Golgo 13 – Queen Bee

1998

published in Empire No.79, Sydney

2008

One wonders why there has not been more anime adaptations of Takao Saito’s archetypal manga Golgo 13 – the gritty hitman serial now past it’s 400th volume. But when one considers that its episodic stories are endless variations on the terse intertwining of death and sex, then it’s not surprising that sponsors and broadcasters have been few and far between.

Golgo 13 – Queen Bee is a one-off OVA centred on a typically complex contract undertaken by Golgo. The titular Queen Bee is Joanna, a gorgeous and charismatic leader of an obscure South American rebel group with terrorist sights set on American imperial might. But blanket ideological stances are sculpted with emotional finesse as Joanna is revealed to be the illegitimate daughter of US Democratic leader Robert Hardy. As clean-cut as they come, his dark past is her morbid heritage, leaving her fuelled with a hatred that is worth a million women scorned.

Joanna is Golgo’s contract, but before long Golgo is torn between completing his job and taking a stance after she hires him to kill her father. A sexual cat-and-mouse game unfolds which stays true to the Golgo world of stoic commitment and psychosexual compulsion: a sublime darkness within which swirl bullets, whisky, lipstick and satin sheets.