Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Jun 13, 2024 23:26:50 GMT -5
I’m no Lupin completist—despite being sillier in a number of ways, I think one of the main reasons Lupin’s sticking with me better than, say, Star Trek, as I get older the franchise doesn’t demand completism like others do. There’s little overarching continuity , which means you can pretty much ignore what you dislike (there’s some attempt to tie together Parts V, VI, and Lupin Zero—running the gamut from some of the best to some of the worst Lupin ever—but they all stand individually) and enjoy radically different takes on the franchise, with no pressure on either the audience or, more importantly, creative teams, to reconcile them.
It’s kind of in the spirit of the series, then, that when I go back at look at Lupin I’ve overlooked it’s just because I’m interested in giving it a try—no system necessary, no forcing myself into anything. It’s also, to an extent, leaping blind—the Anglophone Lupin fandom is small and atomized there aren’t really even consensus-plurality opinions on the various TV specials’ quality, despite being the entry point for a lot of fans. They weren’t mine, and while I’ve seen a few I’ve usually approached them with a certain trepidation. However as the animated side of the franchise, to use a typology from Keith Phipps, goes through a mostly-needed period of starvation after close to a decade of continuous production, I’ve beein going back and giving some of them a look. Here’s the latest:
Napoleon’s Dictionary (1991)
I don’t know why I put Napoleon’s Dictionary on my watchlist. Pure Francophilia? Ridley Scott’s film? Lupin II’s appearance in Lupin Zero? It’s one of the first four TV specials, directed on the cheap by Osamu Dezaki and generally leaning on the cartoonish. I was lukewarm about his first special, which initiated the series—maybe what this one lacked in scope it would make up for in quirks.
Napoleon’s Dictionary has quirks in spades but one thing I wasn’t expecting, though, was flashes of real intelligence. Zenigata quickly figures out one of Lupin’s false death schemes. Goemon’s atavistic ethos is revealed to be more inspired by samurai films than actual tradition. Despite the legend, Napoleon’s actual dictionary actually does have the word “impossible” in it. There’s an awareness of clichés and stock plot devices that could have helped the specials going forward, or maybe the later specials calcified those clichés and Napoleon’s Dictionary was still able to play with them more freely.
Those are just flashes of real intelligence, though. Overall this is one of the dumbest entries in Lupin media I’ve watched. Zenigata figured out Lupin’s false death scheme…the first time he pulled one. I recognize the initial setup is more an excuse to set up an international manhunt than a considered take on the causes of and solutions to the early 1990s recession, but it is stupid, beyond action movie fun dumb, beyond misguided, entering the world of something so dumb you have to expend intellectual energy to stop being bothered by it.
This bleeds into the way the story unfolds, too. Many of the plot beats come out of—the kiss of death for the specials—obligation. Someone needs to appear, something needs to happen, the story is pushed forward because it can’t move of its own accord. The story isn’t a “ride.” Nor is there any real emotional or thematic bottom to the story. You don’t need both to make a good Lupin entry, but you do need one.
When I reviewed Operation Return the Treasure I noted that, while it doesn’t “save” the special (in some ways it ways it dragged it down), the honest enthusiasm for the architecture of Antoni Gaudí from the creative team made it feel less obligatory, like it was just meant to fill a timeslot. Napoleon’s Dictionary doesn’t rise to that bar.
It’s not totally passionless, though. The decision to center so much action on a Mille Miglia Storica-style regularity rally provides a bit of interest, an even more antique spin on the Lupin franchise’s interest in old cars. There’s a bit of unintended resonance in that a regularity rally’s about hitting your marks based on pre-set average speeds—the course is artificial but Napoleon’s Dictionary is at least paced evenly, if not all that interestingly. Dezaki and co. did a good job of spacing out their shoestring budget: they mostly get away with suggesting action more than showing it for most of the special, saving their powder for a well-choreographed ironic finale.
