Perfect Machine of Snipe, Part V

Apparently Golgo-13 makes his long-overdue (?) return to the U.S. this week in the form of a Viz-published graphic novel called “Supergun.” Given the nature of the series, there’s a 50% chance that the title refers to “Little Duke” and not some sort of ultimate weapon.



Anyway, the point is: Time for another installment of Perfect Machine of Snipe.



The fourth and final volume of Leed’s 80s-era run of Golgo-13 graphics novels was called “The Ivory Connection.” It manages all at once to include one of the most enjoyable G13 stories I’ve read… and also the most completely repulsive. It’s a pretty well-known fact that Takao Saito’s name on the cover is more a stamp of approval than actual authorial involvement; Duke Togo’s adventures are mass-produced by a studio of young men carefully trained to mimic Saito’s artwork, and nowhere is that more obvious than in The Ivory Connection. The first half of the book, an eponymous globetrotting story, features a restrained art style with crisp, controlled linework and fairly elegant figures. But the second story, “Scandal! The Unpaid Reward,” has a look as lurid as its title, with thicker inking and cruder anatomy. Also a lot more smirking.



Plus it’s really completely unpleasant.

The Ivory Connection



The first story is another one of those overly complicated tales in which Golgo-13 runs several scams concurrently for no real reason, since in the end he just blows away the bad guys with a very direct bullets-to-brains approach. But unlike the ludicrous plot of Galinpero, there’s actually a point to this one: The WWF (World Wildlife Foundation, not the former wrestling league) contracts G13 to bust up an ivory poaching ring. And not just to take down the poachers, but to ruin the entire ivory underground. All for the paltry sum of 20,000 pounds sterling.






So he goes to Africa while pretending to be Chinese, which for some reason involves a group of killer mercenaries that seems to have nearly nothing to do with the main plot.






Togo meets up with the local authorities to check out the most recent elephant kills, then hooks up with the poachers under the pretext of being a Hong Kong black market buyer with plenty of money to throw around for fresh ivory. But snap! This is actually a cover so that he can drop some flesh-eating bacteria in with the poachers’ shipments, which then do their thing and slowly rot the ivory in transit.






His stealthy work completed, Golgo takes out the poacher group with a grenade disguised as a pack of cigarettes. The coda: A very angry Hong Kong ivory buyer explains to the poacher leader his dissatisfaction at dropping huge money for a shipment of wormy goods. The end: Golgo stoically calls it a night, having done a good deed for a dying species. Aww.






Scandal! The Unpaid Reward



Any good karma Golgo might have racked up in the first chapter is utterly squandered on the second. Scandal! is pretty much the un-feel-good story of the century. And it was written last century. It’s just that awful.



The story begins in Germany, where Togo takes a contract for an old man who used to be an anti-Nazi underground resistance fighter. That’s good, right? Well, no, because the old man is every bit as horrible as any Nazi ever to have their skull perforated by a custom M-16. Annoyed that G13 insists on playing by his own rules, he decides not to pay the contract in full. And we all know what happens to people who back out of an agreement with Togo. Like everyone else in this series, they end up returning to the great circle of life.






It’s the details of the contract that make the story so unsavory. The old guy wants to earn his group a government bid, so he decides to bump off his number-one rival. But he decides to do it in a way that will completely discredit his opponent, which in this case means slipping the unsuspecting sap a powerful hallucinogen combined with an aphrodisiac — and then, when the victim tries to take sexual advantage of his daughter-in-law in the throes of drug-induced mania, Golgo drops by in a helicopter and snipes a chandelier which skewers the both of them.



This is what is known among decent human beings as “vile.”



Even the filler plot material is crap. The secondary plot hook for Scandal! is that the old dude’s assistant, a beefy mook by the name of Uther (or Frederick or something equally generic in a German vein) whom the geezer had once saved from a life in the Hitler Youth, claims to know Golgo 13’s hidden weakness and intends to exploit it to make sure the old fart is safe.



But it turns out his “big secret” is that he’s discovered Golgo 13 is such a finely-honed machine of snipe (perfect, one might say) that he reflexively beats the crap out of anyone who tries to get the drop on him from behind. This was revealed in the very first scene of the very first chapter of the series, way back in 1968… so, you know, some big secret. Gunther arranges to have some other guy attack Golgo from behind, allowing him a split-second to plug Golgo while he’s busy karate-chopping the dupe. Naturally, rather than pump the world’s greatest assassin full of lead in that carefully-planned moment of distraction, Dieter decides to monologue about how clever he is. So Golgo kills him. Sheesh.






Oh, and when the old man tries to defend himself against G13’s implacable, impassive wrath, he accidentally skewers his young grandson on a sword. Horrible.



I guess what I’m saying is, don’t read Scandal!



I hear tell it’s not in Supergun, though, so do your part and support classic (albeit amoral) manga and pick up a copy if you see it.

24 thoughts on “Perfect Machine of Snipe, Part V”

  1. “and then, when the victim tries to take sexual advantage of his daughter-in-law in the throes of drug-induced mania, Golgo drops by in a helicopter and snipes a chandelier which skewers the both of them.

    This is what is known among decent human beings as “vile.” ”
    And indecent fellows as a “Twofer.”

  4. “Well, no, because the old man is every bit as horrible as any Nazi ever to have their skull perforated by a custom M-16.”

    I like that reference to the first anime movie. ^_^

    “The old guy wants to earn his group a government bid, so he decides to bump off his number-one rival.”

    You sure this manga isn’t about Cheney?

