Green Jacket 14 – One for (Certain) History Books

Want to start at the beginning?

Every week I remind myself that we’re getting close to the end of the first opening theme, and then I’ll never have to hear the nails-on-chalkboard sound effect that passes for glass breaking ever again (or at least until I have another rewatch and forget to skip forward). For those of you who’ve been, hypothetically speaking because I know none of you are, the random color changes in Lupin’s jacket are because the current opening theme takes footage from the Lupin III pilot film. Yup, Red Jacket technically predates Green Jacket. How that translated, in live action world, to a white leisure suit, we may never know. You can watch the episode here (for Americans) or here (for international readers…that sounds terrible, doesn’t it? ‘American and also other people?’ Curse you, Hulu).

When you invent a formula that then becomes slavish, you’re going to get knocked for it. Especially if that formula fuels 40+ years of media. So it’s nice to see that, after setting out the whole-gang roll call, “The Emerald’s Secret” features Lupin and Fujiko flying solo. It also is the first to heavily front Zenigata in a comedic role, and has some great interaction between him and Fujiko.

We open on a grand boat which, given this series’ propensity toward hilarious historical revisionism, I have christened the Notanic. Its actual name is the Cupid, so you can see why I had to step in. The party guests helpfully exposit that the boat and party are meant to show off hostess Catherine and her prized emerald. Credit to the animation department: Catherine’s design is perilously close to Fujiko’s former look, a move that in my usual state of over-charity toward Green Jacket I’ll attribute as an attempt to highlight Fujiko’s cute redesign. The two draw comparison in the viewer’s mind in just about every scene they’re in together. Which is a lot, because Fujiko is in disguise as Catherine’s maid – I suspect that had Lupin not intruded, there might’ve been a Single White Female type plan in the works. This would have been unfortunate for her, since Catherine’s husband seems to be related to the Elsen from OFF.

Green Jacket 13 – Lupin vs. Scientology

Want to start at the beginning?

This episode is brain-bogglingly bizarre. Of all the other things I could say about it – that it smacks you out of nowhere with surprise heartwarming-ness, that its ending is rather un-Miyazaki-like, or that it debatably sets up Lupin’s future big screen debut, the fact of its sheer oddity is the most important to know going in. Because while Lupin III is not adverse to taking on outlandish concepts (mind controlling cults being a popular choice), it usually comes from the viewpoint of letting Lupin unmask the magician as a sham. It’s pretty rare for them to play the speculative angle straight, though when they do it does tend to be memorable – here I am thinking primarily of that Red Jacket where Lupin met Jesus’ twin sister, the first vampire. I’ll wait while you check that out (I KNOW RIGHT? ). Want to watch along today? Episodes are here for American-types and here for international readers.

So the first surprise of “Beware the Time Machine” is that it involves an actual, apparently functional time machine. A time machine that doesn’t seem to have any form of butterfly effect whatsoever, but I really only bring that up as a nominal nod to how nearly impossible it is to write sound time travel scenarios. Mostly I don’t give a damn whether the time loops are logical, as long as the writers are using them to explore interesting concepts with the characters.

Return of the Terrifying Face, here doubled by a Scoobie Doo villain

 

Anyway, Old Man Jenkins up there introduces himself as Kyousuke Mamoh (apparently he comes from that mirror universe where you have to add every possible phonetic letter to the subtitles, killing Kyosuke Mamo along the way), and tells Lupin that in four days he’ll disappear. He’s from the fuuuuuuuture, y’see, where his family was eventually wiped out by Lupin XIII. But just killing Lupin isn’t enough. He has to fuck with him for those couple days first, giving the notoriously clever and observant thief time to figure out his weakness.

I’m getting ahead of myself on that last part. The majority of the episode is a game of psychological warfare, one that Lupin is losing despite his more and more aggressive attempts to prove how not-worried he is over the whole thing.

Green Jacket 12 – Out with a Bang

Want to start at the beginning?

There’s a great deal to love about this episode, and not just because it marks the halfway(ish) point of our adventure through this early branch of the Lupin canon. It’s also not because the sound mix is better, because the dialogue still doesn’t quite match up with the animation, and at one point an axe being removed from a post is accompanied by a creaking-door sound effect. Or because the animators have become masters of continuity – the episode starts with Fujiko stealing one of two boxes from a table. The box is gone, then reappears as the box’s guards shoot at the thief (I swear to you, they take the animation of Fujiko’s arm reaching in and just play it in reverse), then gone again once the shots stop. That one extra still was going to cost someone a sick grandchild, I guess. And that’s not even getting into the obviously recycled animation that somewhat undercuts the excitement of the thrilling snowmobile getaway.

