooms, is the best choice for the shot. The detective points out all the holes in Golgo's story. THEY GOT HIM.
Then the weather report comes back. The Wind that had been blowing, a wind favorable to the shot, only started blowing after the shooting. Duke made a 500m shot, 25 stories up, at an upwards angle, between two buildings, without a bipod, in a strong unfavorable wind.
Its an impossible shot. And since its an impossible shot, they have no witnesses and no finger prints on the gun or the casing, they can't prove he did it. And they let him walk.
...They spend an entire episode elaborating on how awesome a shot he is.
As the cop starts putting pieces together, I find myself rooting for him, because he's doing damn fine police work and he's a sympathetic character. Golgo 13 is an emotionless slab of meat. Up to the reveal with the weather and looking down the scope at the shot Golgo 13 had to make, I'm hoping he busts him, or theres a clever trick involved that he doesn't realize yet. Had there been a trick that Golgo did to make the shot easier for himself, leaving the detective baffled but explaining it to the audience, I would have gave the episode a thumbs up.
But no. There's no trick. Golgo 13's just that damn good. And instead of holding him for suspicion at the very least, the cops just let the assassin go on his merry way.
BULLSHIT.
I'm continuing to watch this series only to see if it improves.
as of episode 3, however, I find myself doubting it. A new pair of guns are being tested with fancy a** scopes that auto calculate gravity and drag on a bullet. Line the laser up and the scope tells you what to aim for so you hit your mark. The trouble is, however, they put them on assault rifles. The rifles apparently are better than the AK-74, the FAL, and the M-16, and with these new assault rifles and these new scopes, a pair of French mercs plan on taking out Golgo 13 and proving they're the best Snipers for Hire around.
Many of you fellow weapon aficionados already can see the problem with this.
For those of you who don't, it breaks down like this:
There are weapons specially designed for snipers called Sniper Rifles. They have lower recoil, greater killing distance, superior accuracy. and superior stopping power at long range than an Assault Rifle, which is designed to be given to regular soldiers and is more effective at the closer ranges that most soldiers find themselves in when a firefight erupts.
Sniper Rifles are specialized guns for the specialized role of Sniping. A Sniper, given a choice, will use a Sniper Rifler to Snipe, in the same way a Formula 1 race car driver would use a Formula 1 Race Car to race in the Monaco Grand Prix, a Formula 1 Race, rather than a brand new Prius.
If you've followed and understood everything that I've said thus far, then congratulations, you know more about sniping than the writers for an anime where the protagonist is an unparalled sniper who prefers to use an M-16 assault rifle.
I'll let you guys know if this s**t gets any better, but I doubt it. And this show had such promise too....
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