Regularity isn’t close to enough, though. Even if the small virtues of Napoleon’s Dictionary make it watchable, they’re too small to make it rewarding as anything more than box-checking—as for the filmmakers, so for the viewer.
Recommended?
Not recommended
Stray observations:
• Even though the political-economic aspects of the premise are terrible, but we do get a nice bit of period-specificity. Napoleon’s Dictionary is set immediately after the Gulf War, and we get a mention of George H.W. Bush’s 90%+ approval rating and a cameo from the man himself. One character says, “He’s probably be reelected, even if he had an affair with Madonna.” That’s certainly a mental image to go with your historical irony.
• Another image is Lupin sneaking around MOMA under a giant gold sculpture of a coil of poop, apparently a spoof of the likes of Jeff Koons (when it comes to Koons, at least, I agree).
Dragon of Doom (1994)
or, Burn, Zantetsuken
Were it not for a recommendation I wouldn’t have given this one a try. I’m usually not the biggest fan of Goemon-centric stories or the ones that go on dives into traditional Japanese aesthetics (there are, of course, manyexceptions, though again one of my favorite bits in Napeoleon’s Dictionary was its poke at Goemon’s authenticity). This one also tends to lean a fair amount into more conventional anime aesthetics: Goemon’s big-eyed companion Kikyo (who looks especially out of place since the other guest characters are drawn in more traditional Lupin style), bait for military otaku, a lot of “action” consisting of a bit of static poses in front of streaky backgrounds, that sort of thing.
That last one’s also a symptom of budget issues. Credit to Dezaki where it’s due—he did a much better job of managing the animation quality over the course of the special (regularity rally as metonym). Dragon of Doom looks terrible for long chunks of its run, with characters looking wrong, either due to oddly-proportioned designs or off-model animation moments. There are extended flashback sequences that replay moments earlier in the special and obvious instances of reused animation.
However,
the rationing for much of the special isn’t without payoff: the opening, closing and main theft sequences are a lot of fun. The primary theft’s probably the least animation-intensive but it’s also the best. I’ll admit it hit a particular spot for me as Lupin’s stealing the eponymous Dragon of Doom from the Titanic. This was released in 1994 so it’s going off Ballard’s expedition, not Cameron’s film. As a young kid I was obsessed with deep-sea exploration, so there’s something great about seeing Lupin climb into an Alvin-analogue, dive past a bunch hideous deep-sea fish, and land on the Titanic, with a number of images taken near-verbatim from Robert Ballard’s expedition. The actual theft is cleverly done as well, with legit suspense, inventiveness, and a great reality-breaking comic capstone.
What makes it great, though, is that everyone’s smart in it, and . Too often our leads suffer in Lupin specials, to move the plot from one place to another sometimes requires a compromise in intelligence or character. That is what breaks suspension of disbelief, more than anything that actually happens on screen. Out of context there’s a lot of Dragon of Doom that’s laughable and ludicrous, particularly the big finale, but you’re all there for it because the characters all are. The special’s not dumb if they aren’t.
Although there’s still some artificial story moves and character placements, Dragon of Doom’s also smart in how it uses our leads. Zenigata’s used only when a bit of an exclamation point is needed, and his display a creativity and confidence that makes him a real threat, striking a surprisingly good balance in an era where Zenigata leans too towards buffoonery.
The voice acting’s always part of the appeal of Lupin for me, and Makio Inoue’s experience and maturity as Goemon (he’d been playing him since 1977, after all) makes his subplot work. He rebuffs Kikyo’s advances in a matter-of-fact way—he’s not flustered like a younger Goemon would be, just uninterested. Kikyo’s betrayal (technically a spoiler but you’ll figure it out quickly) seems to have been written as a moment of heartbreak but Inoue plays it slightly different, as break of trust from a colleague that’s almost family, again dodging a cliché. The setup and plotting around Kikyo’s a mix of strange (what’s with pairing Goemon with much younger or seeming women?) and hackneyed, but Inoue’s strength as Goemon keeps us focused on him.
