This review is spoiler free.
Dust off your suit and tie, because we’re taking another trip into the world of “Lupin III”. I already summarized the complex history of bringing this franchise to the world of television, but I’ll provide a brief explanation for those who have not read my review of the green jacket series. In short, this was the first seinen anime to air on TV, it shocked audiences with its violence and sexual content resulting in poor ratings, the original director Masaaki Osumi left the project and was replaced by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata who tried to give it a broader appeal, this didn’t actually improve matters and it was cancelled prematurely, thanks to reruns airing throughout the 70s it eventually became a cult favorite and a new anime was greenlit for 1977. That is the anime we will be discussing today. “Lupin III Part II”, otherwise known in fan circles as “the red jacket series” or “Part II”. This is the longest anime in the franchise’s history at an astounding 155 episodes. It ran from 1977 until 1980 and has left a legacy all its own on anime and manga. Anime such as “FLCL” and “Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei” directly parodied this version and the general tone and energy of this series would become a major inspiration for the many specials that have been produced through the decades. Oddly enough this was a series I originally had dropped at around episode 65, I’ll get into those reasons later on. Despite me dropping it and walking away to other installments I always felt a twang of guilt over that decision so I went back. I can honestly say I’m glad that I completed it. While this isn’t in my opinion a perfect anime, it was an experience I was happy to have. I just can’t keep myself away from this franchise for too long and I can say that this series in particular is worthy of the time.
This anime is set five years after the events of the first, however its approached in a way where one does not have to see that show in order to enjoy it. Unlike a certain other long running multi-part franchise I just love, this is one where I feel it is appropriate and even encouraged to skip parts if you want to. Because of the episodic nature of Lupin as a franchise you can drop in wherever you want and you don’t lose much at all. At worst you’ll be asking yourself questions like “Why is a samurai hanging around with them?” and that isn’t going to negatively impact the experience when left unexplained. There really isn’t a lot to the lore, in fact some of the background laid out in Monkey Punch’s manga would be retconned anyway. What matters is seeing the characters work off of each other and witnessing the creative adventures they share. In terms of tone this is set apart from its predecessor by being more comedic. I would argue the comedy is this anime’s defining characteristic. I’ve seen other fans describe the franchise as James Bond meets Bugs Bunny, this leans more Bugs and I’m thrilled by it. Despite being such an old anime many of the jokes really do land and it’s fun to watch. It is also a very strange anime when it wants to be. Lupin has always operated on a different level of reality even in the manga and it definitely is felt here. This is an anime in which Lupin has a duel with Lady Oscar from “Rose of Versailles” and there’s an episode where he encounters Jesus’s twin sister who’s a vampire. It’s absurd, but the absurdity is what gives the series its charm. There is also more sexual humor this time around, as the 70s went on it appears that attitudes over nudity in anime became more relaxed. After all there were children’s anime produced that decade with bare breasts on display. I don’t think seeing Fujiko in various states of undress was anything to clutch pearls over by 1977. You do need to be a person who’s comfortable with that type of material, but that is something that has always been part of Lupin’s brand. Some versions are less raunchy than others, and I would argue this isn’t even the raciest one out there, but this is something to expect. I mean they did an episode where the gang goes to a nudist colony. I think those kinds of jokes work when done properly, and with some exceptions, I feel this anime succeeds. This isn’t the only way it gets a laugh out of me though. Lupin’s goofiness, Jigen’s sarcasm, Zenigata’s general haplessness, and the ways they toy with Goemon’s serious personality and shyness around women are all a treat. Fujiko is great here too, even though you know she’s playing with Lupin most of the time it’s actually quite funny seeing her wrap him around her finger like it’s nothing. What can I say, the characters are the draw to the franchise. They work off of each other well and play into their roles to great effect.
One of the biggest areas where this series has the first beat is in the sound department. Not a whole lot has been written about the production of this anime, however I’m assuming by this time TMS had acquired better sound equipment. The audio quality in the green jacket series can be muffled and I forgive it due to its age, this series though feels like a big improvement. You aren’t getting the same audio quality of today’s anime, but things do sound noticeably clearer. As always Yasuo Yamada is fantastic as Lupin, you really can tell in his performances that being this character meant something to him. His classic verbal ticks and constant use of French words are endearing and I can’t help but imagine him smiling as he read the lines. Kiyoshi Kobayashi will always be the voice for Jigen, he has the perfect tone to match the character which is easily why he’s still voicing him all these years later. Goro Naya is also back as Zenigata and he’s a gem. This version has the character being more bumbling than he was previously, but I like when he’s written this way. Zenigata was created to be the Tom to Lupin’s Jerry and nowhere is this more obvious than in the red jacket series. Replacing Chikao Otsuka from the green jacket anime is the man who would become Goemon’s regular seiyuu until his retirement in 2012, Makio Inoue. This along with Captain Harlock is the role that defined his career and I struggle with Goemon sounding any other way. I like Daisuke Namikawa’s performance and I applaud him for not trying to copy Inoue’s delivery, but this is the way Goemon should sound. He has the perfect level of stalwart dignity while also being able to pull off the light hearted parts of the character. Fujiko would also have her seiyuu changed over to her regular, but there’s a bit more to her situation. In the 1969 “Pilot Film” she was voiced by Eiko Masuyama, however for the green jacket series she was played by Yukiko Nikaido. With the red jacket anime she is back to being portrayed by Masuyama until her retirement in 2012. In fact with the exception of “The Fuma Conspiracy”, all of these seiyuu maintained their roles until certain circumstances hit and currently only Kobayashi remains from this lineup. I can’t say I know why Masuyama wasn’t in the previous anime, but regardless she is the voice for Fujiko. I do love how Miyuki Sawashiro plays her too, but Masuyama’s voice is so smooth yet playful and I love it. This isn’t the only reason we remember this anime’s sound though.
