Salaryman Kintaro

Title: Salaryman Kintaro Overall: Unevaluated Keywords: 2001, Action Comedy, Fighting, Modern Notables: KAWAKUBO Kiyoshi MIYAMOTO Masahiro NOZAWA Nachi One evening a Japanese executive has a run-in with three punks on a Tokyo street. The punks despise "salarymen" (white collar workers), and deliver a brutal beating. The victim's co-workers are paralysed by fear, but a strange salaryman steps forward and demands that the assault stop. Just one more victim for them, the perpetrators figure, except that this is no ordinary salaryman. It's Yajima Kintaro, once head of the 100-strong Kanto motorcycle gang, and who has now, in accordance with his late wife's wishes, started a new life as a respectable salaryman! (currently available as a fansub) Compared to GTO or a modern anime version of the classic “Lone Wolf and Cub”. Based on the manga Salaryman Kintaro. There is also a live-action series and game based on the story. 20 episodes (aired in 2001) Produced by TBS and Emotion (Bandai Visual)

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Overall	Art	Animation	Character Design	Music	Series Story	Episode Story	Reviewer
Unevaluated 4							Stretch	#
Salaryman Kintaro (One episode watched): "Salaryman Kintaro" seems to be a highly popular working class hero in Japan, addressing a need for an example of a white collar worker who maintains his dignity and honor amid pressures to ignore injustice and get ahead by kow-towing to those higher up. The genre began with a manga by Motomiya Hiroshi, and has since spawned a live-action TV drama (which has been running for at least three seasons), over 20 episodes of an animated TV series, several video games, and both live-action and animated movies (the latter apparently consisting of four OVAs combined together). I'm not certain whether this single episode which I downloaded was part of the TV series or an OVA. It wasn't exactly clear how, but Kintaro has gotten a job at a renowned architectural firm--but he isn't being taken seriously, and his initial duty is nothing more than sharpening pencils. But his refusal to engage in the standard brown-nosing draws attention, and admiring co-workers entrust him with a little more responsibility. And, that's about where the only episode I've found ended, so I'll leave this "unevaluated" for now. One observation--the animation was okay, but work of this quality and style could probably have been completed ten years ago. Last updated Sunday, March 16 2008. Created Friday, March 11 2005.

Other Sites

Name	URL
Japanese Language Series Web Site	http://www.showtime.jp/animation/kintaro/