Despite the ostensible focus on Goemon, since shunted off in his own subplot means that Dragon of Doom is really centered on our big three: Lupin, Jigen, and Fujiko. All are in fine form, unusually cooperative and savvy. Going back to the Titanic sequence: we have a nice chain of a pressure-suited Lupin in the ship, Jigen in the submersible, and Fujiko on the surface support vessel, with tension between each link in the chain because all three are working in partnership. There’s a sense of real risk, not just going on a ride, where there are personal, not just material, stakes in Lupin’s success. When Fujiko sidles up to the main villain it’s not treated as fickleness, greed, or betrayal, but saving her skin. Lupin’s way out’s a bit more theatrical (a very fun twist on the “last smoke” cliché), but he understands they’re they’re doing basically the same thing and will meet amicably again.
Maybe, as with Goemon’s performance, there’s something in the acting that’s not in the script that makes the lead trio seem unusually close. This would be the last narrative outing to feature Lupin’s original voice, Yasuo Yamada. We get a nice, balanced characterization of Lupin here and Yamadas’s full of energy and joie de vivre as ever. There are points, though, where this energy has to break through a prematurely aged rasp—you can hear he’s dying. I’m also glad I watched this because Eiko Masuyama, who voiced Fujiko in this and in most Lupin media before 2012, just died on May 20th. The character was very unevenly written, especially when she took over as her primary voice actress in 1977 (though she’d originated the role in the pilot film). Dragon of Doom is the too-rare special where Fujiko not only comes off well but comes across as an actual person.
Recommended?
Recommended.
It’s like a cookie that looks misshapen but all the ingredients have been mixed correctly.
Stray observations
• I don’t think Ohno really got his Lupin soundtrack mojo back until Missed by a Dollar, but Kikyo’s theme and the end credits sequence with the descending to the wreck of the Titanic are great.
• Lupin drives a Jaguar E-Type in this one, though unfortunately the varying quality of its depiction a good example of how uneven the animation gets.
• We get a real US president in this one too, with Bill Clinton looking like a real slab of a man.
Next week we look at The Last Job, the retirement special for three of the classic cast leads, and then move forward (or back?) to 2019’s Lupin III: The First.
It’s kind of in the spirit of the series, then, that when I go back at look at Lupin I’ve overlooked it’s just because I’m interested in giving it a try—no system necessary, no forcing myself into anything. It’s also, to an extent, leaping blind—the Anglophone Lupin fandom is small and atomized there aren’t really even consensus-plurality opinions on the various TV specials’ quality, despite being the entry point for a lot of fans. They weren’t mine, and while I’ve seen a few I’ve usually approached them with a certain trepidation. However as the animated side of the franchise, to use a typology from Keith Phipps, goes through a mostly-needed period of starvation after close to a decade of continuous production, I’ve beein going back and giving some of them a look. Here’s the latest:
Napoleon’s Dictionary (1991)
I don’t know why I put Napoleon’s Dictionary on my watchlist. Pure Francophilia? Ridley Scott’s film? Lupin II’s appearance in Lupin Zero? It’s one of the first four TV specials, directed on the cheap by Osamu Dezaki and generally leaning on the cartoonish. I was lukewarm about his first special, which initiated the series—maybe what this one lacked in scope it would make up for in quirks.
Napoleon’s Dictionary has quirks in spades but one thing I wasn’t expecting, though, was flashes of real intelligence. Zenigata quickly figures out one of Lupin’s false death schemes. Goemon’s atavistic ethos is revealed to be more inspired by samurai films than actual tradition. Despite the legend, Napoleon’s actual dictionary actually does have the word “impossible” in it. There’s an awareness of clichés and stock plot devices that could have helped the specials going forward, or maybe the later specials calcified those clichés and Napoleon’s Dictionary was still able to play with them more freely.
