Golgo 13

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When you're killing someone, don't waste time making small talk. Just pull the trigger.

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Summary

Golgo 13, also known by the pseudonym Duke Togo, is a professional assassin and the protagonist of the manga series Golgo 13. He has no allegiance to any country or ideal, and will take up hits from anyone who can afford his services, provided his terms are met.

His true identity and birthplace are unknown, and he has gone to great lengths to keep them that way- Golgo shows little emotion, and carries out assassinations with extreme professionalism, as long as he isn't crossed by his employees.

Powers and Stats

Tier: 9-C, from 10-A to 9-C with handheld guns, up to 9-A with other weaponry

Name: Goes by the codename Golgo 13. He most commonly uses the alias of Duke Togo, though he has adopted many variations of it, as well as unrelated aliases. Golgo has had various possible, though unconfirmed, origin stories, and one of them has given him the name Goro Serizawa.

Origin: Golgo 13

Gender: Male

Age: Golgo's age is unknown, but he has been estimated to be in his 30s. Golgo's cover identity in one of the earliest chapters of the manga listed him as 29 years old.

Classification: Human, Assassin, Sniper

Powers and Abilities:

• Inherent
• Equipment

• Superhuman Physical Characteristics
• Martial Arts (Golgo 13 has reached Olympian level proficiency in wrestling, boxing and judo, and is also skilled in various other martial arts such as Kobudo, Sambo and T'ai Chi Chuan. He can knock out multiple assailants in quick succession or even with a single motion, even armed ones, and weave around enemy attacks unhurt. Foiled repeated back-to-back armed attacks of an elite assassin group, killing them all with nothing but their own weapons, his briefcase and coat, and his bare hands)
  • Pressure Points (Can disarm or knock out people with precise strikes to parts of the body)
• Weapon Mastery (Golgo 13 is an extremely achieved firearm user not only in long-distance sniping, but overall combat skill, to the point of having a 99.99% chance of success against another skilled gunman in a fight, with those chances only being reduced to 98% through a trick specifically devised to provide the greatest advantage against him. While he favors using his right hand, he is extremely accurate with the left as well. Golgo almost always chooses to kill enemies and targets with a single shot to the center of the head, which he can easily and quickly land even in situations such as a car chase even when the car is losing control, while rolling or diving away from gunfire or into a room, against foes that are attempting a similar maneuver and in just about any other situation, even when his foes are themselves a renowned group of assassins. Golgo is nearly always the first to fire in a quick draw situation, even against multiple opponents at once. He has also been shown to be an amazing knife user, capable of killing several armed foes with just one and throwing one with enough precision to pierce someone's chest in the middle of a leap, and even skilled in the usage of obscure weapons such as Suntetsu. Any object in his hands is a deadly weapon, to the point that he could impale a roach with a simple bobby pin by throwing it from a few meters of distance, hitting it perfectly in the middle. Tossed a match at the hand of someone about to shoot him to get them to drop their gun)
  • Marksmanship (Rightfully known as the best sniper in the world, Golgo 13 has an over 99.99% success rate despite routinely taking on extremely difficult jobs and has been capable of many superhuman feats of accuracy and visual calculus: From hundreds of meters away, ricocheted a bullet off a water surface into a small exposed spot on the underside of a cannon [which he couldn't see], causing it it to implode. Ricocheted a bullet off a dome to hit a target he could not see, as he was briefly raising his upper body in the middle of a prayer, at a distance of 190 meters, with an angle of exactly 110°. As a mobster was gunned down by his target's guards, Golgo shot at his belt buckle flying off his pants and slid a bullet alongside its curved rim to hit the target right in the forehead. Could throw gas grenades and snipe their caps in mid-air to release their contents immediately and incapacitate groups of enemies. When someone briefly held them up, Golgo shot a wad of presidential ballot votes through a fan from a great distance, precisely erasing the section where one would vote so that no one could tell who they had been for. Shot a sidewinder missile from a jet with his rifle by landing a shot in a timeframe of 1/10 of a second. Shot a man's earring off from hundreds of meters away, without drawing blood, despite the wind and rocking of the yacht. Shot a helicopter's tail rotor while it was in the middle of a barrel roll, causing it to crash. Sniped the mast of a helicopter's rotor with a harpoon gun. Sniped out both of a man's eyes before his body began falling. Killed a target while skiing by at full speed down a slope. Shot an airplane bomb's cover open and then shot a weak point in its structure to disable it before it hit its target. Can reliably land 80 perfect bullseyes in a row from a distance of 100 meters. Shot a pipe gauge despite steam completely obscuring it, solely based off a map of the power plant. Shot through a rocket launcher's barrel as it was about to fire, to cause an explosion and a group of enemies hidden behind cover. Shot a man through an airplane's window as it was taking off)
  • Attack Reflection (Hit a thrown knife back at sender by batting it with his briefcase, slashing the attacker's throat)
