Welcome back, folks! The last episode might’ve ended sadly, but we must remember to embrace it however we can and look towards the future. With this in mind, let’s (hopefully) recap the last of 1990s Lupin.. be prepared to say goodbye! Sniff..
Anyway, I’ve always thought that the 90s was a bit of a weird time to be a Lupin fan. With the sudden influx in the popularity of animanga (both in Japan and the rest of the world), new ideas were pouring out of every nook and cranny in the industry, and TMS wanted to keep Lupin fresh in the minds of otaku… so they experimented with plenty of ideas and styles, some more successful than others, of course. The first TV special to be released after Farewell to Nostradamus was The Pursuit of Harimao’s Treasure in 1995, a bland experience that brought nothing really new to the table, except for one of the most outlandish villains in Lupin history – a neo-Nazi by the name of Herr Maphrodite… now that’s a villain name that wouldn’t fly in 2018.
Surprisingly, a new theatrical film was quickly released the following year in April, this one titled Dead Or Alive. Unlike Pursuit, this film boasted quite a few changes in format – it was the first Lupin to be animated using computer-generated graphics (which were considered all the rage at the time), and was the first (and only) piece of Lupin animation that would be directed by the main manga man himself, Monkey Punch. However, it wasn’t exactly well-received: the animation looks and sounds cheap and the main storyline is all over the place, which was perhaps to be expected, as the film suffered from troubled production. Not only did Monkey Punch direct because there was a short deadline (which probably contributed to the lackluster animation) and he was pressured to accept the offer, he also claimed that the other staff involved (mainly screenwriter Hiroshi Sakakibara) “saved” the movie, and as the final nail to the coffin, stated that he never wants to direct again.
Lupin and crew examine an Apple Macintosh computer – a detail that was added in because Monkey Punch is a fan of them.
A failure wouldn’t stop the good people over at TMS, however, and the next few years would see more TV specials. Osamu Dezaki ended his streak of directing credits for the TV specials after Pursuit, and the next special, Secret of the Twilight Gemini, was released the following year and directed by Gisaburō Sugii, who is well known for directing more lighthearted anime, such as Arashi no Yoru ni and the TV adaptation of Touch – a children’s story and a high-school romance respectively. He’s also the director of Night on the Galactic Railroad, one of my personal favorite anime movies, so it came as a surprise that Twilight Gemini is rather watery, offering nothing besides it being set in the backdrop of a Moroccan civil war – very subtle, team.
Over the next few years, nothing much of Lupin would be released, save for your average annual TV special – the dramatic Island of Assassins in 1997, the hilariously almost-gag-dubbed Memory of the Flame: Tokyo Crisis in 1998, and De Capo of Love: Fujiko’s Unlucky Days (or The Columbus Files) in 1999, which featured a plot involving resident femme fatale Fujiko becoming an amnesiac. It was directed by Shinichi Watanabe (don’t confuse him with Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe), who’s most-well known work is Excel Saga, an off-the-wall comedy anime released around the same year. Other than the specials, the company Heiwa began producing Lupin-themed pachinko (the Japanese equivalent of arcade games/slot machines) in 1998, with eleven total as of now. Also of note is the first – believe it or not – musical adaptation of Lupin III, simply titled I’m Lupin, performed in November 1999. I’m not the biggest musical person, but it’s a bit sad that little to no information about this musical exists online other than its existence, so it’d be nice if it was available somehow!
Thus ends the pre-2000s era of Lupin III… next time, I’ll start covering all the Lupin media released in the new millennium. Stay tuned!
The Art Archive 