We’re both trying very hard not to admit how impressed we are

 

No, the wonderful thing about this episode is that it finally, in its own roundabout manner, did what Masaaki Osumi originally set out to do: it is cool. The character interactions are fun, the action is madcap, it’s a bit dark around the edges, and I’m pretty sure Jigen wasn’t actually invited on this heist because he spends most of the episode popping out of snowdrifts or stalking people from trees. It’s fantastic. Want to watch along? You can find episodes on Hulu (for US readers) and Dailymotion (yes, it did take me this long to realize my lovely international readers would need a different link. No one ever said I was smart).

Green Jacket 11 – Elementary, My Dear Jigen

Want to start at the beginning?

I think this episode, “When the Seventh Bridge Falls,” might be as close as we’ll ever get to Miyazaki-directed Sherlock Holmes (putting aside the one he already did, which had the added bonus of cute anthropomorphized animals)…and yes, let us all be aware that the title phrase never appeared once in any of the original Holmes stories. That aside, this episode is something of a weird transitional moment where we, as the audience, are meant to move from a mindset of “oh, Lupin decided to blow up bridges this week? I wonder what wacky ploy this is part of,” to “blowing things up and causing dozens of deaths? Why, Lupin would never do such a thing. Treachery is afoot!” Want to watch along? Episodes are here and previous recaps are here.

What’s even weirder is that Zenigata, who quite loudly defended his rival’s honor in his last appearance, seems totally ready to believe this turn of events – not that I blame him, mind. Lupin’s body count is well into the hundreds by this point. Ah, but there’s a rub: the bombings have been going on, in what is either the canal city of Venice or its far less litigious sibling Benice, for days.

In a drastic step up, they can now afford rooms with furniture.Apparently getting one bed is cheaper

Green Jacket 10 – The Practice of Cagliostro

Or: The One Where I Wind Up Doing a Character Analysis of Lupin

Or Or: The One With the Drinking Game

Today’s lesson is as follows: there’s nothing like TV to prepare you for the movies, or so the story goes with this week’s episode. If you have an excess of post celebration alcohol (and are of legal age, or willing to tell me such), here’s a quick way to empty it: take a hearty shot every time there’s a visual or narrative motif that will one day be reused in The Castle of Cagliostro, and by the end of this post you’ll be so completely blitzed that an upcoming season of yet more sequels, moe shows, and harems will cease to be such an overwhelmingly depressing concept.

“Hunt Down the Counterfeiter!” begins with Lupin and Jigen pulling off an unusually straightforward car assault, stealing a briefcase full of money from what appear to be their evil twins (it would seem that low ratings were not kind to the character designers). But alas, aside from giving them off-screen time to nab a plane (an honorary drink for Miyazaki’s burgeoning love of flying machines), the briefcase is totally useless: the bills inside are all forgeries, and not even good ones at that. Lupin vows that he won’t rest until he finds a counterfeiter capable of making perfect false bills in order to fool his current rival, Baron Ukraine (who sports an unfortunate ugly shag cut to rival the Count’s, so go ahead and drink).

Drink! While observing the character development!

Green Jacket 09 – Play the Bebop Blues

The infallible information source Wikipedia quotes Shinichiro Watanabe as being inspired by Masaaki Osumi’s Green Jacket when he was working on Cowboy Bebop. This is the episode that sells that idea for me, and not just because I can’t bear to imagine a director I respect so much drawing strength from the Formula One episode. The title of this week’s episode, “Killer Sings the Blues,” really clinches the comparison. You know, besides the Spike-Lupin, Jet-Jigen, Faye-Fujiko comparisons. Want to watch along? Episodes are here.

They brought back the beatnick-timed-explosion combo for this week’s opening, and wouldn’t you know it? I actually found myself feeling a little nostalgically fond. Which is odd, because I spent an age dragging my feet on this recap. ‘Ugh, didn’t we just escape this guy?’ my persistent procrastination practices seemed to grumble (perturbedly). We were indeed graced just last week by newly minted head Hayao Miyazaki, but don’t let me lazy inner monologue get to you. Other than the fact that it benches Fujiko to damsel duty for pretty much the entire episode (an admittedly sizeable but), this shows a real ‘what-could’ve-been’ shine for Osumi. You can almost hear him saying ‘fire ME, will you? I’LL SHOW YOU with quality output that was missing in consistency before when it would’ve been useful. SO THERE.’

