Golden Boy The Story of Love, Lust, and Toilets… So Educational

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By Heather Nichols, Tawfik Zone Contributor

I was a huge anime fan up until the mid-2000s, but I’ve lost touch with it for the most part unless an acquaintance is voice acting in a new dub or a friend introduces me to a new original concept. I recently had a conversation with a friend who said they didn’t like old anime, claiming that new anime is superior. I don’t question his taste, but I wonder how many of the young anime fans have seen some of the “older stuff.” So it’s time to go a little old school and take a look back at one of the less popularized animes. Sorry Dragonball, Pokemon, Sailor Moon and Neon Genesis Evangelion, you’re way too popular for me to talk about here.

There are some who stand by the belief that cartoons are for kids. Apparently they don’t own a television because The Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy have been defying that trope for years. If you can get past that mentality and think of it as just another medium in which to tell a story, you’ll be better off. Anime can be funny, dramatic, action-packed and even sometimes philosophical.

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And sometimes it just gets weird, particularly with the subgenres ecchi and hentai. While both can be further sub divided all you need to know for now is ecchi implies there is perversion involved but no actual intercourse while hentai is straight up pornography. You could find content similar to this on websites such as https://www.animehentaivideos.xxx/. Golden Boy is an ecchi which means if you’re easily embarrassed you might want to steer clear. Note, while there are no explicit sex scenes, breasts are visible, crude jokes and allusions to masturbation are made and the main character fantasizes about his hand turning into a penis at one point, but that’s as far as it goes.

Golden Boy is a 6-episode OVA series, meaning it was released on VHS but not televised. It’s an adaptation of the first volume of a 10 volume run series by Tatsuya Egawa. It falls into the genre of sex comedy; to compare it to something American think Two and a Half Men if it had a decent writing staff and whatever rom-com you consider to be the quintessential one where despite all odds the two parties involved must end up together no matter how outrageous their flaws are. Kintaro Oe drops out of Tokyo University despite having all the required graduation credits to become a “freeter,” a person who moves around from one part-time job to another. He studies the world through his jobs and ends up helping people along the way. Oh I forgot to mention he’s a total pervert especially when left alone to ponder near a toilet.

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Kintaro fantasizes about the various women he meets but he never actually sleeps with any of them. In fact he protects one girl from losing her purity upon discovering how lowly her object of affection really is. Despite this, the series does not come off as sexist in its presentation, unless you count the way the woman in the first episode is dressed (it’s called a bra honey). I really enjoy the series for its clever writing and the English dub does really keep the feel of the original Japanese version which is nice because for some reading the jokes might spoil the fun.

I’m not going to go super deep into analyzing this one since I think it’s simply really meant to be comedy that entertains. Perhaps some might want to start an analytical debate about whether or not Kintaro is sexist, but since he’s one of those characters you don’t want to hate I feel like we should just leave the subject alone and watch it for the giggles. All in all, if you’re looking for a raunchy comedy that feels a little in-between the Seth MacFarlane and Kevin Smith brands of humor I’d recommend Golden Boy. Again since this is ecchi I don’t recommend it for anyone under the age of 18 due to its sexual and crude humor. Oh yeah I never explained the thing about toilets…

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Meh, I think you’ll be fine once you see it.

As of July 12, 2014 Golden Boy is available on YouTube.