• Acrobatics (In a gunfight, Golgo routinely throws off people's fire by diving, jumping or rolling away in a quick burst of movement sudden enough to avoid shots even from people holding him at gunpoint, while still in a position to accurately fire back at them. Could knock out and kill two men with his legs while suspended by his arms, then swiftly move to a position where he could free himself. Performed a front-flipping long jump to hit a detonator)
  • Surface Scaling (Could scale the exterior of a mansion with just his bare hands)
• Stealth Mastery (Killed an entire of unit of soldiers with just a knife, without even being spotted. Jumped behind a soldier in a hall without making noise)
• Genius Intelligence
  • Social Influencing (While he is normally a man of very few words, Golgo is capable of convincingly acting the roles of the many undercover identities he has acted under, often manipulating guards to disregard orders and let him into secure areas or past check points. He has also been shown to be extremely accurate at seeing through lies and judging one's character, being capable of analyzing people he has never met to the point of instantly and correctly surmising someone's role and motives or true identity without them saying a single word. Successfully bluffed his way out of an unwinnable situation by pretending his lighter was a bomb)
  • Information Analysis and Analytical Prediction (Golgo's sniping abilities are bolstered by a nearly superhuman ability for analysis and prediction. Formulated a plan, days in advance, where he predicted that if a mobster attacked his target from the right position, his belt would fly off in just the right position, allowing him to shoot at the buckle and slide a bullet alongside its curved rim to hit the target right in the forehead. Calculated the precise moment and location during which searchlights would hit him at an angle where the halation would render him invisible. Calculated the precise position of a spy satellite following him just off the distance between the two coordinates where he'd been ordered to carry out a hit. Can precisely calculate the speed and angle of wind near him as well as the precise distance of a target. Could tell that a target had only faked to be hit by a bullet just by a tiny inaccuracy in their reaction, provoked by an electric shock)
  • Preparation (Thoroughly recreated a WWII battle to gaslight a survivor of that war into a deep state of panic and confusion, all to get her to accidentally reveal her identity as the powerful and anonymous "Insect". Ordered a mafia boss to give a mobster a belt that had a buckle with a curved structure on it and tell him to attack a target from a position so that, as he got gunned down by the guards, Golgo could shoot at the buckle flying off him and slide a bullet alongside its curved rim to hit the target right in the forehead. Pulled off an impossible hit on an extremely well-protected target by having him be briefly electrocuted by a trap, so that, as the train he was on ran by, he would have exactly two seconds to land a shot, which he had his employers recreate every part of in strenuous detail to practice. Escaped a deadly prison island through a complex plan. When tasked to eliminate a group of Garimpeiros, G13 hijacked a plane and obtained 1.5 million dollars in ransom and escaped into the area where they resided to bait them and a military unit into wiping each other out. When needing to assassinate an individual behind bulletproof windows, Golgo prepared an armor-piercing round and shot through the armor piercing frame instead. Sabotaged an ivory trade by pretending to be interested in the merchandise and planting a decaying agent. Infiltrated an impenetrable fort by bombing it from the outside, causing superficial damage, then posing as the repair man and adding a hidden way in. Managed to get a gun past airplane security by getting pigeons to mail every single part of it to the man who had hired him, and using a nearby fountain's nozzle as the barrel, and routinely does something similar through the simpler method of having a dummy firm smuggle his weaponry. Paid a kid to unassumingly place a tracker on the car of his would-be hirees, so that he could meet them on his own terms)
• Instinctive Action (Golgo's practice is such that he will react completely instinctively to a variety of possible threats, most distinctively attacking anyone who moves behind him, but also including things such as reflexively attacking if a gun is pointed at him or rolling into a combat stance if he senses stealthy movement)
• Vehicular Mastery (Performed an extremely difficult and dangerous jump that only a professional skier could pull off, and drive a motorbike while shooting with perfect accuracy. Capable of driving a great variety of vehicles, including those such as modern fighter jets)
• Supernatural Willpower
  • Body Control and Resistance to Extrasensory Perception (Golgo's degree of self-control is such that psychics cannot sense him at all until he actually acts to kill someone. When this proved to not be enough, he trained to achieve an even deeper status of self-hypnosis, which allowed him to enter and exit a comatose state at will, which prevented a psychic from sensing his attacks until it was too late)
  • Resistance to Sleep Manipulation (G13 can act freely even when his brain activity is akin to that of a comatose person)
  • Resistance to Poison Manipulation (Golgo's mastery over self-hypnosis grants him the ability to resist the effects of various drugs)
• Resistance to Radiation Manipulation (Was exposed to extreme amounts of radiation, and has suffered no known negative effects for it)

