While this is neither a great Conan story or a great Lupin story, it is a great Detective Conan AND Lupin III story. The two casts enter the story of the Kingdom of Vespania at different ends. Conan is embroiled in an attempt to murder the Crown Princess and Lupin is attempting steal the Crown of Vespania. Fujiko becomes involved at a third point in the tale and draws the two threads together.

There’s a few problems that might seem huge depending on your expectations. The mystery isn’t much of a mystery. And Lupin’s heist never really goes anywhere. It’s another Lupin film with the shadow of Cagliostro hanging over it. But I feel that’s overcome by the character work, which is full of clever touches for people following both franchises. For instance, early in the story the serious and too eager Detective Takagi has great characterisation, engaging in the sort of background pantomime you don’t normally associate with anime. And the few occasions where Conan and Lupin interact are as good as you’d want them to be.

But the real treat comes in the handling of Jigen and especially Fujiko. If you’re a Fujiko fan, this is one her better outings in a Lupin III special. Fun scenes with her, the princess, Lupin and Conan. Jigen too gets some good interaction with Conan as the pair investigate the deaths that start the film.

Probably not a great introduction to either franchise as it lacks what they do best, but for fans of both shows there’s enough here to get your teeth into.

How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?

I often complain that Lupin III specials have characters that look like Detective Conan characters, well at least here they’ve got the excuse of actually having Detective Conan characters present. So it’s odd that a lot of the non-Lupin, non-Conan characters don’t particularly look like either Gosho Aoyama or Monkey Punch characters. The two victims certainly look like Aoyama characters, as does the Princess. But the others are some sort of happy medium, trying to create a world in which Conan and Lupin can exist side by side despite their distinctly different appearances.

The Lupin gang look really good in this film though, probably my favourite designs for them in a while. Not particularly Punch-y, but their movements and body language are.

How ludicrous are the capers?

They aren’t that crazy. There’s an impenetrable vault and a magic ore, but there’s no audacious set pieces here. This may be a rare Lupin special where Fujiko probably gets most of the action.

How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?

Poor Goemon doesn’t get much use here. With Fujiko and Jigen at the heart of the story, there’s not really any place where Goemon fits in except for his usual save the day spot. He does get some nice lines in the final scene though. To the extent that I’d really like to see a script where Fujiko and Goemon have to work together most of the time, as that’s a relationship that doesn’t seem that well explored from what I’ve seen.

I might add images when I get my PC back up and running. In the meantime click on the titles to go to their homepages.

LUPIN III vs. DETECTIVE CONAN

I’d totally forgotten this special was due, let alone that it was due so soon. I often complain that non-Monkey Punch created characters in the various TMS Lupin specials look like they’ve stepped out of Detective Conan, so this will take care of that complainy by having them actually be Detective Conan characters. Looking forward to this a lot, and I have a lot of goodwill towards both the shows, so it doesn’t have to be perfect.

But it’d be nice if it was.

Marie and Gali

There’s an episode of this already on nicovideo that shows off the strong visual style it has, and even though it has an educational intent, it looks a lot of fun.

Mainichi Kaasan

Based on the newspaper strip of the same name, this looks like the sort of comedy show that gets utterly ignored in anglophone fandom.

Charady no Joke na Mainichi

This is an odd one. A daily gag show, where Charady tells a joke everyday. Overseen by TV 3D CGI guru Ryuji Masuda, but directed by Kyoto University of Art students. With that strange concoction, it’s got be worth checking out at least once.

Sengoku Basara

Videogame-based anime don’t have a strong pedigree. And even with Production IG animating, I’m not sure this will be an exception. Itsuro Kawasaki directs, and as Rental Magica, Arc The Lad and Licensed by Royalty didn’t get the blood pumping so I’m not inclined to think this will either.

And now, 21 months after I actually bought them, I’ve finally finished watching the Funimation Lupin boxsets.

Here Lupin is chasing down a brooch that apparently will aid the possessor in ruling the world. The unique selling point is that Lupin dies. Of course that doesn’t stick, but they make it work well. In fact it’s one of the better written specials, fitting to a well worn formula, but full of fun scenes.

Animation-wise, it’s fair, nothing as glaringly bad as some of Columbus Files, but at the same time not dazzling either.

So how do they all compare overall? Here’s how I’d order them:

1. Dead Or Alive (First Haul boxset)
2. Farewell To Nostradamus (Final Haul boxset)
3. Crisis In Tokyo (Final Haul boxset)
4. Island of Assassins (Final Haul boxset)
5. Dragon of Doom (First Haul boxset)
6. Missed By A Dollar (Final Haul boxset)
7. The Columbus Files (Final Haul boxset)
8. The Pursuit of Harimao’s Treasure (First Haul boxset)
9. The Secret of Twilight Gemini (First Haul boxset)
10. Voyage To Danger (First Haul boxset)

Only Voyage To Danger was a bit of a stinker, but those top 4 are head and shoulders above the others. So that makes Final Haul the better boxset, but given the price, Dead Or Alive makes First Haul worth checking out too.

