Golden Boy

Information of Anime

Kintarou Oe is a 25 year old free hopping part-time seeking person.  He rides his bike, Crescent Moon, looking for jobs around Japan.  He's actually a Tokyo University law student dropout.  But, he managed to master the whole curriculum before dropping out.  Looking for part time jobs, he uses them to study about life.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Kintarou basically finds a lot of odd end part time jobs.  Most of the time, he doesn't earn money from it.  He uses them as his studying hobby.  However, most of the jobs involve a female co-worker or boss that he's in love with.  This is another reason why he takes the jobs.  Throughout the course of his jobs, he learns not only about the job, he learns about women bodies.  He takes notes in his small notebook & makes sketches.  Because of his perverted behaviour, he ends up losing his job by getting fired most of the time.  It's only until time that Kintarou's actions & suggestions would help or save the company he's working for.  He's, in fact, a genius in training.  When the female character sees this & has a change of view of him, he's already gone with his bike to other place looking for work.

My Personal Review

Golden Boy is truly a funny OVA.  I don't know what took me so long to sit down & watch this old OVA.  Because of its ecchi humour, this is geared more to a mature audience; possibly beyond young teens.  It makes a lot of references on sexual situations & may not be appropriate to a large audience.

Animation

The character designs are pretty long & not proportional at times.  Their long limbs are aren't the same with other.  For example, one leg is thicker than the other.  Also, the sizing difference may make the character look taller than he/she actually is from a distance view.  The faces are quite long & the eyes are either small or narrow.  Most of the female faces are round & chubby.  They are a lot of times where we see different face variations of Kintarou either because he's shock, in fear, or beaten up.  However, most of the details are actually in the dirty areas of women such as their breasts or crotch.  Since this is a old OVA, it's pretty much expected that it's not going to look good as today's anime shows.

The backgrounds are on the dull side.  They don't have a lot of detail & are quite blurry.  Also, it's uneven on some building structures.  You can see some of the lines being thicker than the other.

For the colours, it's very dull.  OVAs during that time are pretty dull & aren't colourful.  The nice thing about it though is that it doesn't create any problems between the characters & the background.  The characters stand out a lot.

In terms of the animation movement, it's quite flowing & unnatural.  However, most of it occurs with Kintarou.  One scene would be how he rides his bike in high speeds & turning the long corners as if he's riding a motorcycle.  It's pretty funny really.  Overall, it's pretty smooth for a old OVA.

Sound       

The sound effects are mainly on the silly side.  Not much of the realistic sounds, but it fits the show well.  They are timed on cue, but a little blurry.  It's probably because it's old & I was watching a source that has aged.

The seiyuus here are not bad.  Kintarou's voice is a bit overwork at times.  Sometimes, his vocal actions don't match his facial expressions.  Also, the use of the word "study" seems a bit too much.  The seiyuu doing this probably thought the same thing as it may be hard on his vocal cords.  Kintarou says "study" a lot when he rides his bike & it may get old very quick.  The female seiyuus aren't bad, but some did seem to be lifeless at times.

The music is ok, but it's not something to remember about.  They have create the mood well though, but you won't sing along with it.

Story

It's mainly a bunch of short stories that tie to Kintarou's life studying journey.  The pattern is the same throughout.  He attends a part-time job where it has a good looking girl working there, does something perverted, gets fired for it, & suddenly get chased after from her after realizing how he saved or improved her workplace.  They are some slight variations of this, but it's mainly the same thing: the girl loves his character after he leaves.  The story is quite simple, but effective.

The solutions that Kintarou uses can be quite simple at times.  One example is episode four where he uses games to help kids put their faces into the water without fear.  Although it's clever, it sounds a bit simple.

The humour used in the show is mainly perverted.  It involves Kintarou peeping on girls changing, hugging toilets that the female characters sit on, & other sexual related acts.  A lot of the jokes are funny & most of it gets recycled.  Sometimes the jokes can get old quickly.  Kintarou's uncontrollable urge to hug toilets because of the "warmth" left behind started to lose it's touch since you hardly see people hugging toilets like that.

Overall Conclusion

Golden Boy is a classic OVA not to be missed.  If you like a lot of ecchi humour in your anime, you can't pass this.  However, as stated before, this isn't suitable for a younger audience.  Although it's not classified as hentai since it has no sex scenes, it's got a lot of ecchi stuff in it.

Golden Boy receives an eight out of ten on its report card.  The show is full of laughs & will satisfy the hunger ecchi loving otakus.  Although the animation is considered poor comparing to today's standards, it's not something you should pass up really.  It's more like a requirement to watch this OVA if you like anime of all types.