Customer Reviews

Salaryman Kintaro, Part 3

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"Salaryman Kintaro" is about a tough biker who decides to abandon his wild lifestyle and get a white-collar job, so he can have enough money and stability to properly raise his infant son. But Kintaro's hotheaded personality and checkered past prove to be a mixed blessing in the context of his new job. While he has the raw charisma and determination to be a great corporate worker, he often disrupts the office environment by, for example, getting into fistfights with mobsters.

While this premise sounds ludicrous - and I guess it is - the characterization and plotting of this anime series are quite sincere. Far from being a standard tough guy, Kintaro is a well-drawn and emotional character, who adheres to a noble and rigorous moral code. He's like a modern-day knight, who actively combats injustice in a contemporary world where most people are content to live quietly and ignore wrongs done to others. At his best, Kintaro is actually an inspiring figure.

The plots of these episodes are equally well-drawn. The various storylines involve corporate back-stabbing, politics, loyalty, romance, and parenthood. Sometimes, these normally excellent stories descend into silly fist-fighting and macho posturing; but more often, the material is handled thoughtfully. The central question of the series is whether Kintaro - a man who has survived up to now by fighting for himself - can learn to adapt to the nicities of the corporate world and the responsibilities of fatherhood.

The series spans five DVDs, all of which are recommend to fans of anime, and indeed fans of drama in general. The quality of the animation is attractive, but a bit static; the characters and the stories are the real stars here. Highly recommended.

This popular series made its initial success as a manga, and later this - an anime of an unconventional teacher whose methods are often quite winning. I had to admit, I prefer the live action series thanks to its razor-sharp humor, but the popularity of this franchise still exerts an effect on an audience. Was eventually made into a movie by Miike Takashi.