So when I made my preview for this season, I was convinced that in terms of promising staff, nothing could beat Sakamichi no Apollon, which would reunite Shinichiro Watanabe with Yoko Kanno alongside Madhouse’s top department going solo. And then this got announced: Sayo Yamamoto of Michiko e Hatchin fame, Takeshi Koike directing the animation, Mari Okada writing the series, Dai Sato doing some of the scripts, and Shinichiro Watanabe producing the music. I think that it’s fair to say that we’ve got ourselves the biggest dream-team of the year here. And it shows, with what is by far the most artistic series of the year.
This show just oozes retro, and it’s great to finally see another series that has its own visual direction. This is really common amongst remakes for some reason beyond me: these kinds of series are often made by big fans, who don’t just try to remake their series, but also try to make them better by putting a lot of their own influences into them. The result is often glorious, just look at Hi no Tori, Metropolis, Casshern Sins, Dororon Enma-kun Meera Meera, Tetsujin 28-Go, the new Mazinger, et cetera.
And to be honest, I’m not even a fan of Lupin III. the only thing I watched of it is the Castle of Cagliostro. The reason why there isn’t a review of it on this site is because I only had one thought on my mind after completing it: “that’s it?” Granted, that was because of Hayao Miyazaki’s influence and how there were a lot of people claiming that it was amongst his best works; it probably would have been at least a decent movie if that didn’t cloud my expectations, but because of that I never really had anything with this franchise. However, this series really caught my eye, and these two episodes were made with the intention of reaching new audiences.
With this episode, it’s also clear that this will be an episodic series, which means that the creators can get much more variety in than if this were a continuous story. This episode already demonstrates this by being very different from the first episode. Lupin is nowhere to be seen, and instead this focuses on the bearded bodyguard. The film noir style remains, but instead of a fun adventure it’s much more sober, and tries to tell a serious story. Overall, it works well together. The soundtrack also looks to be huge, and it felt completely different from what I heard last week. That’s Shinichiro Watanabe’s influence for you. He may not have composed the soundtrack, but like with Bee-Train you can really hear that he knows how to guide his composers to what he wants.
The one disadvantage of this series is that with such graphics, it becomes hard to properly animate everything. I think that it’s here where TMS’s inexperience seeps through: they really tried something different this season, and pretty much are the boldest studio of the year for me at this point, combining this with what they’ve done with Zetman. However, this episode again was not animated as well as its predecessor, and some movements were rather jerky at times. The show still looked gorgeous, but the difference remains. What I really hope is that they will take chances, and really push their animation despite their graphical limitations. They really have it in them: both Zetman and this series’ first episodes didn’t just look great because they had a slightly higher budget: they also were stunning because of how expressive they were. You can get that too with a talented animator on a short budget.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
I’m a huge Lupin II fan, and I enjoyed this just as much as you did. It just oozes style. Most stylish thing since Michiko e Hatchin, I reckon (coincidence?)
Like you, I too predicted Apollon to be on its own on top of the pile this season, but I’m glad I caught this. Just had to when you mentioned the words “Shinichiro Watanabe” last week, and then I caught all the other big names in the credits. Wow!!
Still awaiting Apollon. Watanabe has this ability to layer something onto nothing, and make that nothing seem like it had substance to start with. As we saw with Baby Blue (which out-Shinkai’ed anything made by Makoto Shinkai aside from Kumo no Mukou, imho), he’s pretty comfortable outside our general assumptions of his preferred style.
Either way, all this is a nice change from all the mediocre crap we’ve been getting lately.
Sorry for typos. I meant Lupin III. Don’t think there ever was a Lupin I or II character.
Lupin I is arguably more popular than Lupin III 😛
…by which I mean Lupin I= the original Arsene Lupin, a hugely popular character from a series of French novels from the late 1800s (basically the French version of Sherlock Holmes)
So is Goemon probably.
Fujiko was the most popular, isn’t she?
This story kind of reminds me of Cowboy Bepop. Very cool and stylish, but I have a hard time reconciling it with the Lupin the Third that I remember. XD I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Well, here’s hoping it ends a lot better than Cowboy Bepop. I thought that series was worth a few hundred episodes too.
You know, as much as I love Cowboy Bebop, I feel that it ended at a good point. The character arcs were all fleshed out, the meta plot was nicely resolved, and it left you wanting a bit more rather than beating a dead horse. I’d love to see another series set in that universe with the same kind of aesthetic, but with a completely new set of characters. Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed’s stories are done, but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing left to explore.
I’m loving this series, especially with the stellar teamwork behind it.
I liked this episode even more than the first one. The backgrounds and in particular the drawings of the interiors were awesome! The show feels to me more like picture book than like a movie but I’m completely fine with a lack of movement as long as the series offers so much eye candy.
I’m more curious about the back-story. So this is how these two met. It’s a bit weird to see him this…composed when close to Fujiko. I think I remember he used to blush like a cranberry and cover his head with his hat a lot. Maybe I’m remembering it wrong.
I dont think the previous anime/manga ever revealed why he hated and distrusted women so much only that he was a Chicago hit man and hinted at a major betrayal. All his relationships with women have been complicated.
I feel so spoilt this season. I loved the sound track, and the art style of this one, ahh so old school cool. It’s great to see an ‘adult’ anime at last.
So sexy!