Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus

This review is spoiler free.

The 90s are not my favorite decade for anime. This isn’t to say there weren’t great anime from this decade, every era has some. But generally speaking you won’t see me putting on my 90s baby nostalgia glasses and romanticizing this decade. I’ve detailed before in my “Yu Yu Hakusho” review how the Japanese economy hurt the anime industry in ways it is still trying to recover from. TV anime were simply not up to the same standards as the 80s because of financial reasons. I suspect this is why we didn’t get a new TV series for the Lupin gang during this period. If the 80s was a difficult time for TMS due to the development hell of “Little Nemo” I can only imagine what the 90s did to them. So they relied heavily on the yearly TV specials for the franchise which proved to be highly successful leading us to today’s spotlight. “Lupin III: Kutabare! Nostradamus” also known as “Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus” or “Lupin III: to Hell With Nostradamus”. I honestly love that last one, but generally people know it best as “Farewell to Nostradamus” or simply “Nostradamus”. It premiered in 1995 with the first appearance of Kanichi Kurita as Arsene Lupin III and is genuinely one of my favorite anime in the entire franchise. I don’t say this lightly, it is strong enough to stand next to “The Castle of Cagliostro” and “The First”. I have a lot of time and a great movie to discuss so let’s get to it.

We begin in Brazil. Following a diamond heist, Lupin tucks it away in the body of a fairy doll and escapes to a plane with his partner Jigen. While on the plane he crosses paths with a little girl named Julia, who’s being escorted by her tutor Miss Fujiko Mine, and she steals the doll from him. Just as he’s about to get it back the plane is hijacked by terrorists from an apocalyptic cult built around the writings of Nostradamus who kidnap Julia with the diamond in tow. Fujiko informs Lupin that she is no ordinary child, but the daughter to a billionaire favored to win the upcoming American presidential election. Among her family’s many treasures is Nostradamus’s lost writings, linking all of our chief players into a game of cat and mouse with little time to spare.

“Nostradamus” is definitely one of the most fun stories the franchise has. It never feels like its dragging its feet or overstuffing itself to meet its runtime. When I first watched it I thought it was just okay, but the more I reflect on it the more I realize how much of a delight it is on a story level. This is a version of Lupin that leans more into the lighter side of things, but the movie still has some teeth to it. From a contemporary American perspective its interesting to observe this film's take on how self-serving elections can be to the point that Julia’s father is willing to exploit her kidnapping to garner public sympathy. I also appreciate that this film balances between Fujiko’s intelligence and her sex appeal. I understand and respect why so many versions will strip her of her sexuality in favor of highlighting her other attributes, but she can also be both things at once. While this next part may seem odd, I do have to touch on real world events that might have impacted the film’s story. I have to, once again, talk about the Aum Shinrikyo cult who committed fatal gas attacks in Tokyo and Matsumoto in 1995. If you know your Hideaki Anno history, then you know these events led to him dropping his original plans for the finale of “Neon Genesis Evangelion” and cobbling together something else for the show. It’s easy to see “Nostradamus” as a direct indictment of such organizations as its fictitious cult is exposed through the plot to be more insidious than the audience realizes. Was this real life cult the inspiration for this story? Some believe it given they were active since the late 80s and really rose to infamy in the early 90s. It’s hard to say how much of this is intentional, but the timing of it all is rather uncanny. The film is still here to serve as a good time though and it has it in spades. Some of my favorite little moments are the first time we see Zenigata in the film, Jigen getting hit in the face with a bikini top in the opening chase scene and just moving it to the brim of his hat, Goemon cutting up a balcony so it can hit a cult member instead of just attacking the man himself, and honestly I like the scene where Fujiko warms Lupin’s body to regulate his temperature. It does serve as a moment of fanservice, but there is also a certain tenderness to it that loans itself well to how their relationship is written for the film. I’m pretty sure “Part V” was referencing this scene at one point too.

In terms of the production of the film there is only so much information available. We do know it was made in an eight month period in which the animators from Telecom were exhausted and didn’t return to the franchise until the TV special “The Elusiveness of the Fog” from 2007. I find it unfortunate how much this drained those people, but it also shows in the rather inconsistent quality Lupin’s specials would have for the remainder of the 90s and the early to mid 2000s. This film was also the moment audiences finally heard Kanichi Kurita as Lupin. After Yasuo Yamada’s death from a brain hemorrhage earlier that year Yoshito Yasuhara was considered for the part as he worked with Yamada directly and had already taken over his dubbing work for Kermit the Frog. Yes, Lupin III and Kermit used to have the same voice in Japanese. I hope this makes you as happy as it makes me. But anyway, after some persuasion TMS decided on Kurita and I have nothing but great things to say about him. He’s voiced Lupin for longer than anybody else and continues to deliver excellent work. I’m sure there was some pressure going in to measure up to Yamada and he succeeded so much that the differences between their voices are subtle and likely to go unnoticed to the untrained ear. Musically speaking Yuji Ohno delivers a score that suits the upbeat and adventurous tone of the film perfectly while still incorporating his classics. On more than one occasion in the film we can hear notes from “Zenigata March”, which is always a pleasure. I also enjoy the use of a drum machine throughout the score. There’s something exhilarating about it on tracks like “Kuzureyuku Haitekuno Tou”, I think it gives that piece something special. And I love “Play Roome Youkoso”, it has this great sense of mystery and whimsy. “Rinia Basutabu Coaster” is just a great choice for the climax, simply put its fun to listen to. The theme song is our main theme, except the title is specifically “Theme from Lupin III ‘89”. This arrangement plays during several of the TV specials and I don’t have an issue with them reincorporating it. They’ve done it before in “Mystery of Mamo” with the 1979 arrangement and I believe each film has the version that compliments it best. I’ve always loved those chorus girls singing “he’s so groovy”, it gets me every time.

