Golgo 13, Vol. 4 [Paperback]

Takao Saito (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2006

A world class hit man, the ultimate Professional fulfills contracts under the alias of "GOLGO13". Without allegiance to any group, cause, or nation, he follows his own personal code when choosing "jobs". And once he accepts a contract, it is always honored.

?A true professional, GOLGO13 is an expert marksman familiar with most of the world's military hardware and master of several of the more lethal Oriental matial arts. Fluent in at least thirteen languages, GOLGO13 is able to slip in and out of even hostile nations without detection.

Victims, they never know what hit them.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Takao Saito was born in Osaka on November 3, 1936. Ten years younger than Osamu Tezuka (Phoenix, Adolf: A Tale of the Twentieth Century), Saito grew up reading him as part of Japan's own first postwar generation of manga fans. In the 1950s and 60s, however, Saito and his peers such as Yoshihiro Tatsumi (The Push Man & Other Stories) began to find an artistic voice of their own, creating adult-oriented graphic novels and magazine stories for the gekiga ("drama pictures") movement, whose name set itself apart from "manga"--a term then still associated only with works suitable for children.

Gekiga style gradually made itself respected within the manga industry as a whole, and by 1965 Takao Saito was well-known enough to be asked to create the authorized manga adaptation of Ian Fleming's original James Bond novels, an experience that prepared him well for Saito's own creation, Golgo 13, a ruthless secret agent out not for his country, but for himself: a reflection of the darkening era of Vietnam, political assassinations, and Watergate. Since its premiere in the January 1969 issue of Big Comic magazine (home of Viz's multiple Eisner-award nominated Eagle), Golgo 13 has remained topical, growing into a phenomenon even by manga standards, with 137 volumes in Japan to date and total sales of well over 200 million.

A longtime publisher as well as an artist, Takao Saito formed his own production company in 1960, that by 1974 developed into Leed Co. Ltd, which continues today to put out its own line of manga, books, and contemporary-interest magazines. Leed was itself an early pioneer of the American manga market, in 1986 releasing its own four-volume English-language edition of Golgo 13 graphic novels for distribution in the U.S.--a full year before American companies began to publish manga on a regular basis in comic book format, and more than fifteen years before the Japanese graphic novel format would become standard in the U.S. manga industry.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; 1 edition (August 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421504634
• ISBN-13: 978-1421504636
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,248,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Outer Space and a Princess, August 2, 2007

By 

R. Hancock - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Golgo 13, Vol. 4 (Paperback)

This is Volume 4 out of 13 in the US GOLGO 13 series.

in 1974, G13 is hired to knock a space satellite off-course before it causes international pandemonium. Then, in 1997, he's hired to pursue and eliminate Princess Diana's Middle Eastern lover. FILE13 at the end of the book focuses on the many ordinary and bizarre weapons G13 has used in his career, and the drawing of each weapon is amazingly accurate from tip to trigger.

Personally, I enjoy G13 stories, however, this is material you'll either really like, or really hate. I don't think the G13 style melds as well with Western thought as some other spy stories. Like most of the other G13 stories, you'll either "get it" or you won't.