Explosion Manipulation (Golgo has utilized a wide variety of explosive weapons in his assassinations), Flight (Has flown various kinds of air vehicles in assassinations), Poison Manipulation and Status Effect Inducement (Has occasionally poisoned targets. Has utilized Adamsite gas to incapacitate guards and deployed a vomiting agent for the same purpose on another occasion), Sleep Manipulation (Has knocked out people by getting them to ingest sleep drugs), Underwater Breathing (Has utilized diving equipment), Enhanced Senses (Has utilized a Night-Vision Scope, as well as a great variety of more conventional scopes), limited Mind Manipulation (Has utilized truth serum to get information out of people), Biological Manipulation (Can temporarily induce the symptoms of severe jaundice in himself through chromium chloride pills. Temporarily darkened his skin through a combination of tanning and Methoxsalen assumption, to be mistaken for a black man)

Attack Potency: Street level (Golgo 13 is an Olympian-level practitioner of many martial arts with muscle groups optimized for fighting. Kicked a locked door open, which is this strong. Can send people flying with a punch), from Athlete level (Has utilized a pen gun, which fires tiny bullets at subsonic speeds) to Street level+ with handheld guns (Has used a Weatherby Mark V, as well as a great variety of other rifles and guns, sometimes equipped with armor-piercing rounds), up to Small Building level with other weaponry (Has piloted planes equipped with Sidewinder missiles at a time where they would carry about 3.583 kg of PBX which would be roughly equivalent to 5.73 kg of TNT, and used a FIM-92 Stinger which carries warheads of 3.148 kg of TNT)

Speed: At least Athletic Human movement speed (Kept up a very high pace during a marathon, completing it in a time only a few minutes longer than the IRL world record), at least Subsonic combat speed (Dodged a gunshot from a distance. Has been recorded to draw and fire in 0.17 seconds, faster than the IRL world record, in combat scenarios. Can kill multiple opponents in a firefight before any can even fire a shot), from Subsonic+ (Has utilized a pen gun in assassinations, as well as pistols like the Walther PPK) to Supersonic+ (Golgo's signature and most commonly used firearm is a M16, and he has used a great variety of other high-power rifles and sniper rifles) with handheld guns, higher with other weaponry (Has utilized Heavy Machine Guns and Anti-Tank Rifles), up to Supersonic with vehicles (Has flown jets such as a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, which can reach these speeds)

Lifting Strength: Peak Human (Golgo's body is comparable to that of an Olympian-level wrestler, and he is capable of doing sit-ups with 20 kg dumbbells. Snapped a man's neck with his legs while suspended by his arms. Leaped high enough to grab a tube on the ceiling with one hand and shot an enemy from that position)

Striking Strength: Street level

Durability: Street level

Stamina: At least Peak Human. Golgo 13 is capable of incredible feats of mental and physical endurance, having shown the ability to walk or meditate for days without sustenance and wait in the same position for even 5 days in awful conditions for the perfect shot. He has been capable of enduring various kinds of incredibly painful torture, barely reacting to things that would have most men scream for mercy. Resisted the agony of severe hepatocirrhosis without making a sound.

