Maybe Not Today, but a Huge Sun May Rise Tomorrow
Tatsuya Egawa’s Golden Boy was the first anime that made me realize that Japanese cartoons weren’t just for little boys and girls but could also go in a more adult direction. This was despite the fact that the series aired on MTV in a heavily edited version - if you still remember MTV. What’s Golden Boy about? Kintaro Oe was top of his class at Tokyo University’s Faculty of Law, one of the most prestigious in the whole world. Having mastered the entire curriculum without any problems, he disappears shortly before graduating. Now, he rides his bicycle through Japan searching for the most important things in life: the lessons you can’t learn in a classroom. That’s one way to put it.
In essence, each story revolves around Kintaro encountering a more or less big city somewhere along the road where he spots an attractive girl and immediately decides to pursue her. Literally and figuratively, as while the girl has no interest in him, he does everything possible to impress her. And when I say everything, I mean absolutely everything. Kintaro tutors a wealthy daughter in math, cooks ramen at some restaurant and even cleans dirty toilets at a software company - all just to disappear again before actually getting what he wants. Golden Boy may only have six episodes in total, all fairly similar, but this anime still holds a very special place in my heart even today.
Tatsuya Egawa introduced me to the concept of adult themes in anime and inspired an entire generation of horny teenagers to give it a chance as an adult medium. If you’ve only ever associated anime with Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and Spirited Away, Golden Boy will open both your eyes and the door to a sticky world that long-lost souls call hentai. It will even take your mental virginity. Before you know it, you will find yourself standing in a forest of pulsating tentacle penises, with one hand down your pants, watching Japanese schoolgirls being fucked across some parallel dimension until they ultimately explode. But that, my dear and innocent children, is a story for another time...