M Thomas Apple Author Page

Despite the fact that the manga Golgo 13 is about as conservative as you can get (openly misogynistic and racist at times, as well), I’ve been a fan since before coming to Japan in 1999. I hadn’t realized that the original anime movie that I saw back in Boston was based on what became the manga with the most printed volumes in the world in July 2021. This year marks its 50th anniversary, and the stories are being reproduced in larger format, grouped according to physical region.

The group of stories based in Japan came out a short while ago (I already got copies of stories based in France and the Middle East, and a book based in Italy is due soon). Interestingly, one of the stories is reproduced from December 2001 — four months after JAXA successfully launched the H-IIA rocket following a previous failure (hence, the “peeled metal plating” title).