We start in the procedural style, with our guest of the week and a total stranger discussing what’s about to go down with the plot. A hitman’s hit town and is looking for Fujiko, saying his life depends on seeing her again. His name is Poon, which is perhaps the most unfortunate thing this episode could’ve possibly done. This is the guy we’re hanging the episode’s emotional hat on. I imagine you, my dear readers, might have been mature enough to go right for the sexual reference that would’ve made Monkey Punch proud. But I’m stuck some distance back, on the fact that it’s a name that makes every single character forced to speak it sound not unlike a very shrill Pokemon. Especially Fujiko, since most of her dialogue this episode calls for a plaintive and keyed-up note. Poon is not a name you can insert into serious conversation, particularly if that conversation is in Japanese. Then again, as a child I was incredibly attached to a group of characters with names based on (at best) vegetable puns, so what do I know?

Back with our main cast, Lupin and Fujiko are having a date-drive, which will increasingly seem like the only place such things are allowed in the world of Green Jacket. They’re also going around hairpin turns way over the speed limit without seat belts, but it’s cool – as we know, Lupin’s bones are made of rubber. Not to mention most cars made in the 70s were screaming metal death traps. The real purpose of this scene is to showcase what will become a more-or-less standard state for their relationship. And considering how much shit I gave Osumi for certain Really Terrible attempts at writing ‘romance’ for Lupin (in general and with His Lover Fujiko), I concede that this is an excellently done scene. Lupin makes a pass at Fujiko only to rebuffed. Then he exposits the job for the week, a heist to steal plans for a rare computer chip, and suddenly he finds his efforts a touch more warmly received. Just describing it like that, it’s pretty obvious that a betrayal is going in the mix somewhere. But the dialogue and the performance of the actors come across as genuinely sincere and touching, talking about their relationship as a beautiful moment in the present that washes away any bad blood or past betrayals. While other Lupin projects (Secret of Mamo in particular, as well as Fujiko’s Unlucky Days/The Columbus File) have played up the Lupin/Fujiko romance, they tend to frame it much more in the sense of a traditional eternity-and-declarations love story. And that has its charms, don’t get me wrong, but it never feels as genuine to me as moments like this do. Part of the joy of Lupin and Fujiko as characters is the way that they flout conventions, living outside of society’s rules in ways we wish we could. And their relationship is part of the canon’s bedrock: fish swim, birds fly, Bioware games have good writing, and Arsene Lupin loves Fujiko Mine. But they’re not so much the white picket lovey-dovey types as two waves that keep crashing into each other (and have a great time doing so). And honestly? I find their affection more endearing knowing that they can freely spend time apart or close to other people and yet still feel so strongly when they come together again. That’s unusual, and it’s worth preserving. Oh, but speaking of eternal devotion –

Revenge of the metaphors!

Green Jacket 08 – Enter Young Hayao Miyazaki

And now, one of the first works of animation spearheaded by an unknown director named Hayao Miyazaki. He and his future Ghibli-partner Isao Takahata were brought on to inject fresh life into Green Jacket’s abysmal ratings (with original director Masaaki Osumi coming back for two more episodes). I’ve been waiting for these. While Osumi’s episodes range from fascinating trainwrecks to having their own weird if inscrutable charm, watching the Miyazaki run is like seeing a master in training. They’re fun, sharply written, creative, and make the BEST use of Fujiko. And yes, maybe I will propose marriage. If you’d like to watch along, you can find Lupin III Part I on Hulu. Let’s get started, shall we?

Even the episode’s title, “The Gang’s-All-Here Playing Card Strategy” sounds like the shows been dying for this moment to arrive – so much so that they had to cram as many excited words in there as possible). We open on a soon-to-be-mark in what will become the classic Lupin tradition: he’s fat, surrounded by ungainly wealth, and his head was pulled from the womb by extremely vigorous forceps. This cranially deficient megalomaniac is named Mr. Gold, which on the cleverness scale is right up there with naming your villain “Mal.” He’s counting his money and cooing over his Plot Coupon, a deck of cards that supposedly brings luck. But Lupin calls and is kind enough to warn Mr. Gold that he’ll be relieving the man of his treasure.

