November 7th, 2024 
AstroNerdBoy Lupin the 3rd: Part III Review
Lupin III Part 3 Review
ルパン三世 – Part III
I’ve been a fan of Lupin III ever since I watched Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro raw all the way back in 1989 or 1990. Since then, I’ve made it a quest to try to watch as many of the Lupin III anime titles that I can. (The early manga never impressed me.) When I finished the “Green Jacket” first TV series, a blog reader convinced me to jump to Lupin the 3rd: Part III since I had already reviewed the first few episodes. I agreed.
–> Buy Lupin the 3rd: Part III from Amazon.com!
A Lot of Dumb Stupidity
As I looked through my episode reviews of Lupin the 3rd: Part III, I keep seeing a recurring complaint. So many episodes are just dumb. Others are amazingly stupid. Still others are no point as they meander around to fill time. What makes this worse is that many times, episodes had very interesting concepts. Unfortunately, the writers either were too incompetent to know what to do, or felt the need to just make things moronic “for the kids”.
For example, episode 31 had a really interesting concept. Lupin’s gang is going to con a wealthy man who buys stolen art, and then rob him blind. Fujiko gets cozy with the man, so her seduction is in full play. And yet all the while, this guy playing Fujiko, thus thwarting Lupin. That’s a pretty good start. However, the writers then turn the guy insanely stupid so that Lupin’s gang can literally cut the man’s treasure room from his mansion and haul it away. Give me a break.
Another example are episode 27 and episode 28, which were an unofficial 2-part story. There’s a contrived plot device with the character Barbara, whom Jigen lost in a love triangle with another man. There’s an interesting concept here with the Soviets shooting down an airliner, and Fujiko working with the CIA. Heck, even if contrived, I didn’t mind the romance story invented girl from Jigen’s past.
But then in the second part, the writers didn’t know what to do, so a lot of time is wasted in boring action and stuff. And since Lupin can “magic” himself out of any situation, there are no stakes either. Frankly, that’s a shame.
One Standout Episode
Amidst all of the “okay” to mediocre to rubbish episodes that make up Lupin the 3rd: Part III, there was one standout story. In episode 30, Lupin runs a pub in some fairly large city. A woman comes into the pub. Lupin plays the role of bartender perfectly, eventually getting her to open up. Their conversation should be boring, but it wasn’t. I really liked the dynamic between Lupin and Sara.
Yet here too, the writers do not stick the landing. Lupin’s entire plan revolves around an insane amount of plot contrived coincidences. And that includes Lupin running a pub just so this woman would come in and officially get him on his quest. But because the rest of the episode was really good, I kinda gave it a pass.
I suppose this episode stands out because it was actually adapted from chapter 2 of the short lived Sexy Lupin III manga. And yes, there are some plot contrivances there, but the anime takes them to the next level. But as I said, I gave those a pass ’cause this episode actually stuck with me.
Shifting Art Style
While character designs can change during the course of an anime series, it was much more noticeable in Lupin the 3rd: Part III. The characters have somewhat wider faces at the start.
Then they shift somewhat several episodes in. That shift continues throughout the series. After Lupin and company get narrow faces, Lupin’s chin often changes.
I think Fujiko gets the worst of things. At times, her character design is just awful, even when the others are bad. I didn’t research on the production elements, but I’d guess different teams did different things.
Thoughts/Review
In the end, Lupin the 3rd: Part III isn’t very good. There are entertaining moments to be sure. And as a long time fan of the franchise, I don’t regret watching it. But I wouldn’t recommend this series to anyone who’s not already a fan of Lupin III.
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Hi, I’m the person who recommended you do a review of Lupin the Third-Part III. It’s possible you’ve forgotten me since our last exchange on your blog, but there’s a reason for that: I had a serious traffic collision, fell into a coma and had to rehab for quite a while.
Today, I’m feeling a bit better, I’m continuing my treatment and having the text you’re reading written by a close friend of mine.