More than anything else there is one element to this anime that has left an immeasurable impact. This is something that needed its own paragraph because it really is one of the most important pieces to the franchise. I am, of coarse, talking about the music. This is when jazz musician Yuji Ohno joined in and while I don’t know who was responsible for hiring him, I am going to consider that person one of the smartest people to ever associate with “Lupin III”. I’m not a musician and have no formal musical training, that said I can recognize that this music works. This OST is more than just some nice tunes to hear in the background of a show, these songs are essential to the franchise’s identity. If I’m being honest with many anime I don’t pay attention to the OST because very often they feel designed not to stand out. There are very noteworthy exceptions to that of coarse, fantastic music in anime does exist, but there’s also a lot of anime music that feels like it exists as a space filler more than anything else. You cannot make that argument about this OST though. Everyone who watches any Lupin anime comes away praising the music because it works in perfect harmony with the tone and atmosphere of this world. There’s a reason TMS continues to hire Ohno and reuse his music. And the few times where they didn’t do that actually felt like they were missing something important as a result. I mentioned not being fond of the music in the green jacket anime, I compared it to something a beatnik would listen to and that still feels accurate. Lupin isn’t some guy playing bongos in a smoky basement while reciting slam poetry, it would be hilarious if he did but that isn’t who he is. Lupin likens himself to a gentleman, he drives a vintage Benz, and apparently drinks enough champagne for Zenigata to consider is part of his signature scent. There is a certain level of coolness at the core of the character, but that’s balanced out by the funny and energetic parts of him. This OST compliments that wonderfully. That opening “DUN NUN DUN NUN” in the series’ main theme is one of those sounds that doesn’t leave you. You hear it and you recognize it as Lupin, he is that music. That isn’t even getting into the vocal version that plays in this anime’s second opening. This was a song that I didn’t think needed to be sung, but once I heard this I was hooked. All I can think to say is just listen to it.
This isn’t even getting to memorable tracks like “Zenigata March”, “Tornado”, “Magnum Dance”, “Silhouette”, and even the endings. “Love Theme” is gorgeous, the simple visual of Fujiko gazing at the beach while it plays has become so iconic in my eyes. And “Love Squall” is one I never grew tired of, I adore the different arrangements it’s received through the years. I’ve listened to the soundtracks to this anime multiple times over and I’ll even get certain songs stuck in my head when I want to put myself in a better mood. I truly mean it, some of the best music in anime history comes from here and it needs to be listened to.
All of this said the red jacket series isn’t without its flaws. I mentioned earlier that I dropped it once and now is the time to explain why. The truth is the show started to feel like it was being too repetitive. I can understand a long running episodic series eventually repeating ideas, but this anime felt like it relied on certain things too often. A major one for me was Fujiko being kidnapped. I don’t have an issue with that happening in theory, people have made that work before and after this series, but it was put to practice so often in this and in “Lupin III Part III” that I got tired of hearing Eiko Masuyama yell “Lupin! Tasukete!”. I understand having a certain formula to your anime, and aside from this I didn’t actually mind how Fujiko was written despite some questionable moments, but this started to get stale. It also sometimes felt like it made her seem less intelligent or capable than she actually was. I do know some of the episodes had it where it was all intentional on her part and this was just an elaborate plan for getting what she wants, but even from that angle it was done a bit too much. We also have some jokes that haven’t aged the best, usually they involve women. I wouldn’t consider this anime to be hostile towards the female characters like the manga was, none of the anime are as aggressive as that, but every now and then there’s something said that made me roll my eyes. Usually these scenes are brief, and I know the 70s didn’t have the healthiest gender politics, but it is still something worth critiquing. I also have issues with how often they did episodes where they stereotyped Muslim culture. Ultimately it wasn’t done too often where it consumed the show, but they repeated it just often enough where it wasn’t ignorable. I’m not expecting an anime from the late 70s to have an accurate understanding of a foreign religion and its people, but that also makes me wonder why they incorporated it at all. Perhaps they were interested in the idea of Lupin being put into this different culture and navigating it to find whatever the treasure of the week was, but regardless this got old too. The episode in Egypt with the pharaoh’s mask was good, but then so many of the other episodes taking place in Islamic nations just didn’t work for me. For how creative and off the wall this anime could be there were still a fair amount of times where it felt like we were lazily rehashing things. There is also a certain way that 70s anime have to them where you know it isn’t very progressive by our standards and something of a product of its time, I think that can be applied to these issues. None of this was done to such a level that it killed the anime, but I do think it was a poor choice to use them as frequently as they did.
