Leblanc’s Lupin Meets Lupin III: The First Chapters/Episodes
Apr 1, 2016 1:46:02 GMT -5
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Post by Jean Luc de Lemur on Apr 1, 2016 1:46:02 GMT -5
1 “The Dashing Entrance of Lupin III
or, “Return of Lupin III”
Arsène Lupin—le premier Lupin—made his first literary appearance on a the transatlantic luxury steamer Le Provence in 1905. That first short story, “L’Arrestation d’Arsène Lupin” (collected as the first chapter in Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur, available here in the original French[/ur] and here in English translation), will in many ways be familiar to fans of his Japanese descendan4t, down to the use of disguise, the stalwart detective in pursuit, even the distraction by a woman and ironic loss of the loot. It’s appropriate, then, that for the relaunch of the Lupin television franchise after five years the first episode would likewise take place on a luxury liner.
Unfortunately, that is where similarity with Leblanc’s tight little introduction to Lupin ends. Part of that might be inevitable, since this is explicitly a reintroduction, not an introduction. Lupin’s gang went their separate ways after “The Great Gold Battle” and they’re meeting again for the first time since the end of the last series, a rare show of continuity across Lupin incarnations. We also get the rare resurrection of a villain: the episode’s antagonist is the head of the SPECTRE-like Scorpion group from the first episode of the original television series, “Is Lupin Burning?!”.
But these small continuities do more to highlight the changed direction of the new series relative to the first. Lupin started out on television as an outlaw Bond, with his first theft only happening in the fourth episode; this was half-concession to a television station uncomfortable with such an explicitly criminal protagonist in an animated show, half-reflection of the spy-fi zeitgeist. “Dashing Return” channels Marvel rather than Bond, with the head of Scorpion—now called Scorpion himself—having been turned into a sort of supervillainous bionic hulk. With this the second series announces that it’s willing to push our suspension of disbelief outwards. We’ll be dealing with more than just some advanced gadgetry and cartoon physics. This is not in itself bad, but in “Dashing Return” we first find fantasy as a substitute for wit and wits: enjoyment is to be found in what Lupin’s up against, not what he gets himself out of. It’s less satisfying.
The episode’s sloppy, too. There’s little build in the story, showing us a number of demonstrating Scorpion’s assassins are on the ship but not letting them build towards anything. There are odd little details in the script, like naming the ship the Sirloin. While probably a side-effect of starting up production, but the animation’s terrible, especially when the episode invites comparison with the dynamic “Is Lupin Burning?!” “The Dashing Return” has an explosive end but little dynamism nor sense of story leading up to it. While the early episodes of the first Lupin III were plenty odd and quirky, they were sustained by an energy that this episode lacks.
Recommended?
No—while there’s continuity with the previous series, it does not set up any continuity within the second series and can be safely avoided.
When I first reviewed “Wings of Death” and “Goodbye, my beloved Lupin” I noted that I had no interest in continuing on to the second series and this episode was why. In comparison to Leblanc’s tight story—there’s a reason Lupin was considered the French foil to Sherlock Holmes—and coming right after the similarly tightly-constructed Takahata-and-Miyazaki episodes at the end of the first seasons it was especially disappointing. In fact, it made me decide to go back and rewatch the first series, leading to this subforum. So in that sense it deserves either thanks or extra damnation.
Stray Observations
• We have two proverbs here: “Flowers perish in a storm” and “There are gods who discard and there are those who recycle.” I think we know the gods responsible for this episode.
• Evidently the original Lupin III comic also starts out by mirroring the chapters of Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur but I’ve yet to confirm this by reading it for myself.
• Pictured above is more evidence that Goemon’s the sexiest of the Lupin gang’s men, pictured here warning his masseuse-assassin of his karate prowess. We get a nice reference to him being younger than the rest of the team from Jigen, who accuses him of not growing up.
• For a significant portion, possibly the majority, of the second series episodes Fujiko’s face is somewhat squarer—under the influence of Aoki, Telecom and Miyazaki later it returns to its its usual, somewhat longer shape.
• While feeling a lot more like a children’s cartoon than any episode of the first series, we get an unusually grisly (though non-graphic) crushing as well as a horrifying sequence featuring robotic dental equipment, a snake bite, and the snake being subsequently blasted in two.
2 A Bouquet of Bills Blossom in Rio's Sunset & 3 Hitler’s Legacy
or, 2 Guns, Buns, and Fun in the Sun & 26 To be or Nazi Be
While Arsène Lupin III’s escape at the end of the first episode won’t come as any surprise to any viewer of the show, it does come as a bit of a surprise to the reader of Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur, which ends with Lupin in Inspector Ganimard’s custody. It’s a bit more surprising when we see that the second episode of Lupin III Part II, like the second chapter of Arsène Lupin follows the same basic outline: Lupin orchestrates a theft from prison.
