Lupin III

Listening to the Lupin theme got me in the mood to revisit the material. It’s a fun anime from the late 70s, early 80s based on a comics series in Japan. It’s about the grandson of Maurice Leblanc’s fictional gentleman-burglar Arsne Lupin. Lupin was a famous and popular fictional character in Victorian times. The modern Lupin runs around with his pals, trying to steal the world’s most precious loot and he’s being chased by an Interpol Agent named Zenigata. 

The cartoon is so unlike anything I had every seen when I ws first exposed to it in 1981. Then I saw the Lupin movie The Castle of Cagliostro. You can rent it in English here. I can’t recommend it enough. It changed my life in that it got me into promoting Japanese anime and comics and that led me into comics as a career. It was so goo it did the same thing to Toren Smith when I showed it to him in 1984. He moved to Japan and Japanese Comics, or Manga, became his livelihood.

It has that great music I link to in the previous post. And the film was written and directed by the great Hayao Miyazaki whose work I am a great admirer of.

If you are unfamiliar with any of this and like a good romp, you should check it out. It’s a lot of fun. The above animation is from the TV series, not the movie. Lupin has a huge international fan base. He’s one of my favorite characters.

This is a European the trailer to the Castle of Cagliostro/

Ah, Lupin the 3rd!

Great show, good times.  A good example of a consistently fun and generally well-written and action-packed anime series!

It’s too bad the show and movies haven’t done better in the United States since there’s tons of it that hasn’t been picked up.  Besides the vast majority of the TV shows remaining unlicensed, there are at least a half-dozen of the movies, OVAs, and TV specials that haven’t been picked up by any company licensing anime in the US.

I’m glad that I at least got all the Geneon/Pioneer and Funimation DVD released in the US as well as the Manga Video Cagliostro DVD.  Other than that, I only missed the original Streamline DVD release of Cagliostro and the clutch of Lupin (first TV series) episodes released in an ultra-rare Streamline DVD.

Yeah, Lupin deserves more love in America, but I guess it’s to be expected.  Anime is kind of on a downslide in the US with at least two companies nearly confirmed as out of the domestic (American) anime licensing game within the past two years and an overall general slump in DVD sales not helped by the generally craptacular new film releases in theaters and the ongoing pointless high-definition DVD war.  In this case, the woes of software are helping to feed those of format and vice-versa…

Posted by  on  11/24  at  10:33 PM

George -

Don’t forget, Streamline was the company run by Carl “Chainsaw” Macek...although, according to a good friend, the Streamline dub is one of the closest and most accurate around.

Most American folk only know anime by what’s run on weekday shows (Dragonball and its ilk, Inuyasha, and so on) or the classic series of the past (Speed Racer, Gigantor, Battle Of The Planets [God help us all], etc.) with its padding of the dialog and the really bad character names (Inspector Detector, anyone?). Or they see some of the ultra-violent, ultra-sexy stuff...or they just don’t like having to look at subtitles, so everything is dumbed down by the translators. It’s all about making it palatable for the American market, and the material suffers...which is a !@#$ing shame.

Personally, I love the City Hunter TV series. Mallet to the head!

Posted by Dave Marron  on  11/25  at  12:37 AM

I’ve always believed that if they treated anime properly and didn’t dumb it down and used good cartoon voice actors (Japanese voice actors generally don’t overdo it like Saturday morning cartoon voice actors), the stuff would do well. It would find an audience.

Anime is hugely popular in Europe. Where I assume they do a better job of translation.

Posted by  on  11/25  at  08:55 AM

George and Dave,

I am just as dismayed as you are about the state of anime in the US.  People only recognize what they see here in the US.  ASTRO BOY, GIGANTOR and SPEED RACER is not all that classic anime has to offer.  Now the young’uns only recognize anime as a trend or fad, AND a genre (not a medium), so they go to the nearest Hot Topic or Best Buy for their anime fix.  (I remember when certain geeks used to only limit anime to “adult” stuff, which is part of what made it so controversial here in the US.) And they’re only interested in “popular” fads like goth, emo, and video game culture.  That is not what anime is all about.

