The latest bestseller in Tokyo’s business bookstores is a management guide with a menacing edge. It advises readers to treat their jobs with the same ethos as Golgo 13, a hitman who has not let a customer down or failed to complete a contract in 35 years of doing business.

Golgo 13, is a fictional and taciturn assassin who has relentlessly killed a new victim in every edition of Big Comics since 1968. Against overwhelming odds, he has shot and stabbed his way into the nation’s heart despite being a moral degenerate. His adventures have turned him into the bestselling comic-book hero in the country, in spite of being decried by critics as an example of the sadist and sexist culture of Japanese comics.

The cover tempts prospective readers with claims that Golgo’s business technique would improve their ability to negotiate fees, meet deadlines and not crack under pressure or, in Golgo’s case, torture.

The book is entirely serious throughout its 240 pages and outlines the hitman’s 35 rules of doing business. These are juxtaposed with examples of what an “everyday idiot” would do in the same situation. Each case is illustrated with a scene from one of the comics in which Golgo has executed the particular talent in question. In some cases he conducts negotiations at gunpoint, in others he fathoms the intentions of an inscrutable client. In the section on “trusting a customer”, the idiot would shake hands with a potential client. Golgo, however, advises that one should not proffer the hand that includes your trigger finger to a person one does not know. That, in management speak, is a metaphor for holding things back until they have been paid for.

Other lessons cover the importance of preparing the groundwork, using the right tools for the job and employing the best when it comes to outsourcing work. The last of these is illustrated by an incident in which Golgo is sold a wrong type of armour-piercing bullet, forcing him to undertake last-minute adjustments to his plans.