Unfortunately for the viewer, the series again falls short in our second and final round of book-versus-television. In contrast to Lupin I’s careful planning and deception—which allows the theft to happen while he still remains behind bars—Lupin III simply tricks the security camera with a ploy so stupid the episode lampshades it. As a theft, it’s nowhere as interesting as Leblanc’s.
It does represent the solidification of the second series’s typical structure, though, especially in these early years. There’s a big focus on location—here it’s Rio, and we even get a bevy of statistics from the local tourism board about stuff like hotel capacity—and scale. The best thefts in the first series tended to get their suspense and interest from the story structure. In the second series the emphasis has shifted to the scale of the theft, with Lupin stealing Christ the Redeemer. This is improbable, of course (although they seem to get the physical scale about right, the statue’s about seventy times too heavy to life with an aerial crane), but that would not be a problem if we built to the theft in a better way. “Bouquet of Bills” tries to dazzle us, but it can’t make up for the story’s slimness.
Its follow-up, “Hitler’s Legacy” (no relation to any Leblanc chapter) does a better job with the same framework: establish setting; pull off big, flashy heist; receive ironic comeuppance. The Berlin setting offers a lot more to work with than the Rio one, allowing for some actual thematic exploration. This comes in small ways—the contrast between Zenigata and his stern Berlin counterpart (both adhered to the expat stereotypes I encountered in the Netherlands, actually), getting the texture of Berlin if not the geography right (though I’ve never been to Rio), and centering the theft around its two big totalitarian ruptures of the twentieth century: Nazism and Communism.
It’s not a deep meditation, of course, but it’s interesting to see incorporated—looking for Hitler’s “héritage” (inheritance—the subs use le mot français), they find their best lead to be an old man living in East Germany. So Lupin and the gang cross Checkpoint Charlie to kidnap the old man. After making a daring escape from East Berlin via hang-glider, they find that he’s been thoroughly de-Nazified and turned into a good Communist, albeit one creeping towards senility. The extravagance here is re-staging Hitler’s audience hall in an attempt to resurface his old memories.
Both these episodes also have the same sort of ending, too.It’s not just ironic comeuppance for Lupin and the gang’s search for treasure , but a (literally) winking cuteness. In “Bouquet of Bills” we get a Catholic miracle as Christ speaks to Lupin, giving him a stony wink, an odd intrusion of the divine into Lupin’s materialistic world. In “Hitler’s Legacy” the wink’s delivered by a photo of Hitler. It’s a bit disquieting in the latter case. Nazi paraphernalia carries a hint of naughtiness about it (beyond the obvious leather connection)—it may be made well, but it’s made for bad people for bad purposes (and quite possibly with slave labor). This dip into the verboten is, I’m sure, why he carries a Walther P38, the Wehrmacht’s gun of choice. In “Hitler’s Legacy” it gets to be a bit much.
Recommended
“A Bouquet of Bills” is not—it’s a paper-thin story without much charm. “Hitler’s Legacy,” on the other hand, uses the same basic framework to give us a much more interesting story, even if its attitude towards Nazism is a bit cute for my taste.
Stray Observations
• The cute approach to Nazi imagery accounts for why “Hitler’s Legacy” has an odd place in the series. It’s the third episode, but on Hulu is placed at the very end; the episode was never aired in the US and was not included in the first DVD release, accounting for its placement at the end of the season on Hulu. This odd placement is, incidentally, also why I ended up watching the episode—I’d been planning on watching episode 26 for next week and only found out later this wasn’t it. I didn’t really have much to say about “A Bouquet of Bills,” so seeing that it followed the same basic formula I decided to smush the two together.
• Jumping back from later in the series we can see that the general orientation towards spectacle (pace Telecom, but even then not totally so) started early, but the episodes are simpler—rather than throwing every big idea at the wall and seeing what sticks they usually content themselves with building towards one big idea.
• There is a chapel at the base of Christ the Redeemer, but it only was consecrated in 2006.
• The hang glider escape is not that far a cry from actual East Berlin escapes, though the example linked was under power (too bad Miyazaki wasn’t on board for this episode).
• While 500’s, Minis, and 2CV’s are all common in various installments of Lupin III, “Hitler’s Legacy” provides us with the rare instance of Lupin driving a Volkswagen Beetle, the other great midcentury European people’s car. In Amsterdam the 500, Mini, and 2CV all had little cults around them and were still widely in use but the Beetle much less so, probably in large part because of Dutch anti-German sentiment; in Germany they’re also associated with the lean post-WWII years, and not necessarily major symbols or objects of nostalgia, either.
Of course, the book Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur is highly recommended.