How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?

Once again the gang look good, and yes, once again, Fujiko looks a little off with tiny button like eyes.

That carries over to the supporting cast, where the men look Monkey Punch-ish, but the women look like they’ve come over from another anime, looking almost AIC-esque in their designs.

How ludicrous are the capers?

This has some very nice set pieces, along with the rare appearance of a long con in the third act. Highlights include the opening auction scene, the escape via balloon, the literal crashing of a mob funeral and the sight of Jigen in a wig giving a speech to potential investors.

How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?

Very good use of Goemon, indeed everyone gets nice banter with each other due to the device of Lupin being dead and then seeing the other main characters interact without him there.

So we’ve had both Jigen-centric (Voyage To Danger) and Goemon-centric (Dragon of Doom) specials, now we get the Fujiko-centric one. Which would be great, if it didn’t involve amnesia and thus remove her normal personality for much of the film.

Putting that cheap plot device aside, there is still much to recommend here. You see, this is the film that Shinichi Watanabe (Nabeshin) was in charge of, and his Lupin fandom shines through. So we get the 1930 Alfa Romeo. We get Lupin dressed in an inflatable disguise. We get him leaping at Fujiko in just his boxer shorts. A lot of Lupin III staples are here.

But what he also brings to the table is the villain Nazalloff, a criminal who uses similar methods to Lupin (and just so happens to wear a green blazer and has slightly curly hair…). It’s fun to see Lupin’s own methods being used against for a change. And Shigeru Chiba provides the demented performance that you’d expect from the voice of Megane in Urusei Yatsura, Pilaf in Dragonball, Buggy in One Piece and countless other maniacs.

And then there’s some enjoyable nonsense involving Christopher Columbus and orgone energy. So it manages to get both bonkers historical and scientific ideas into a Lupin film where usually we only get one.

Animation-wise, it’s a step down from Crisis In Tokyo. We get a few nicely animated scenes, but we also get a handful that are really below par for a TMS production. It’s tolerable, but I’ve seen better.

How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?

You’re not getting the sort of wild, energetic lines on the characters that I like the best, but all the gang are recognisably evolved from Monkey Punch designs. Still not keen on the lighter hair colour for Fujiko, but even her design is fairly strong here.

The non-regulars, aren’t quite so strong. Rosaria is TMS generic. Physically, the villian Nazalloff fits his role as the evil Lupin (green jacket included), but facially he doesn’t quite gel all the time. The mastermind does look more like a Lupin villain, even borrowing a gimmick somewhat from an early episode from the second series.

It really doesn’t stray all that far from Crisis in Tokyo’s look, and from here on out this is arguably the median point at which the character design fluctuates around.

How ludicrous are the capers?

It’s pretty nuts. The mastermind uses “orgone energy” to hulk out of a wheel chair while wearing a space suit. And that’s not even the climax of the film.

How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?

Goemon’s in this all the way through. Doesn’t get his own plot, but it’s a solid use of him.

This is probably the happy medium of Lupin III films. It has an equal mix of humour and danger, an unusual treasure that needs stealing, and a pinch of sci-fi oddity. Zenigata, always a good barometer of the show’s mood, is both serious crime fighter and buffoon here.

While Satoshi Hirayama had done some design work on Island of Assassins it’s here he makes himself known on character design and would go onto work on a further 8 Lupin projects in various artistic capacities.

Again the film benefits from Hiroyuki Imaishi’s presence – a wild section on a rollercoaster is clearly his work. There’s a number of action scenes shot side on in imitation of some of Monkey Punch’s Shin Lupin strips that might be him too. Regardless of whoever animated them, they are some fun sequences.

Storywise, the most admirable thing is that it finds something for each of the characters to do, often only Lupin and maybe Fujiko have motivations outside of helping each one another (and of course Zenigata’s eternal ambition of catching Lupin). But all five get nice character-based scenes here.

All in all it’s everything you want from a Lupin III film. It’s not the best, but it has a very good grasp on the franchise’s appeal.

How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?

The gang looks great. Except Fujiko. Who looks good, but she looks closer to Grandis from Nadia than Fujiko. Slightly longer face than you’d expect and the hair’s a little off.

The other characters have a touch of Monkey Punch to their physiques and movement, but facially could be from any TMS show. 

But I’m giving it another head for the movement of the main characters, this is the first of these to really remind me of those first Lupin strips I read in Manga Mania many years ago.

How ludicrous are the capers?