Now let’s go back to the animation for a moment, it’s fantastic. I’m sad to see that it was a laborious project for the animators, but their efforts were not in vain as they delivered one of the best looking Lupin anime. The colors are vivid, the designs evoke some of the best in the franchise’s history without looking dated, and everything moves so fluidly. I know I like to say that the 90s had a lot of ugly anime, this isn’t one of them. The animation is so deliciously comical and expressive in ways not that many anime accomplish.

The best way to describe it is this is an anime that is also a cartoon, which is appropriate as Telecom was also animating for shows like “Tiny Toon Adventures” and “Animaniacs”. Some fans will say they want Lupin to lean more into a James Bond image, that’s what Takeshi Koike’s films are here for and I have my own feelings on that. But the thing is you can’t divorce cartoon influences from this franchise. The manga was built around the concept of Lupin and Zenigata having a Tom and Jerry relationship, many chapters end with things comedically exploding like it’s a Roadrunner short, characters defy physics in ways most anime and manga characters don’t, and many of Lupin’s mannerisms are reminiscent of classic American cartoons. While I can admit that “Nostradamus” doesn’t have quite the same style as “Cagliostro” or “The Fuma Conspiracy” it is still a style that loans itself beautifully to Lupin. This is another one for the sakuga fanatics, it needs to be seen.

Before we wrap things up I have a bit of a different topic I’d like to touch on, the English dub. It probably doesn’t surprise anybody to know I primarily watch anime in Japanese, most of us do. However, this last time I watched “Nostradamus” I decided to watch it dubbed and can tell you it’s a worthwhile way to experience it. If you told me which to choose I would still say the subbed version, but Funimation really nailed something with this. Sonny Straight voices Lupin and he does a great job. I’ve always considered him a very talented and underrated voice actor and as Lupin he’s the right fit. He and Tony Oliver are probably the best English voices the character has had. They both are able to speak at just the right pitch for him and have the right amount of personality to their voices. I was dying when he told Zenigata to get himself a girlfriend. I also love that he gave us a “Casablanca” reference near the end of the film, that was cool. Christopher Sabat is Jigen and he sounds like how you’d expect him to, his voice has always been identifiable for its depth and I think it compliments a character like Jigen pretty well. I don’t understand why he keeps calling Lupin “boss” though, that’s something Jigen never does but I doubt this was his decision. For Fujiko we have a different type of voice in Meredith McCoy. Her voice is lower than she usually sounds, but I like that. She sounds sophisticated. Mike McFarland is Goemon and while this is one of those films that doesn’t give him a large role I do think he makes good use of his time. And Philip Wilburn as Zenigata is just hilarious, this is one of his silliest iterations and he made me laugh so much. In the supporting cast you have other Funimation regulars like Laura Bailey, Colleen Clinkenbeard, and a very young Aaron Dismuke. Sometimes I forget just how talented Colleen is, even though she’s been given the minor role of playing Julia’s mother she is acting her throat off in that speech she delivers at the soccer match. This is a dub that adds dialogue to moments that were originally silent, but its tasteful with this and doesn’t feel like they’re overloading you with sound to hold your attention. These added lines are still in character and suit the scenes at hand, which is more than I can say for other dubs from this period. If you’re someone who struggles with subtitles I’m happy to tell you that there’s a great alternative for you.

This is another one of those anime that is well liked among Lupin’s audience, but that I think needs to be seen by people beyond that. I tend to feel that people outside our bubble will watch “Cagliostro”, maybe the Koike films, and that’s about it. I understand a lot of this is due to the fact that there’s so many anime to pick from and it can appear overwhelming, but I think a movie like “Nostradamus” could go over magnificently with others. It can even work as a good starter Lupin, it captures some of the defining elements of the franchise without it feeling like it leaves new people in the dust. “Nostradamus” is not going to try to give you a deep or complex story, but what it will offer you is a fast paced and exciting adventure that gives some of anime’s greatest characters the polish they deserved. This was probably a scary moment for the people invested in the franchise, they just lost Lupin’s beloved seiyuu after years of declining health and the animators were working in the strenuous circumstances of the 90s anime industry at a studio that had just come off of a very volatile 80s. But through their struggles they made something incredible that never fails to give me a smile. The film is dedicated to Yasuo Yamada, and I’d like to imagine he would have felt honored. If you’re someone new to Lupin, or someone who just wants to see a bright popcorn flick with stellar animation then look no further. I’ve watched it three times myself and can see myself revisiting it years from now.