Next week we get a couple of prominent female guest stars as we finish off the first season with “The Rose & the Pistol” (or, “Shot Through the Heart) and begin the second with “Where is the Cinderella Stamp” (or, “The Little Princess of Darkness”).
or, “Return of Lupin III”
Arsène Lupin—le premier Lupin—made his first literary appearance on a the transatlantic luxury steamer Le Provence in 1905. That first short story, “L’Arrestation d’Arsène Lupin” (collected as the first chapter in Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur, available here in the original French[/ur] and here in English translation), will in many ways be familiar to fans of his Japanese descendan4t, down to the use of disguise, the stalwart detective in pursuit, even the distraction by a woman and ironic loss of the loot. It’s appropriate, then, that for the relaunch of the Lupin television franchise after five years the first episode would likewise take place on a luxury liner.
Unfortunately, that is where similarity with Leblanc’s tight little introduction to Lupin ends. Part of that might be inevitable, since this is explicitly a reintroduction, not an introduction. Lupin’s gang went their separate ways after “The Great Gold Battle” and they’re meeting again for the first time since the end of the last series, a rare show of continuity across Lupin incarnations. We also get the rare resurrection of a villain: the episode’s antagonist is the head of the SPECTRE-like Scorpion group from the first episode of the original television series, “Is Lupin Burning?!”.
But these small continuities do more to highlight the changed direction of the new series relative to the first. Lupin started out on television as an outlaw Bond, with his first theft only happening in the fourth episode; this was half-concession to a television station uncomfortable with such an explicitly criminal protagonist in an animated show, half-reflection of the spy-fi zeitgeist. “Dashing Return” channels Marvel rather than Bond, with the head of Scorpion—now called Scorpion himself—having been turned into a sort of supervillainous bionic hulk. With this the second series announces that it’s willing to push our suspension of disbelief outwards. We’ll be dealing with more than just some advanced gadgetry and cartoon physics. This is not in itself bad, but in “Dashing Return” we first find fantasy as a substitute for wit and wits: enjoyment is to be found in what Lupin’s up against, not what he gets himself out of. It’s less satisfying.
The episode’s sloppy, too. There’s little build in the story, showing us a number of demonstrating Scorpion’s assassins are on the ship but not letting them build towards anything. There are odd little details in the script, like naming the ship the Sirloin. While probably a side-effect of starting up production, but the animation’s terrible, especially when the episode invites comparison with the dynamic “Is Lupin Burning?!” “The Dashing Return” has an explosive end but little dynamism nor sense of story leading up to it. While the early episodes of the first Lupin III were plenty odd and quirky, they were sustained by an energy that this episode lacks.
Recommended?
No—while there’s continuity with the previous series, it does not set up any continuity within the second series and can be safely avoided.
When I first reviewed “Wings of Death” and “Goodbye, my beloved Lupin” I noted that I had no interest in continuing on to the second series and this episode was why. In comparison to Leblanc’s tight story—there’s a reason Lupin was considered the French foil to Sherlock Holmes—and coming right after the similarly tightly-constructed Takahata-and-Miyazaki episodes at the end of the first seasons it was especially disappointing. In fact, it made me decide to go back and rewatch the first series, leading to this subforum. So in that sense it deserves either thanks or extra damnation.
Stray Observations
• We have two proverbs here: “Flowers perish in a storm” and “There are gods who discard and there are those who recycle.” I think we know the gods responsible for this episode.
• Evidently the original Lupin III comic also starts out by mirroring the chapters of Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur but I’ve yet to confirm this by reading it for myself.
• Pictured above is more evidence that Goemon’s the sexiest of the Lupin gang’s men, pictured here warning his masseuse-assassin of his karate prowess. We get a nice reference to him being younger than the rest of the team from Jigen, who accuses him of not growing up.
• For a significant portion, possibly the majority, of the second series episodes Fujiko’s face is somewhat squarer—under the influence of Aoki, Telecom and Miyazaki later it returns to its its usual, somewhat longer shape.
• While feeling a lot more like a children’s cartoon than any episode of the first series, we get an unusually grisly (though non-graphic) crushing as well as a horrifying sequence featuring robotic dental equipment, a snake bite, and the snake being subsequently blasted in two.
2 A Bouquet of Bills Blossom in Rio's Sunset & 3 Hitler’s Legacy
or, 2 Guns, Buns, and Fun in the Sun & 26 To be or Nazi Be
While Arsène Lupin III’s escape at the end of the first episode won’t come as any surprise to any viewer of the show, it does come as a bit of a surprise to the reader of Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur, which ends with Lupin in Inspector Ganimard’s custody. It’s a bit more surprising when we see that the second episode of Lupin III Part II, like the second chapter of Arsène Lupin follows the same basic outline: Lupin orchestrates a theft from prison.
