LUPIN III: AN INTRODUCTION
Apr 23, 2015 17:18:49 GMT -5
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Apr 23, 2015 17:18:49 GMT -5
I was introduced to Arsène Lupin III by the Miller’s recommendation of The Castle of Cagliostro as a perfect action movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It’s likely from the Miyazaki connection that most of you are familiar with Lupin, though I wouldn’t be surprised if you heard of him from somewhere else, either—Lupin III is the cornerstone of a decent-sized and still churning, media franchise, having produced four (soon to be five) television series and around forty TV specials, films and video releases. I’m not tackling all of that—these reviews will be of the first Lupin III series (nicknamed “Green Jacket”—Lupin’s jacket’s the main identifier for most series), which aired between 1971 and 1972.
The semi-inspiration for the character of Lupin III is, well, Arsène Lupin, a thief invented by the turn-of-the-twentieth century French writer Maurice Leblanc as a sort of French counterpart to Sherlock Holmes—a genius and master-of-disguise who worked for the other side of the law. Lupin III was created in the 1960s by cartoonist Monkey Punch (the pen name of Kazuhiko Katō, not a publishing company as I originally thought) as a similar counterpart to James Bond.
As with Bond, Lupin’s gone through a number of iterations (the first Lupin III live action film, Strange Psychokinetic Strategy, might even be compared to the satirical adaptation of Casino Royale). Based on what little of Lupin I’ve dabbled in outside what I’ll be reviewing here, most animated Lupin—Red Jacket, Pink Jacket, most of the TV, video and film specials—leans towards the Lupin equivalent of Moore or, more charitably, Brosnan. The Lupin at the beginning of Green Jacket, though might be considered the Connery of the Lupins—he’s enjoying himself but there’s an edge, a forcefulness, and a roughness that’s a bit unexpected. While the Bond films try to have it both ways by making Bond’s amoral search for pleasure incidental to ensuring global stability, Lupin III refreshingly takes the opposite approach. Lupin pursues what he wants, and any good is incidental. Getting away with it is the whole point, which is why it’s such great escapism.
The main reason most of you have heard about the first Lupin III series (hereafter just referred to as Lupin III), though, is because it’s Miyazaki and Isao Takahata’s work on it, brought in to make changes the original animator, Masaaki Ōsumi, refused to go along with. Lupin evolves not just in style but character through the series.
Starting next week, I’ll be looking at two episodes of the show a week, starting next week with “Lupin is Burning” and “The Man They Call a Magician”—since there’s an odd number of episodes I’ll probably do a one-episode week at some point, though I’m not yet sure where. For American viewers I believe the show is available on Hulu as Lupin the Third Part I, though the site’s blocked from my country so I can’t confirm episode titles/episode order or whether it’s available to all Hulu users. You can also find it…elsewhere. I watch with subtitles—evidently Lupin is notable for the long continuity of its original voice actors, who continued with their roles until old age or death.
After the series we’ll have a bit of an extended epilogue—first I’ll go over the two Miyazaki-directed episodes of the following “Red Jacket” series, do an overview of the most recent Lupin III series, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, a prequel (I might see if I can get my hands on one of the original comics, too), and finally cap everything off with The Castle of Cagliostro, which is the final outing for Miyazaki’s iteration of Lupin and a nice cap for this series.
Stray Observations
• There are a few things to preset your suspension-of-disbelief blinders to. Most notable is the unusual effectiveness of disguises, paradoxically both in terms of molding the wearer’s appearance or inducing face-or-voice blindness in those around the wearer. Despite a fairly naturalistic (for the time) treatment of machinery and tendency for injuries to be serious, physics are a bit more malleable, particularly as far as falling and swordplay are concerned. Otherwise, though, it’s mostly classic sixties-seventies spy-fi, and it’s easy enough to get used to Lupin’s world. I hope you join me every Friday (European Time) from now on.
• In keeping with the censor-pushing original comics, some of the early episodes especially have NSFW moments.
• I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to a degree of self-identification with the character—I rewatched Cagliostro as I was growing my sideburns out, per the Lupin wiki we’re the same height, hairy-knuckled (one of my favorite quirks of the animation style) and I’m also a somewhat ethnically-ambiguous, limber and internationally-oriented fellow.
The semi-inspiration for the character of Lupin III is, well, Arsène Lupin, a thief invented by the turn-of-the-twentieth century French writer Maurice Leblanc as a sort of French counterpart to Sherlock Holmes—a genius and master-of-disguise who worked for the other side of the law. Lupin III was created in the 1960s by cartoonist Monkey Punch (the pen name of Kazuhiko Katō, not a publishing company as I originally thought) as a similar counterpart to James Bond.
As with Bond, Lupin’s gone through a number of iterations (the first Lupin III live action film, Strange Psychokinetic Strategy, might even be compared to the satirical adaptation of Casino Royale). Based on what little of Lupin I’ve dabbled in outside what I’ll be reviewing here, most animated Lupin—Red Jacket, Pink Jacket, most of the TV, video and film specials—leans towards the Lupin equivalent of Moore or, more charitably, Brosnan. The Lupin at the beginning of Green Jacket, though might be considered the Connery of the Lupins—he’s enjoying himself but there’s an edge, a forcefulness, and a roughness that’s a bit unexpected. While the Bond films try to have it both ways by making Bond’s amoral search for pleasure incidental to ensuring global stability, Lupin III refreshingly takes the opposite approach. Lupin pursues what he wants, and any good is incidental. Getting away with it is the whole point, which is why it’s such great escapism.
The main reason most of you have heard about the first Lupin III series (hereafter just referred to as Lupin III), though, is because it’s Miyazaki and Isao Takahata’s work on it, brought in to make changes the original animator, Masaaki Ōsumi, refused to go along with. Lupin evolves not just in style but character through the series.
Starting next week, I’ll be looking at two episodes of the show a week, starting next week with “Lupin is Burning” and “The Man They Call a Magician”—since there’s an odd number of episodes I’ll probably do a one-episode week at some point, though I’m not yet sure where. For American viewers I believe the show is available on Hulu as Lupin the Third Part I, though the site’s blocked from my country so I can’t confirm episode titles/episode order or whether it’s available to all Hulu users. You can also find it…elsewhere. I watch with subtitles—evidently Lupin is notable for the long continuity of its original voice actors, who continued with their roles until old age or death.
After the series we’ll have a bit of an extended epilogue—first I’ll go over the two Miyazaki-directed episodes of the following “Red Jacket” series, do an overview of the most recent Lupin III series, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, a prequel (I might see if I can get my hands on one of the original comics, too), and finally cap everything off with The Castle of Cagliostro, which is the final outing for Miyazaki’s iteration of Lupin and a nice cap for this series.
Stray Observations
• There are a few things to preset your suspension-of-disbelief blinders to. Most notable is the unusual effectiveness of disguises, paradoxically both in terms of molding the wearer’s appearance or inducing face-or-voice blindness in those around the wearer. Despite a fairly naturalistic (for the time) treatment of machinery and tendency for injuries to be serious, physics are a bit more malleable, particularly as far as falling and swordplay are concerned. Otherwise, though, it’s mostly classic sixties-seventies spy-fi, and it’s easy enough to get used to Lupin’s world. I hope you join me every Friday (European Time) from now on.
• In keeping with the censor-pushing original comics, some of the early episodes especially have NSFW moments.
• I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to a degree of self-identification with the character—I rewatched Cagliostro as I was growing my sideburns out, per the Lupin wiki we’re the same height, hairy-knuckled (one of my favorite quirks of the animation style) and I’m also a somewhat ethnically-ambiguous, limber and internationally-oriented fellow.