Plus, anime has superheroes, too!  This is stuff America needs to see more of.  Tezuka’s TRITON OF THE SEA, Gou Nagai’s DEVILMAN (’72) and Tatsuo Yoshida’s CASSHERN (the original 1973 series, not the movie remake).  And let’s not forget true giant robot classics like Nagai’s Super Robot masterpieces, MAZINGER Z, GETTER ROBO and GRENDIZER.  GOLION and DAIRUGGER XV, the bases for VOLTRON, are not very memorable in their native country, yet America looks at these two shows as the greatest giant robot shows ever made, and not, say, the far more memorable VOLTES V (some episodes were written by future GUNDAM creator Yoshiyuki Tomino).  Personally, I think this puts the US in a very awkward position.

Also, the first anime I ever saw was BRAVE RAIDEEN (1975), which was subbed in English here on UHF.

But anyway, back to Lupin III.  I enjoy this series a lot!  Really funny and action packed.  Lupin himself is just lovable.  I always thought Jim Carrey reminded me of Lupin (I dunno if it’s the other way around!).

Toho made a live-action Lupin III film in the early-to-mid 70s, which fans seem to hate.  Whatever the case, it’s available on DVD here.  Supposedly, there’s been a Hollywood film in the works for some time now.

Posted by John Cassidy  on  11/25  at  10:33 AM

My first encounter with Lupin was the Cliff Hanger arcade game, which was kinda like Dragon’s Lair except it used footage from Cagliostro’s Castle and Mystery Of Mamo.

Aside from CC, and two Miyazaki episodes (Albatross, and Farewell), I’m not that big a fan of Lupin.

And reading the first volume of the manga was interesting. I wasn’t expecting to see such a big Harvey Kurtzman influence. Or at least that’s how it looked to me…

Posted by Edshugeo The GodMoor  on  11/25  at  05:39 PM

Classic anime is a hard sell to the neo-otaku, who are horrified and put off by the generally dreadful quality of the animation in comparison to the modern digital (and much higher budget) anime made today (especially the TV series--some of the older movies stand up pretty well).  I have fond memories of older series like Orguss and Votoms but when I recently saw them on DVD I had to admit it was wince-inducing.  Older character designs are also pretty unappealing to the neo-otaku.
Jim is dead right about Caglistro’s influence on me.* If he’d never shown it to me I’d probably still be hacking out code at some finance company.
Thanks, Jim!

*: I have to honest here and say that the episodes of Urusei Yatsura he showed the same day had a pretty profound effect on me as well.  For a while I even had a license plate that read “LUM FAN”.

Posted by  on  11/25  at  06:58 PM

I don’t really think it’s fansubs, bootlegs, or prices of DVDs that are killing anime in the US.

I think it’s the lack of the ability to see MUCH of the product on TV or the Internet in a LEGAL, AD-SUPPORTED format that’s hurting the industry.

Most people aren’t going to buy niche titles and will stick to the same, safe old crap like Dragonball, Bleach, Inu Yasha, and so on.  As a consequence, older shows and less mainstream offbeat shows will continue to suffer and disappear into obscurity.

The less mainstream shows just don’t get the push the “kiddie action shows” do and the vicious cycle of toy-related, model-related, and card collecting game tie-in shows continue.  So much for “diversity of anime”!  You just really don’t see much diversity in anime in the US during regularly scheduled (before 11 PM) viewing hours!

And the Japanese businessmen behind the anime industry are really the ones to blame.  Like the Music Industry and (to a lesser extent) Hollywood, the anime industry refuses to evolve and develop a new business model that will actually encourage growth within AND outside Japan and at the same time encourage stabilized and positively growing software (DVD/Blu-Ray/etc.) sales.

Sure, toys, models, CDs, and fanzines of favorite shows are keeping the boat afloat in Japan, but there’s still a very negative, drowning effect since the Titanic’s captains (the Japanese businessmen in charge) aren’t taking advantage of the Internet and developing ways to showcase many older and newer anime series at reasonable pricing and ad-supported models.

Regardless of what these men do, they have to do it smart and quick before the bottom really falls out…

P.S.—Toren, I really like a LOT of the older shows better, weak animation or not.  I prefer the original Bubblegum Crisis to the TV remake.  The only Macross that’s truly epic is the original TV series.  Although the 1984 Macross movie IS better-drawn and animated, that movie and the Macross sequels still pale to the scope and character-building of the original show.