Unfortunately for the viewer, the series again falls short in our second and final round of book-versus-television. In contrast to Lupin I’s careful planning and deception—which allows the theft to happen while he still remains behind bars—Lupin III simply tricks the security camera with a ploy so stupid the episode lampshades it. As a theft, it’s nowhere as interesting as Leblanc’s.
It does represent the solidification of the second series’s typical structure, though, especially in these early years. There’s a big focus on location—here it’s Rio, and we even get a bevy of statistics from the local tourism board about stuff like hotel capacity—and scale. The best thefts in the first series tended to get their suspense and interest from the story structure. In the second series the emphasis has shifted to the scale of the theft, with Lupin stealing Christ the Redeemer. This is improbable, of course (although they seem to get the physical scale about right, the statue’s about seventy times too heavy to life with an aerial crane), but that would not be a problem if we built to the theft in a better way. “Bouquet of Bills” tries to dazzle us, but it can’t make up for the story’s slimness.
Its follow-up, “Hitler’s Legacy” (no relation to any Leblanc chapter) does a better job with the same framework: establish setting; pull off big, flashy heist; receive ironic comeuppance. The Berlin setting offers a lot more to work with than the Rio one, allowing for some actual thematic exploration. This comes in small ways—the contrast between Zenigata and his stern Berlin counterpart (both adhered to the expat stereotypes I encountered in the Netherlands, actually), getting the texture of Berlin if not the geography right (though I’ve never been to Rio), and centering the theft around its two big totalitarian ruptures of the twentieth century: Nazism and Communism.
It’s not a deep meditation, of course, but it’s interesting to see incorporated—looking for Hitler’s “héritage” (inheritance—the subs use le mot français), they find their best lead to be an old man living in East Germany. So Lupin and the gang cross Checkpoint Charlie to kidnap the old man. After making a daring escape from East Berlin via hang-glider, they find that he’s been thoroughly de-Nazified and turned into a good Communist, albeit one creeping towards senility. The extravagance here is re-staging Hitler’s audience hall in an attempt to resurface his old memories.
Both these episodes also have the same sort of ending, too.It’s not just ironic comeuppance for Lupin and the gang’s search for treasure , but a (literally) winking cuteness. In “Bouquet of Bills” we get a Catholic miracle as Christ speaks to Lupin, giving him a stony wink, an odd intrusion of the divine into Lupin’s materialistic world. In “Hitler’s Legacy” the wink’s delivered by a photo of Hitler. It’s a bit disquieting in the latter case. Nazi paraphernalia carries a hint of naughtiness about it (beyond the obvious leather connection)—it may be made well, but it’s made for bad people for bad purposes (and quite possibly with slave labor). This dip into the verboten is, I’m sure, why he carries a Walther P38, the Wehrmacht’s gun of choice. In “Hitler’s Legacy” it gets to be a bit much.
Recommended
“A Bouquet of Bills” is not—it’s a paper-thin story without much charm. “Hitler’s Legacy,” on the other hand, uses the same basic framework to give us a much more interesting story, even if its attitude towards Nazism is a bit cute for my taste.
Stray Observations
• The cute approach to Nazi imagery accounts for why “Hitler’s Legacy” has an odd place in the series. It’s the third episode, but on Hulu is placed at the very end; the episode was never aired in the US and was not included in the first DVD release, accounting for its placement at the end of the season on Hulu. This odd placement is, incidentally, also why I ended up watching the episode—I’d been planning on watching episode 26 for next week and only found out later this wasn’t it. I didn’t really have much to say about “A Bouquet of Bills,” so seeing that it followed the same basic formula I decided to smush the two together.
• Jumping back from later in the series we can see that the general orientation towards spectacle (pace Telecom, but even then not totally so) started early, but the episodes are simpler—rather than throwing every big idea at the wall and seeing what sticks they usually content themselves with building towards one big idea.
• There is a chapel at the base of Christ the Redeemer, but it only was consecrated in 2006.
• The hang glider escape is not that far a cry from actual East Berlin escapes, though the example linked was under power (too bad Miyazaki wasn’t on board for this episode).
• While 500’s, Minis, and 2CV’s are all common in various installments of Lupin III, “Hitler’s Legacy” provides us with the rare instance of Lupin driving a Volkswagen Beetle, the other great midcentury European people’s car. In Amsterdam the 500, Mini, and 2CV all had little cults around them and were still widely in use but the Beetle much less so, probably in large part because of Dutch anti-German sentiment; in Germany they’re also associated with the lean post-WWII years, and not necessarily major symbols or objects of nostalgia, either.
Of course, the book Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur is highly recommended.
Next week we get a couple of prominent female guest stars as we finish off the first season with “The Rose & the Pistol” (or, “Shot Through the Heart) and begin the second with “Where is the Cinderella Stamp” (or, “The Little Princess of Darkness”).
