Back around 5 years ago a friend tried to get me into comic books and our friendship almost ended after I ruinned a first edition that earned something called an Eisner award. It was through these awards that I first heard of Master Keaton an episodic manga series by the same author as Monster which is apparently huge in Japan but similar to the Laughing Salesman never had much impact outside of it. So being too lazy to read the manga I decided to check the widely unpopular anime adaptation expecting something alongside the lines of Monster but instead I got an insurance agent acting as James Bond in rural Europe. Honestly its not as bad as it sounds. Summary If you come here looking for a plot there is none. Ok there is some semblance of a plot this is an episodic adventure series following the exploits of Taichi Keaton an Englishman currently working as an insurance agent for Lloyds Register with a degree in archeology and previous involvement as a survival instructor for the british army. Episodes can be divided into four categories Keaton solving simple insurance requests Such as hostage situations Keaton going commando and having to ruin someones day over a dispute that has escalated way out of control Keaton doing something related to preservation of history or archeology His real passion Keaton helping someone with their problems and episodes dedicated to Keatons Daughter and/or the relationship with her and his family. Out of these the latter two honestly bother me and originally I couldnt place the reason why. The episodes with her daughter are annoying yes they all play the same with her commenting she wants for Keaton to get back with her mother and Keaton commenting he has no intention of doing such a thing as she is happy recieving alimony and living with Tyrone and he is happy travelling the world as an insurance agent. The real issue with these two categories is moralizing both of them are full of really really deep moral lessons such as Dont judge a book by its cover Dont give up in the face of adversity Dont abandon your dreams and Dont kill yourself which are drilled on in a very forceful manner in the episodes and often repeated over and over again like a bad running gag on a kids show. Im sorry for acting in such a petulant manner for being taught some good ole morals but I thought I was watching a seinen series with a target demographic of young adults that are about to enter the workforce NOT FUCKING G. I. JOE https://www..com/watch?v=F1GOssFRwU As for the rest they all suffer from a huge drawback Keaton is a Gary Stu. He is an expert in every field known to mankind Except women which is brought up CONSTANTLY has a plot armor thicker than a german tank with everyone with a weapon or advantage around him starting to have brainfarts and forgeting to kill him and then when everything is done everyone likes to comment how great of a person he is and how great of a job he did. The thing that makes and breaks the show then are two things the support cast and the setting of the episode. This is a show that takes place in the 90s shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and since there was not a whole lot going around the world at the time most of the episodes take place in Eastern Europe and other places or situations caused by said collapse. With the exception of the main cast Which sucks for the most part to be honest the episodic cast varies greatly and with it so do the stories. Some episodes have great stories but terrible villains some stories are awful but have great villains some stories have no villains but feature a very interesting cast that keeps it moving along and some stories are just plain boring. I think the point the author was trying to make was to try to appeal to everyone and in that regard I think he succeeded if you were to tell me you watched all the show and you didnt enjoy a single episode I would not believe you however the problem here is that if you came to me with a 10/10 score I would also not believe you making this a show that you will often see people given sevens left and right as there is something someone may enjoy but also something they will definetely not hell maybe theres someone that watched this for the bullshit moral lessons that I hated. In conclusion G.I. Joe Master Keaton was a really infuriating show to watch when thinking of a score to give this review I could not think of one because of the constant fluctuation in quality and instead assigned each episode a score and then got the average of all scores put together with episodes rating as low as 15/100 and as high as 100/100 Full list herehttps://pastebin.com/8Lk29C0B it has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It took me four years FOUR YEARShttps://www..com/watch?v=FiyHSr4ks6g to clear it out of my watching list because the bad episodes were legitimately that bad. If anyone for whatever reason plans to watch this show here are two basic rules: Dont get any stupid ideas like skipping episodes as this show has a very nasty tendency of turning 3/10 episodes into a 8/10 by the second half Unless theyre episodes with Keatons daughter or family members and DO NOT WATCH THIS SHOW IN ITS TOTALITY UNLESS YOURE A CRAZY COMPLETIONIST WANTING TO DO A REVIEW ON A SHOW THAT EVERYONE OUTSIDE OF JAPAN STOPPED GIVING A SHIT ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO.