Golden Boy Review

Time for another OVA from the nineties. There are a lot of rumours about Golden Boy. The two most notable ones are that it’s supposed to be hilarious and chockfull of fanservice. Well, at least I can agree with one of them. Whenever this OVA has the chance, it shows off its female “assets”, often taking fanservice to the extreme (we’re talking about women who hump motorcycles here).

And in terms of humour, it just disappoints. I did get a few good laughs out of some of the episodes, but it wasn’t really side-splittingly funny like some reviews I’ve read about it seemed to suggest. The jokes either work completely or miss the mark entirely. Fortunately, Golden Boy does manage to set itself apart from all other fanservice comedies with a solid and creative script.

Basically, it follows a guy who travels around and takes on random part-time jobs, while meeting and charming sexy women in the process. Every single episode ends with said woman falling in love with Kintarou, but what happens around that is the interesting part. Kintarou, the main character, is an incredible pervert, and yet at the same time he’s one of the most versatile and interesting perverts I’ve seen in anime (not that that bar is particularly difficult to pass, but okay). His obsession with toilets may be a little too played out, but his obsession with learning becomes downright adorable over time.

He also chooses some interesting places to work in, and the creators actually did some research on what working at such a job entails (I never thought that I’d see references to FORTRAN and COBOL somewhere in anime), ranging from a simple noodle house to an anime production company. Compare that to your average fanservice-series, which often can’t get more original than a beach episode.

In terms of production-values, Golden Boy is very much a mixed bag. The animation ranges from standard to incredibly fluid (especially the fanservice-scenes have a lot of the latter), and the music consists of a bunch of random cheesy J-pop tunes, which really felt like the sound producer found them somewhere in a bargain-bin at a local garage-sale.

Overall, I do have to say that Golden Boy is over-hyped. There are quite a few times in which it goes straight against logic or physics. Nevertheless, for a fanservice comedy, it’s among the better anime of the genre. You can see that the creators put a lot of effort into its creation, and the short format helps to keep things fresh, even through the lesser episodes. It’s nowhere near my favourites, but at least I got some good laughs out of it.
Storytelling: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Production-Values: 8/10
Setting: 8/10