In fact, about the only anime series in which I pretty much like the remakes BETTER than the original is Mobile Suit Gundam.  Aside from the weak animation and character design, I just felt the series was overdrawn in political and philosphical proselytizing, poorly paced, and about 17 episodes too long.  Derivative and obviously stylishly updated as they may be, I felt that both 0083 and Gundam Wing did that story better.

Posted by  on  11/25  at  07:42 PM

I like a lot of the older stuff more because of the writing, which I find more original and interesting. They do make some good stuff now, but I find a lot of the new stuff to be vapid.

I was never exactly a fan boy, thought I was close. But when it came to anime I was definitely an Otaku for a while. Way before most people in the US even knew what anime was. My first anime was Astro Boy, Marine Boy and Kimba in the 1960s. And I was reintroduced to Japanese anime in 1981.

I worked hard to bring the stuff over here and in fact, showed Carl Macek a lot of stuff when got him to form his company. And I introduced it to a lot of comics pros. I used to give tapes and manga to a lot of writers and artists in the early 80s. I was instrumental in getting Japanese publishers interested in the American market. Hence, Viz was formed and Toren and I were the first American rewriters there.

Posted by  on  11/25  at  08:44 PM

Because of the high level of junk anime in the marketplace, I just stick with the Miyazaki stuff.  Toren and another friend, Terry Whittier, gave me a lot of good anime on VHS tape back in the 80s and 90s, but when it comes to buying DVDs, it’s just a lot easier to go with Miyazaki.  Even his weakest films are head and shoulders above just about everything else.

Of course, the U.S. animation market is also flooded with junk.  The last two “recent” American releases (as opposed to “classic” animation) that I purchased on DVD (and was pleased with my purchases) were Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” and “The Emperor’s New Groove”.  I’m talking traditional animation here, of course.  I always automatically pick up every Pixar feature (haven’t been disappointed yet), and also have just about everything Ardman’s released, as well as the two Tim Burton stop-motion features.

I’d love to see you and Toren post your “ten top anime features on DVD to own” lists!—Or should that be TWENTY?

Posted by  on  11/26  at  01:06 PM

Good idea. I will think about it.

Most of my favorite animes are older stuff. But I like a few newer ones, too.

Posted by  on  11/26  at  01:31 PM

I am very frustrated with the “anime” market in the US.  The Hot Topic poseurs have taken it over, so now, all it evokes is images of catgirls, sailor-uniform girls, stylized emo-kids, testosterone warriors, tentacles and other things that completely stifle the medium into being a stagnant genre.  It’s treated as a “cool fad” now.  It’s capitalism at its worst, just like the comics industry, and Disney with the “animation” industry.

But as for cartoons outside anime…

Besides the great Pixar stuff (THE INCREDIBLES is my favorite), in terms of TV, I think Canada offers cooler cartoon shows (my favorites being 6TEEN and GROSSOLOGY) than the US does, and most American cartoons are so bottom-of-the-barrel these days, after a lot of *good* cartoons got exponentially canceled in the past few years.  (Currently, THE VENTURE BROS. is still the best ongoing show on CN, hands down.) Of course, that’s my 2 cents.

Posted by John Cassidy  on  11/26  at  02:31 PM

Just out of curiosity, JC, what did you think of the Triplets of Belleville?

Posted by  on  11/26  at  04:37 PM

I liked it a lot!  Especially the catchy music.

But then, there’s a LOT of good French (and Belgian) animation that’s not seeing any releases here!  The new Asterix movie looks really cool, but it’s not being seen, supposedly because US studios don’t see 2D animation as marketable!  (I’ve seen ASTERIX & CLEOPATRA, which was a lot of fun to watch, sort of a Belgian Popeye!) Same with LUCKY LUKE, which looks awesome.

There’s no denying that PERSEPOLIS is a good movie, but it’s just being touted around for its topical stance.  Is that the best Hollywood can do?

One French movie that needs a DVD release here is LE ROI ET L’OISEAU, France’s answer to Richard Williams’ THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER (one of my favorite animated films ever; the workprint and the Recobbled Cut versions)!

Posted by John Cassidy  on  11/26  at  05:18 PM
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