Range: Standard Melee Range, up to Kilometers with guns (G13 has successfully killed targets at over 2 km of distance)

Standard Equipment: Golgo 13's equipment changes completely between missions, and he will typically bring something tailored to the job he has taken, to the point of extensively customizing firearms for the hit. However, his favored sniping weapon is a customized M16 rifle, or its variants, such as the M16A1 and M16A2, often with a telescoping sight attached. Often these rifles are customized to be able to be dismantled and fit in a briefcase, or for more outlandish purposes such as functioning within the vacuum of space. Just as ubiquitous is a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, utilized for self-defense, closer-range assassinations and gunfights. He has also carried a trick watch with a concealed blade, useful for cutting out of restraints, and a set of lockpicking tools. The watch is also likely weighted, judging by how he could throw it hard enough to KO a guard.

• Optional Equipment: Throughout the years, Golgo 13 has utilized a massive amount of weapons, vehicles and items, incomplete lists of which can be seen here and here. Note that only items that G13 has himself been shown to use are listed, but his influence has very few limits, and he could feasibly get his hands on just about any piece of equipment, as shown when, in 20 days, he thoroughly recreated a WW2 warzone, including even airplanes that were no longer in use.
  • Weapons
    • Guns: Weatherby Mark V, Ingram Mac-10, Pen Gun, AKM, Dragunov, Stgw90, M14, Remington M37 Rangemaster Custom, FN-FAL, 1941 Soviet Antitank Rifle, Heckler & Koch G3, Holland & Holland, Glock 17, M1911, Walther PPK, Anschütz Target Rifle, Tanner 6BR, MR Heavy Machine Gun
      • Ammunition: Boattail ammo, Armor-Piercing ammo, Accelerator ammo, AK93, Double Bullet ammo
    • Other: Kampfpistole, WW2-Era Anti-Tank Rifle Grenade, Carl Gustav M2, Knives, Blowguns, Bow & Arrows, Spetsnaz Knife, M203 Grenade Launcher, Skeet Mine, Hand Grenades, AT4, FIM-92 Stinger, Adamsite Grenades, Vomiting Agent Grenades, Grenades disguised as cigarette packs, 1-2E and M-26 Hand Grenades, Vaska M2 Rocket Launcher
  • Vehicles: Expensive cars such as a Ferrari 308, Kaiten, MD 520N NOTAR, Diver Propulsion Vehicles, Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, Single-Man Balloon, Douglas DC-4, FMC XR311
  • Other: Covert Listening Devices ("Bugs"), Diving equipment, Chromium Chloride pills, Poisons
  • Miscellaneous: Golgo 13 is an incredibly rich man, having once been shown to have had 20 billion dollars, though spending this much was considered to be "throwing everything away" for him, and has a massive net of intelligence and sources which grant him a great amount of starting knowledge when he wishes to investigate something.

Intelligence: At least Genius (Alongside his obvious mastery of combat, ballistics, visual calculus, infiltration and everything else related to his occupation, Golgo is a skilled programmer and M.D./PhD-level expert of modern and traditional medicine, as well as a fluent speaker of Japanese, English, German, French, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, Malay, Cantonese, Japanese, Inuktitut, Italian, Hebrew and Tagalog, as well as a bit of the aboriginal languages of New Guinea. Can recognize mind-altering substances just by their symptoms and understand how to counter them. Was able to create snowshoes just with materials found in a forest, while suffering from hypothermia)

Standard Tactics: Golgo 13 has an extremely detailed set of methods and practices that he typically follows very closely, as well as a great amount of instinctive reactions to potentially dangerous stimuli. A thorough analysis of his sniping methods can be seen here. G13 is an obsessive perfectionist, and makes sure to thoroughly test every single batch of bullets he plans to use on a mission, to reduce chances of a misfire. Despite his massive wealth and abundance of resources, Golgo always carries out hits by himself.

Weaknesses: Golgo sometimes suffers from a (likely psychosomatic) recurring condition where his right hand becomes paralyzed. G13 has an extreme sense of professionalism, and will never give up a job he has accepted unless he suspects foul play is at hand.

Note: File 13 are dossiers, typically written from an in-verse perspective, compiling intel assembled by world intelligence agencies, though not without some meta information such as issue numbers, that catalogue Golgo 13's abilities and achievements (Note that some of the later File 13s instead contain things such as interviews of real-life people). Each File 13 number corresponds to the number of the official western release in which it was republished. Additionally, since the Golgo 13 live-action movies and the Queen Bee OVA were written by Takao Saito, they can likely be considered canonical.

Notable Matchups

Victories:

Losses:

Inconclusive:

Discussions

Discussion threads involving Golgo 13