Get your diplomas and your cheap alcohol, because we’ve finally graduated from “thief” to “gentleman thief.” Up to now there’s been a serious lack of focus in the series, which is a mixed bag. On the one hand it allowed for spontaneity in the narrative, without the necessity of the heist formula that Red Jacket would eventually become super glued to. And on the other hand, the early stuff is so all over the place in tone, style, and objective that there’s no real reason to keep coming back. If later series and specials fall into a rut of routine then the second half of Green Jacket is that formula’s new-car smell, with the jobs spanning any number of setups or careening off into totally different paths after an initial or planned theft (as some of the best Lupin episodes do). It’s a comfort food strategy to be sure, but when competently executed a gathering of stand-alone adventures are nothing to sneeze at.

Following the title card the scene changes to the night of the heist, where an elaborate soiree is being held. Because that’s what you want to do when you’re trying to protect your valuables. Invite a lot of strangers over and house them in a room with multiple exits. And no, the police guard is not enough. Not even the guy standing on the rough in the bright red trench coat.

Lupin is no match for the power of the Canadian Mountie

 

Not to mention the fact that Zenigata now gets to be a permanent fixture in the cast, after only showing up in two of the seven preceding episodes. This will mean that his competence will eventually start taking a hit, but nothing is perfect. Except Inspector Koichi Zenigata, the World’s Greatest Cop.

I see you’re here to ignore – is that logic? NEVER LEAVE

Green Jacket 07 – How to Steal Your Ex’s Valuables

I spent this week’s recap struggling not to scribble a hearty beard on my computer screen, because today’s episode, “A Wolf Calls a Wolf,” (prep your reference shots, because that was one of the names Lupin went by Stateside for a while) stars the anti-Goemon. It’s my only explanation. Of course, this is also the most competently directed episode of the first set, so perhaps I should’ve expected madness. Get out yer handkerchiefs dearest readers, cause we’re about to wave a tearful farewell to director Masaaki Osumi. Then we have to let him back in with a reluctant expression for episodes 9 and 12 (the latter being one I actually like a fair bit). Beyond that, (pre)Ghibli hills as far as the eye can see. Want to watch along from the start? You can find Lupin III Part I on Hulu.

No sense counting your clever and lighthearted heists before they’re hatched, especially when there’s some A+ scenes yet before us. This week we start with Our Hero(ish) Lupin, who you may recall declared himself able to do anything, failing spectacularly in his attempts to recreate the training montage from Kill Bill. He’s going through all of this to steal the Book of Secrets, which details the forging of the legendary sword Zantetsuken. Then he too can wield the Mary Sue of inanimate objects, or at least fence it for a good price. To be fair, the end result of his training is probably fairly accurate to what the average person would look like after trying the same thing.

 

Even his blush stickers are bruised

The bandages are obviously to prove a comedic point, since he sheds them almost instantly once he hears that Goemon will be at this challenge as well. But you can’t say ‘it’s for comedy’ and have that be the in-universe reason that something happens (unless you have a meta-type character like Deadpool), so I choose to believe he was trying a sympathy bid to con Jigen into doing the housework. Lupin strikes me as the sort of person who wants absolutely nothing to do with whatever isn’t his current flame of passion, like that asshole roommate who just keeps passing the stack of dishes and eating off of napkins until you finally cave and scrub out the baby mold spores first.

Green Jacket 06 – Corpses Are a Diamond’s Best Friend

You thought we might’ve been onto something last week, but you thought incorrectly! Instead of anachronistic samurai we’re moving on to dead mob bosses, who are only slightly less used as plot devices than dead (or soon to be dead) Nazis. Today’s episode is “Rainy Afternoons are Dangerous,” and I am not filled with confidence about strong strides of improvement in the writing. Want to play along? You can find Lupin III Part I on Hulu. Or just jump in, and let’s get started.

Say, did you know that water is really difficult to animate? The process of making it react and lay convincingly against real world objects is a nightmare, so having lots and lots of rain is one way to show that you’ve got a really snazzy budget (yes, I am saying that’s the entire reason for the apparent monsoon running through Green vs Red). You know what’s not the greatest place to show that off? A television show that’s working on a limited budget and has bottom of the barrel ratings. Our intrepid team isn’t to be stopped, though, and while the actual raindrops look more or less like the scratching-the-film trick used in such stunning cinematic masterpieces as Xanadu, the water’s impact on the streets, nice details like rain running in rivulets off of a post, and residue dripping off of Lupin do look pretty good.