Silly gadgets and tricks abound here, the highlight being a heist involving many, many remote control cars and a convoy of moving trucks.

How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?

Goemon and Jigen get their own comedic subplots here. They find away to pull Goemon out of his normally stoic persona that doesn’t seem cheap, and it is genuinely hilarious if you know the character.

Another odd take on the character. This starts off like a typical Lupin III story, heist, Zenigata springs trap, they banter, and Lupin escapes. However during that escape things quickly take a turn for the bloody.

Remember how serious I mentioned Dead or Alive was? Well director Hiroyuki Yano is back on this one, and without Monkey Punch’s direct involvement this becomes almost po-faced in it’s seriousness. 

However if you can get past the lack of some of more light hearted elements of the franchise, it’s another well written, well made film. Not at the level of the two theatrical releases I’ve reviewed, but certainly the highlight of the TV specials. While I have some reservations about the character designs, the actual animation is top notch for a TV project with at least three action scenes (the knife fight, the mass fight on the boat and the climax) that are up there with the best 90s TV anime have to offer. From looking on the Japanese wikipedia, it appears this is the first of four Lupin specials that Hiroyuki Imaishi worked on. While the knife fight animation is a familiar style, I don’t think it’s him. My guess would be the sequence where they explain the effects of the poison. Anyone know for sure?

It might be flip and obvious to wonder if there are the fingerprints on Evangelion on this more serious take on Lupin. There’s one scene in particular with the villains secret government masters that brings to mind the conversations between Gendo and SEELE. Like I said though, it’s possibly an obvious connection to draw, and while it came out in 1997, post-Eva, it wasn’t until 1998 that you started to really see the post-Eva shows turn up. Brain Powrd, I’m looking at you.

How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?

This is the most 90s looking of the films so far. Up until know, they’ve been a mix of Monkey Punch’s designs and the TMS house style, albeit in differing portions per film.

However here we have Fumitomo Kizaki (Blue Gender, Shadow Skill) supplying the character designs and we end up with highly angular character designs.

This means that Lupin is closer to “Lupin III M” than his classic design. He has a distinct “modern” sheen to him, that unfortunately some animators in the film make look too angular. Lupin with a long pointy nose is an odd look.

Zenigata, Goemon & Jigen seem pretty close to their traditional look, but like Lupin are missing a Monkey Punch gait.

Fujiko also comes out a lot better than in some of these films, facially very much a Monkey Punch woman. Her hair however seems a little off, both in colour and style.

All other characters however look straight from Kizaki’s pen rather than from a Lupin story, however because Lupin is close in style to them, it’s not as distracting as when you have the gang in their classic look surrounded by off the rack TMS characters.

How ludicrous are the capers?

It starts with a subversion of the classic Lupin heist opening, then moves into a plot that hinges on one distinctly sci-fi idea. Like Dead or Alive, it’s a strongly written plot. In fact it goes one step further and avoids the treasure hunting plot that so many of these films rely on. Instead it presents an impossible situation for Lupin & the gang to figure their way out of.

How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?

He says his “cut a worthless object” line for what I believe is the first time in these Funimation releases. He’s around from the second act, and is there as a distinct part of Lupin’s plan rather than a plot necessity. About as good a use of Goemon for a story that isn’t about him as you can expect.

Oh this film!

On one hand it clearly wants to be Castle of Cagliostro, heavily borrowing design elements from it. On the other, of these Funimation releases so far, it contains content far closer to that of early Lupin. There’s more naked flesh here than the previous 5 put together, along with a torture/bondage scene that could be straight out those early Lupin episodes. It’s an odd mix for sure, not helped by the lowest quality animation I’ve seen in a Lupin III film.

Had it looked like an early Lupin, or even “Sexy Lupin 3″ I think it could have worked, but it just feels off.

Still, nice camel animation. They do a bang up job getting cartoon camels to look and move like real camels. In fact they seem to have done a lot of research on the setting, apparently going as far to hire
a dancer to act as a model.

How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?

This is the special I had in mind when I included this review criteria.

Lupin’s design is far too soft, there’s nothing roguish about him. And the performance in the animation doesn’t mesh with the voice performance. It’s all very sedate and generic. Same with Jigen.

Fujiko doesn’t look anything like Fujiko. If she didn’t have Fujiko’s voice you wouldn’t know it was her.

Zenigata looks bug-eyed, and so far Goemon hasn’t even showed up.

All the other characters look like generic TMS designs. Lara the guest female lead in fact looks closer to a Tezuka heroine than a Monkey Punch one.

OK. Goemon’s showed up now. He seems to have gotten lucky and looks half decent. Perhaps it is because he never has that much expression anyway.

How ludicrous are the capers?