Those are just flashes of real intelligence, though. Overall this is one of the dumbest entries in Lupin media I’ve watched. Zenigata figured out Lupin’s false death scheme…the first time he pulled one. I recognize the initial setup is more an excuse to set up an international manhunt than a considered take on the causes of and solutions to the early 1990s recession, but it is stupid, beyond action movie fun dumb, beyond misguided, entering the world of something so dumb you have to expend intellectual energy to stop being bothered by it.
This bleeds into the way the story unfolds, too. Many of the plot beats come out of—the kiss of death for the specials—obligation. Someone needs to appear, something needs to happen, the story is pushed forward because it can’t move of its own accord. The story isn’t a “ride.” Nor is there any real emotional or thematic bottom to the story. You don’t need both to make a good Lupin entry, but you do need one.
When I reviewed Operation Return the Treasure I noted that, while it doesn’t “save” the special (in some ways it ways it dragged it down), the honest enthusiasm for the architecture of Antoni Gaudí from the creative team made it feel less obligatory, like it was just meant to fill a timeslot. Napoleon’s Dictionary doesn’t rise to that bar.
It’s not totally passionless, though. The decision to center so much action on a Mille Miglia Storica-style regularity rally provides a bit of interest, an even more antique spin on the Lupin franchise’s interest in old cars. There’s a bit of unintended resonance in that a regularity rally’s about hitting your marks based on pre-set average speeds—the course is artificial but Napoleon’s Dictionary is at least paced evenly, if not all that interestingly. Dezaki and co. did a good job of spacing out their shoestring budget: they mostly get away with suggesting action more than showing it for most of the special, saving their powder for a well-choreographed ironic finale.
Regularity isn’t close to enough, though. Even if the small virtues of Napoleon’s Dictionary make it watchable, they’re too small to make it rewarding as anything more than box-checking—as for the filmmakers, so for the viewer.
Recommended?
Not recommended
Stray observations:
• Even though the political-economic aspects of the premise are terrible, but we do get a nice bit of period-specificity. Napoleon’s Dictionary is set immediately after the Gulf War, and we get a mention of George H.W. Bush’s 90%+ approval rating and a cameo from the man himself. One character says, “He’s probably be reelected, even if he had an affair with Madonna.” That’s certainly a mental image to go with your historical irony.
• Another image is Lupin sneaking around MOMA under a giant gold sculpture of a coil of poop, apparently a spoof of the likes of Jeff Koons (when it comes to Koons, at least, I agree).
Dragon of Doom (1994)
or, Burn, Zantetsuken
Were it not for a recommendation I wouldn’t have given this one a try. I’m usually not the biggest fan of Goemon-centric stories or the ones that go on dives into traditional Japanese aesthetics (there are, of course, manyexceptions, though again one of my favorite bits in Napeoleon’s Dictionary was its poke at Goemon’s authenticity). This one also tends to lean a fair amount into more conventional anime aesthetics: Goemon’s big-eyed companion Kikyo (who looks especially out of place since the other guest characters are drawn in more traditional Lupin style), bait for military otaku, a lot of “action” consisting of a bit of static poses in front of streaky backgrounds, that sort of thing.
That last one’s also a symptom of budget issues. Credit to Dezaki where it’s due—he did a much better job of managing the animation quality over the course of the special (regularity rally as metonym). Dragon of Doom looks terrible for long chunks of its run, with characters looking wrong, either due to oddly-proportioned designs or off-model animation moments. There are extended flashback sequences that replay moments earlier in the special and obvious instances of reused animation.
However,
the rationing for much of the special isn’t without payoff: the opening, closing and main theft sequences are a lot of fun. The primary theft’s probably the least animation-intensive but it’s also the best. I’ll admit it hit a particular spot for me as Lupin’s stealing the eponymous Dragon of Doom from the Titanic. This was released in 1994 so it’s going off Ballard’s expedition, not Cameron’s film. As a young kid I was obsessed with deep-sea exploration, so there’s something great about seeing Lupin climb into an Alvin-analogue, dive past a bunch hideous deep-sea fish, and land on the Titanic, with a number of images taken near-verbatim from Robert Ballard’s expedition. The actual theft is cleverly done as well, with legit suspense, inventiveness, and a great reality-breaking comic capstone.