    “Naturally, rather than pump the world’s greatest assassin full of lead in that carefully-planned moment of distraction, Dieter decides to monologue about how clever he is. So Golgo kills him.”

    That sounds like the James Bond villain mistake cliche they skewer in Austin Powers.

    “…he’s black. Japan isn’t really a bastion of racial enlightenment, you see.”

    To be fair, Japan’s racial caricatures are based on those from the West.

    Anyway, for those interested, Anime News Network mentioned Takao Saito was interviewed(in English) at http://www.tkfd.or.jp/eng/division/public/supercool/index.shtml .

  5. “To be fair, Japan’s racial caricatures are based on those from the West.”

    Sure, but… well, Shivam, care to respond when you read this? I imagine you have some interesting perspectives on Japan and race.

    Thanks for the link.

  6. Oh yeah, and Kill Bill fans should note that there was a live-action Golgo movie with Sonny Chiba as the lead. It got released on R1, but is now OOP. Even if it wasn’t, the transfer was absolute crap. Still, it’s not a bad movie for it’s time, and you might be able to find a used copy http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/630566885X/qid=1140839420/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-7473791-4852144?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130
    . Now if only the one with Ken Takakura would see a domestic release….

  10. “Supergun” does not refer to Duke’s genitals, no. It refers to Saddam Hussein’s suborbital artillery piece with which he plots to drop a virus bomb on Washington, D.C. However, the appendices to the volume do include, among other supplements, a rundown of Golgo 13’s physical capabilities, which in turn includes a note on the effects of his “amazing penis” — their words, not mine.

  11. ah, the japanese and race. my *favorite* topic as of late. When you have a culture that is 98% homogenous and hasn’t had a new gene infusion since about the 8th century, you get some very odd ideas of what the “other” is like. Just last month, there was a court case where a black guy sued an apartment manager for not renting to him because ‘he didn’t like black people’. the judge threw the case out because
    ‘the black guy couldnt possibly understand japanese well enough to know exactly what was said’. There’s a nigerian on TV named Bobby something. Nobody calls him anything but Bobby, though. he’s the token blackman for the entire country. My friend lucien can’t go three paces without being asked if A- he’s bobby, or B- He knows and/or is related to Bobby.

    I’m Indian. that means i eat curry rice. And i can’t possibly be american, at all. I’m not blond, you see. or white. Hell, even brown haired folks can’t be americans. Only Aryans need apply.

    this country makes America’s deep south look like a haven of integration and understanding.

  12. oh, and if you’re american? you’d damn well better have a gun.

    and black folks have two giant slugs pasted to their face where their mouth should be. and Koreans are big, fat, ugly and slow. Philipinos are whores or nurses, the french cook the best food in the universe, chinese are culturally backwards, etc etc.

  13. i wish i could edit my comments…
    anyway, in japan, everyone has ONE thing that they are good at, or is their hobby or extra activity or is what they are known for. If you’re a painter, that’s your entire life outside of work/school. You’re a gamer, then you damn well better be an otaku through and through. You play one sport, or one instrument etc etc. The Japanese view of foreign races is the same. Each culture has one thing associated with it, and that’s the entire view of the entire country. And every Japanese person, as per their groupthink mentality, believes these views entirely. I hate to stereotype? but once you know one japanese person’s views on the world outside of the islands, you know everyone’s. So when i say that i’m american, but my parents are from india, and my name is indian, and i eat indian food, they get really really confused. Surely i can’t be more than one nationality?

  15. to an extent, sure. They don’t really know the specific details of the three, aside from their native buddhism, of course, but they don’t look at me and think terrorist right off. India and Japan have a long relationship with each other.

  17. Huh, its weird reading this stuff. You guys are nuts… I can only guess this shivam character is going to further desribe curry as ‘a spice that produces a rather dry heat’ and then someone will follow that up with ‘the kind of dry heat that sucks all the moisture out of a pond rendering all the snakehead fish that shouldn’t be in it as easy prey as they flop about looking for the next pond to migrate to.’

    I’d ask if I’m correct, but I never am. So what’s the point?

  18. And for the record, Japanese stereotypical views of other countries can produce hilarious results. I love how in Parasite Eve you can practically check any garbage can and find a gun in it, or bump into a street light and have one that was hiding in it fall on your head. Its like the producers of the game think New York has so many guns in it, the people who live there have trouble finding new places to keep them.

  19. shivam … I have a story similar to what you’re saying about Japanese single-mindedness when it comes to race and nationality. (Everyone else can read it too.) Apparently, foreigners stay in one country forever and forever. They NEVER move around. </sarcasm>

    I had a roommate who moved to Japan in October (NOVA apartment). Me and my current roommate welcomed him in, showed him the sights, took him to the government office to get his Gaijin Card set up, etc.

    Jamie is a tall Scottish lad who moved to New Zealand when he was 10. When filling out the ID form, they put in Scotland for the country of birth, but provided a New Zealand address for the overseas address. Problems abound.

    I include my roommate’s transcript of the event, as his prose is much better, more grammatically correct, and much more bitter than mine.

    http://trashedelbow.blogspot.com/2005/09/still-fighting-good-fight.html

  21. I think my favorite moment in Parasite Eve was stumbling across a cache of weapons and ammo in the hospital lobby. Musta been pre-Giuliani NYC.

    P.S., ‘Zup muku.

  23. for the record, curry IS a spice powder, and not some saucy abomination the japanese and british call it.

  24. regarding penises, this is what Supergun would like you to know:
    “lures all the women in the world to the “height of ecstasy.” at any rate, an amazing penis”
    THE MORE YOU KNOW.

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