The Anime News Network's Carl Kimlinger compared Saito's work on the series to the novels of John le Carré and Frederick Forsyth, as the stories are "dark, meticulously constructed painstakingly realistic". Leo Lewis of the "Financial Times" wrote that "Unsmiling, misogynist and inexorable, [Golgo 13 is a literary cousin of James Bond without the scene-softeners of Moneypenny, M, Q or exploding fountain pens." The "Daily Vanguard" called Duke "a badass, something like a cross between Dirty Harry and "Metal Gear Solid"s Solid Snake."