What makes it great, though, is that everyone’s smart in it, and . Too often our leads suffer in Lupin specials, to move the plot from one place to another sometimes requires a compromise in intelligence or character. That is what breaks suspension of disbelief, more than anything that actually happens on screen. Out of context there’s a lot of Dragon of Doom that’s laughable and ludicrous, particularly the big finale, but you’re all there for it because the characters all are. The special’s not dumb if they aren’t.
Although there’s still some artificial story moves and character placements, Dragon of Doom’s also smart in how it uses our leads. Zenigata’s used only when a bit of an exclamation point is needed, and his display a creativity and confidence that makes him a real threat, striking a surprisingly good balance in an era where Zenigata leans too towards buffoonery.
The voice acting’s always part of the appeal of Lupin for me, and Makio Inoue’s experience and maturity as Goemon (he’d been playing him since 1977, after all) makes his subplot work. He rebuffs Kikyo’s advances in a matter-of-fact way—he’s not flustered like a younger Goemon would be, just uninterested. Kikyo’s betrayal (technically a spoiler but you’ll figure it out quickly) seems to have been written as a moment of heartbreak but Inoue plays it slightly different, as break of trust from a colleague that’s almost family, again dodging a cliché. The setup and plotting around Kikyo’s a mix of strange (what’s with pairing Goemon with much younger or seeming women?) and hackneyed, but Inoue’s strength as Goemon keeps us focused on him.
Despite the ostensible focus on Goemon, since shunted off in his own subplot means that Dragon of Doom is really centered on our big three: Lupin, Jigen, and Fujiko. All are in fine form, unusually cooperative and savvy. Going back to the Titanic sequence: we have a nice chain of a pressure-suited Lupin in the ship, Jigen in the submersible, and Fujiko on the surface support vessel, with tension between each link in the chain because all three are working in partnership. There’s a sense of real risk, not just going on a ride, where there are personal, not just material, stakes in Lupin’s success. When Fujiko sidles up to the main villain it’s not treated as fickleness, greed, or betrayal, but saving her skin. Lupin’s way out’s a bit more theatrical (a very fun twist on the “last smoke” cliché), but he understands they’re they’re doing basically the same thing and will meet amicably again.
Maybe, as with Goemon’s performance, there’s something in the acting that’s not in the script that makes the lead trio seem unusually close. This would be the last narrative outing to feature Lupin’s original voice, Yasuo Yamada. We get a nice, balanced characterization of Lupin here and Yamadas’s full of energy and joie de vivre as ever. There are points, though, where this energy has to break through a prematurely aged rasp—you can hear he’s dying. I’m also glad I watched this because Eiko Masuyama, who voiced Fujiko in this and in most Lupin media before 2012, just died on May 20th. The character was very unevenly written, especially when she took over as her primary voice actress in 1977 (though she’d originated the role in the pilot film). Dragon of Doom is the too-rare special where Fujiko not only comes off well but comes across as an actual person.
Recommended?
Recommended.
It’s like a cookie that looks misshapen but all the ingredients have been mixed correctly.
Stray observations
• I don’t think Ohno really got his Lupin soundtrack mojo back until Missed by a Dollar, but Kikyo’s theme and the end credits sequence with the descending to the wreck of the Titanic are great.
• Lupin drives a Jaguar E-Type in this one, though unfortunately the varying quality of its depiction a good example of how uneven the animation gets.
• We get a real US president in this one too, with Bill Clinton looking like a real slab of a man.
Next week we look at The Last Job, the retirement special for three of the classic cast leads, and then move forward (or back?) to 2019’s Lupin III: The First.