Less convincing is the setup: Lupin, the master thief and practically precognitive master of his surroundings, was out running in the rain and got a note reading ‘HELP ME’ taped to his back. This note is still legible despite the rain (unless it perhaps said KICK ME to start with), and the tape didn’t get soggy and unstick itself. If you want to play with rain physics, show, I’m going to start thinking about everything else too. By the way, Jigen can tell from a distance and without directly looking at it that it’s a woman’s handwriting. You might call it lazy animation, but I prefer to think of it as proof that the gunman’s developing powers of meta-awareness. And hey, let’s be fair. Awesome Lupin stories have had their share of stupid setups (I see you there, Tokyo Crisis. With your totally 90s use of psychic powers in large eyed adolescent girls).

A knock at the door reveals “Kids’ Meal,” the least indicatively named gangster of all time. He’s Fujiko’s lackey, as we’ll discover, so I choose to believe she forcibly renamed him as such for not showing her the proper amount of respect. Fujiko doesn’t fuck around, y’all. Anyway, Kids’ Meal is here to pick Lupin up and take him to the damsel in distress. Jigen isn’t up for this nonsense himself, but he says he’s totally cool with their open relationship Lupin gallivanting after a pretty girl yet again.

Is it not as much fun if he’s not mad at you?

 

Hey, does that seem weird to you, given that Jigen is forever grouching about women in general and Fujiko particularly? Don’t worry about it. This week’s episode is completely confident in its ability to write Jigen, and also seems to quite like him as a character. And Dead or Alive is one of the good Lupin films. Pay no mind to the cord-like protrusion from the back of my neck.

Green Jacket 05 - Sword vs. Death Dolphin

You know how you make a crazy person look good? Ensure that everyone around them looks twice as nuts. “The Coming of Goemon the 13th” is about as straightforward as titles get, if with a bizarre aura of retrospective about it. Modern viewers will know Goemon as the living plot device and/or the world’s manliest moeblob, as well as an integral part of Lupin’s adventures. Integral in the sense that if he were left out there would be a pitchfork happy riot, anyway. The trouble with a character who springs from a gimmick (anachronistic samurai! Why not!) is that the writers will always have to think twice as hard about how they fit into the flow of a given narrative. Sometimes this manifests with audience POV-type characters like Fry of Futurama, or fish-out-of-water comedic relief like Starfire of the animated Teen Titans. Inevitably, though, there will be a rash of jokes near the beginning that quickly peter out excepting when the writer needs to explain something to the viewer or thought of a funny one-liner. It’s inconsistent, is what I’m saying, if common enough that you’re likely to unconsciously write it off as status quo.

But that’s really a discussion for another week. First, let’s look at the introduction episode, the one where the writers thought the character would be coolest, and isn’t it nifty how they shake up the established dynamic. Want to watch along? Lupin III Part I is over on Hulu.

Goemon Ishikawa XIII is a man who does his training in the traditional way – in the woods, with no one around to help in case of an accident or equipment malfunction. Today, he has an unexpected audience.

Fangirl the Third

Green Jacket 04 - Just Start Here

A great anime once grew from a novel about a wrongfully imprisoned man. This isn’t it, but there is some pretty absurd facial hair growth going on. This is the Lupin III Part I Greencap, and I warn you dear readers – you may wish to prepare yourself. Today, four episodes in, our titular thief finally steals something. Prepare the smelling salts.

By the way, the title sequence is going through a bit of an identity crisis. It’s kept the kidnapped beatnik musical track, but also added a voiceover of Lupin introducing the main five. It’s as though someone found the prior episodes to be confusing and non-indicative! It’s also a shocking spoiler for forty years ago, introducing Goemon even though he won’t be joining the can for another two episodes. Editing is hard, I guess. But all my snarking aside, this is an important episode! Let’s call it the ‘no-really-this-time’ pilot.

Episode 4, “One Chance to Break Out,” begin with Lupin and co. preparing to sneak into a heavily guarded industrial building.

Not sure if he’s going for offensive-bad blackface
or seriously misunderstood how athletes apply their greasepaint

Apparently the reason we haven’t seen Lupin thieving it up before is because he’s extraordinarily crap at it. He sneaks his way across some wires only to alert the guards, whom he strings up with what appears to be garrote wire. It’s okay, though. He’s under the impression this will only make them sleep and not, say, suffocate them. So I guess ‘delusional psychosis’ can be added to his list of potential character traits.