As far as the animation goes, I’d say it’s pretty standard 70s animation. We do have some great cuts from Kazuhide Tomonaga, a veteran animator who still does work for the franchise. And as the series progressed we did start seeing the quality rise. There is a noteworthy episode that comes quite a ways in, episode 99 titled “The Combat Magnum Scattered in the Wasteland”, which is also the first anime episode aired in stereo. The designs and animation are radically different from what the previous episodes were delivering. There’s a major reason why and that would be the uncredited involvement of Yasuo Otsuka. This episode was aided by Telecom and Otsuka was the supervisor for that company so what we have is something that looks cleaner than the other 98 episodes before it. There’s reason to believe he was involved in the character designs as well and if this is true then it explains a lot. But then right after we go back to the regular animation and aesthetic, which is fine but it does look typical of that period. It isn’t terrible, but it isn’t exceptional. Telecom did become involved in other episodes from the later part of the series too and those were great. I know it probably wasn’t feasible, but I wish the entire anime could have had Telecom’s involvement. I think my issue is having to wait so far into this long anime to see the animation improve. When it does happen it really does make the waiting feel worthwhile, but this does mean you get a lot of average looking episodes with some amazing ones. There are worse looking anime from the 70s, but there are also better ones. And we are so very fortunate that the man behind the best looking 70s anime showed up.
▶ VideoHayao Miyazaki returned to the franchise to direct episode 145, “Wings of Death: Albatross”, and the finale, “Farewell, My Beloved Lupin” and he just blows away what his contemporaries were doing. I don’t just mean the people working on this show, but everyone else making anime in the late 70s and early 80s. This level of quality in 1980 for a long running TV series is almost ridiculous. I am not exaggerating when I say that “Albatross” is one of the best episodes in anime history. Its classic Lupin fun by way of someone who’s impact on the franchise is irreplaceable. Miyazaki managed to include all of the hallmarks of his brand of Lupin while also turning the conventions of the franchise on its head. This is an episode in which Fujiko gets kidnapped and has her clothes removed, yet she still doesn’t feel exploited for the audience’s benefit, has agency, the ability to fight back against her captors, and be proactive in her own escape. Only Miyazaki could have pulled that off. The episode from start to end is a pure sakuga moment, even by today’s standards it looks amazing thanks to the efforts of fantastic animators like Tomonaga and Atsuko Tanaka. The episode was so popular that it got a direct to video release by itself. And the finale, while not my favorite of these two, is a very popular and memorable episode in its own right. It wasn’t supposed to be the finale, but essentially Telecom was available and Miyazaki was granted full control. The episode turned out so different from the rest of the anime that it was almost rejected by Nippon Television and one of the producers had to beg for them to allow it. Most notably the episode shows early concepts and designs we’d see fleshed out further for “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” and “Laputa: Castle in the Sky”. In the end this was Miyazaki’s final dance with Lupin, as he felt he had run out of ideas for him, and one of the last times he’d work for TV along with “Sherlock Hound”. The final shot of the episode is an unforgettable one where Lupin drives down a long beachside road while the track “Super Hero” plays and there’s a bittersweet feeling to it. The last time we’d see Miyazaki work in the franchise, the last episode of Lupin’s longest anime, it truly felt like the end to an era.
The red jacket series is an anime with a lot to love. In many respects its classic Lupin, one could even argue this was the franchise’s peak years as the films “The Mystery of Mamo” and “The Castle of Cagliostro” released during its run. Me personally I still think the green jacket series is better. It doesn’t have some of this anime’s best features like Ohno’s music and the improvements in the audio visual department, not to mention red doesn’t appear to have the difficult production that green did, but green also doesn’t have the same repetitiveness that made me initially walk away from this. In spite of those flaws I still think this ends up being a very entertaining and worthwhile anime. I like a comedic spin on the characters just as much as I like the harder, darker style. I like that I don’t have to really choose, I can have all these varying portrayals of the cast and they’re all equally valid takes. If you think this is too long or too old school for you then that’s okay, you can choose the more recent versions if that is what you want. If you think you’d prefer a more serious adaptation then you have options for that too. The beauty to this franchise is how it’s adapted with the times while still retaining its identity. When the 80s hit so many people, including Miyazaki, viewed Lupin as a product of the past. So seeing the way TMS has committed to keeping it alive for 50 years now will always warm my heart. And despite my criticisms of this anime for being repetitive, this is still one where I came out with a very positive experience. I know I’m happy I went back and finished it and seeing other people chip away at it brings a smile to my face. I love knowing that no matter how much time passes Lupin is here to stay and will make that connection with somebody.