No opening caper. We do get some classic Lupin tricks in the first action scene though. However it suffers a little from going to one country and staying there for a long time rather than jetting all over
the place.

How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?

Goemon is a deus ex machina on at least two occasions. His involvement in the plot seems like something thrown together to get him in the film. He gets one decent character-based scene when he rescues Fujiko. Oh, and Zantetsuken gets broken as an afterthought to the main plot. He really got the short end of the stick here.

The last Lupin III theatrical feature, it was ostensibly directed by Monkey Punch, the bulk was actually the work of Hiroyuki Yano, with Lupin’s creator only working on the opening and ending.

It would be hard for this to be any more different to Harimao’s Treasure. Whereas that seemed to be played mostly for laughs, this is played incredibly straight. The treatment of Zenigata is testament to this, in Harimao he was noodle guzzling goof, here he actually manages to capture Lupin. Well for awhile at least. In fact outside of my qualms about the character design (see below) this is an incredibly strong outing, benefiting from one of the cleverest plots the character has had in his screen outings.

How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?

I’m not overly keen on the take on the characters’ design in this film. The bean shaped heads you’ve come to expect have been made overly stylised and detailed for my tastes. There’s a certain flowing, organic line that Monkey Punch had in his prime when drawing faces and it seems lost in these interpretations. Jigen probably fairs the best, the exaggerated take on his sharp beard almost taking him back to his early manga appearances.

But I may be being a little harsh. Looking at the earliest covers and some of his work in the 80s, Monkey Punch himself veered away from the look he gave the character in the strips themselves. It’s only really the later collections of the original strips and the Shin Lupin III collections that have that classic Monkey Punch look to them there on the covers. And if there’s one thing to be learnt from Green vs. Red, it’s that it only really matters that he acts like Lupin.

One big thing the film has over some of the specials, is that the character design feels unified throughout, with some thought given to every character. According to the Japanese wikipedia page, the animation director Marisuke Eguchi was responsible for the character design.

How ludicrous are the capers?

The opening scene’s car chase is excellent. Then into the main story, we find ourselves in science fiction territory again, as Lupin has to find away past a nanotech controlled defense system of deadly shapechanging tentacles. This leads to an ending that has both a genuinely clever twist and some awesome action.

How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?

In terms of Goemon use, this film is probably a good baseline. He’s there all the way through, but not particularly crucial to the plot. Nor does he get anything particularly flashy to do or a lot of banter. However he’s not misused or left as some kind of super being who gets to pull the rest of the gang out of trouble.

OK, I’ve a feeling I’ve reviewed this before somewhere else on the internet, but I can’t find it. It’s a treasure hunting story, as Lupin tries to track down the loot of the WWII thief Harimao. This hunt ends up involving a thinly veiled James Bond cipher, his granddaughter and a transvestite Nazi. Called Herr Mafroditte.

Osamu Dezaki directs and goes nuts with his postcard memory technique, overusing it at times to distraction. The whole film is all over the place, never quite finding a constant mood, both in terms of its plot, characterisation and visual style. It appears to have some aspirations to making Lupin very cartoon-y, but the execution isn’t quite up to it, and it loses some of the character’s cool in the process. And the approach is fairly uniform across all the regular characters. It’s one thing to have Lupin and Jigen goofing around, another to have the stoic Goemon suddenly do wacky takes.

Also it contains a horrible version of the season 2 opening theme. It’s like that version of the Seinfeld theme were they added extra twiddly bits and female vocals. Here someone decided that it would be improved by having the singers intone that “he’s so groovy” at various points in the theme.

How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?

Facially the gang are pretty good. The figures feel a little off though. Lupin in the opening heist looks very rubbery, and there’s something about a lot of the movement that lacks the snap of other Lupin projects. Plus Fujiko’s design is a little too soft for my taste.

“Guest” characters vary in their looks. The Bond-clone Lord Archer and Neo-Nazi bruiser Goering have a lot of Monkey Punch flavour, but the granddaughter and the Lloyds insurance man are generic TMS designs. Even Herr Mafroditte looks like he/she belongs in another show.

How ludicrous are the capers?

The capers are similarly all over the place, with some being very down to earth (eavesdropping at Lloyds) and some being full of illogical videogame gimmicks (the stealing of the statue in Holland). The final treasure is amusingly gloriously unfeasible – a solid gold submarine.

How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?

I think this is one of the films where I got the impression of Goemon’s misuse from. He’s working as a mercenary here, Jigen saying they’ve hired him as a part-timer, which handily takes care of any moral qualms he might be expected to have (though as it’s a treasure hunt, I don’t know why he wouldn’t be happy to help out anyway). Then at the end of the Holland sequence says his part time work is done, and disappears from the plot for awhile. He then turns up at random as the story nears its conclusion, providing a handy distraction to allow the story to finish.