Green Jacket 03 - Witch(less) Hunt

Welcome back to the Greencaps, which is not so much a clever portmanteau as it is an indication of my legendarily lazy fingers. When last we left our thieving conspicuously not thieving heroes, they were disproving magic and having lakefront shenanigans. Not that it really matters, because both Lupin the Third Part I and these blogs are meant to be standalones (though you can find past Recaps by clicking on the tag in question). If last time was a meandering episode with a few awesome bits, this week’s is a bewildering journey of surreal nonsequitors that I’m still not sure I understand. I was really looking forward to using this week’s recap to take my mind off of the cut to the emotional Achilles tendon that is Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion. Then I saw the title.

 

“Farewell, my Beloved Witch” opens on a romantic speedboat cruise for two. Fujiko is cuddled up to Lupin, which is rather sweet, and she starts messing around with his signature Walther P-38. Whatever works for them, I guess. Then another boat comes by them, and Fujiko’s brain suddenly says FUCK THAT BOAT. For no adequately explained reason she shoots the engine, causing the strange driver to crash into a nearby crop of rocks. Lupin leaps to the boat driver’s rescue, perhaps lured by the scent of two X chromosomes (you think I’m joking, just wait).

He spends this entire scene cross eyed,perhaps wondering where the bridge of his nose has gone

Green Jacket 02 - Mythbuster Thief

You know that story where Sherlock Holmes is trying to solve a case that everyone thinks was caused by a vampire, and for a while it seems like there might actually be one of the nosferatu, but then in the end Sherlock assures us of how it couldn’t possibly be a supernatural fanged being after all? This episode is like that. Welcome to Lupin III Part I, and my weekly attempts to prep the world for Miyazaki’s return to the franchise. Come in, have a seat, and baffle along with me at how such a great series started off so very, very poorly.

“The Man They Called a Magician” starts with a scene straight out of a mobster movie. Some mooks in trenchcoats bust in with tommyguns blazing and ice this john, ya dig? But when they knock off to get friendly with some dames the punk that oughta be sleepin’ with the fishes gets up and is totally fine, see? Myeh.

After the Untouchables-esque cold open, we cut to the heroes protagonists likable characters jerks we’re following for some reason (and also Jigen) in a state of relative repose – Lupin is fishing in his underwear, like you do, while Jigen engages in target practice alongside the metallic love of his life. That beatnik they kidnapped to do the opening theme has finally mellowed out from the torture the producers inflicted on him, and sets the scene with a (more, somehow) mellow version of the one-word title song.

 

Jigen’s suit is having one of its fuzzy phases

 

From the window of the nearby safe house we hear that Fujiko’s taken up a love for singing bloody, thematically foreshadowing songs. She wandered out of a burning forest the night before, and Lupin was conveniently there to rescue her. Back outside, Jigen warns Lupin that Fujiko can’t be trusted, and Lupin brushes him off. Some variation of this conversation will continue to occur in virtually every heist Fujiko suggests, regardless of jacket color. It’s practically Jigen’s catchphrase, a statement so sad I don’t actually have words for it.

Green Jacket 01 - Burn it Down

The curse of a longstanding, ongoing work is that the early bits are going to look hoarier as the creator (hopefully) continues to improve their craft. For example, if I go back to watch the first episode of Lupin III, a franchise whose continued existence brings me a childish sense of glee, I might wonder when the callous and bloodthirsty murderer replaced my favorite crafty gentleman thief. This is the curse of time, ladies and gents. And it’s a real shame because, like the Japanese public in the 70s, the uninformed would likely switch the confusing mess off and miss out on a barrel of laughs and at least one masterpiece. That, along with my tiny and likely ineffectual effort to talk up the original work before the surefire juggernaut series of 2014 comes out, has spurred me to start a little recap. I’ll go through the sometimes bizarre, sometimes bafflingly inept episodes before Hayao Miyazaki came on board, and when that time comes we can all just settle into having a great time together…while still pointing out some of charming oddities of this classic.

For those of you wanting to sing along, the show’s available for free on Hulu as Lupin the Third Part I. If you’re really ambitious you can plonk down $30 for the complete box set over on Amazon and keep the fine folks at Discotek in gas station sandwiches.

 

Alright, everybody scrunch up