To answer your criticism that Part III of Lupin the Third is stupid and that the character designs change throughout the series, there are reasons for that. So, let me tell you the story of the production of Lupin the Third-Part III :
First a little background
In 1984, Yuzo Aoki was entrusted with the supervision of the anime Lupin the Third-Part III. Aoki is a Japanese technical director who, at the age of 19, had worked on the anime Lupin the Third-Part I as lead animator.
His skilled key frames were praised by animation director Yasuo Otsuka himself. Later, in 1977, Aoki began working as a storyboard artist on Lupin the Third-Part II and became the main animator for the anime.
Then, in 1984, Aoki became the animation supervisor for Lupin the 3rd-Part III and was also in charge of animation and overall drawing quality, which included the role of character design.
And here’s where it gets interesting: As animation supervisor of Lupin the Third- Part III, Aoki proposed three character models for Lupin in this series: a tough Lupin, a soft Lupin and a comic Lupin.
His aim was to strike a balance between the gritty style of Masaaki Osumi and the family tone of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki in Lupin the Third-Part I. The early character designs for the Pink Jacket series were much more down-to-earth and gritty, and actually looked more like the original sketches for Monkey Punch.
Indeed, Aoki had studied the manga and wanted to make his own character designs rather than basing them on previous seasons. Thus, Lupin and Goemon received their traditional cleft chins, Jigen’s face was more elongated and, unlike other appearances, her eyes were more visible, and Fujiko looked much more delicate and less voluptuous.
Then, the animation began to slacken while retaining Lupin’s chin, Jigen’s design reverted to hiding his eyes and Fujiko was redesigned. This change was due to Aoki’s desire to simplify character design.
Finally, towards the end of the series, the production team decided to abandon the squeaky-clean look of the drawings and went for a more cartoonish nature, closer to Western animation, in order to simplify them even further.
Lupin was therefore redesigned in the same way as in the franchise’s film “The Legend of the Gold of Babylon”, with a rounded chin, while Fujiko’s face and hair were redesigned twice.
Due to the diversity of the animation teams and the decision to have three character designs for Lupin, the designs and overall look of the series tended to differ considerably from episode to episode and even within the same episode, making the production look extremely inconsistent.
This was a purely intentional decision, as Aoki ultimately wanted only one thing for this third part of Lupin the Third: to express his creativity.
Quite the opposite. I wondered where you had gone to. I even reference you in the big review, though not specifically by name.
Wow. I’m glad you are feeling better and I pray for your full recovery. Please keep me informed as to your status, if that’s possible.
Thank you for the detailed information about the character design work for Part 3. I always love it when someone who knows a ton about a franchise educates me on the behind the scenes stuff. It really is great information.
The next Lupin III piece from me will be a Community Anime Review rescue of Lupin III Part 2 that I wrote for them YEARS ago. I have to dust off my Voyage to Danger DVD and do a “Back to the Vaults” review of it as well as republish my CAR review. The reason for that is because episode 50 of Part 3 was supposedly repurposed to make Voyage to Danger. So I want to rewatch with fresh eyes.
After that, it will be an episode review of Part 2. So lots more Lupin III stuff coming from me.
Again, I pray for your recovery and I appreciate you setting me on this path.
Thank you very much for your support. Please know that several of your magazines were transmitted to me and read by my close friend during my nights of rest, after my rehabilitation hours during the day.
Also, I will try to communicate my condition to you regularly but I am afraid to give you false hope. As for your compliment on my behind-the-scenes work on character design, I thank you very much.
If ever, you are interested episode 50 of the third part has been reused to make Voyage to Danger. So I look forward to seeing your next articles, whether it’s on the Lupin the Third franchise or something else.
And again, thank you so much for your support.
PS: Do you think it would be possible to do a review one day on the 25th TV SPECIAL of the Lupin the Third franchise named “Italian Game” published in 2016?
Hopefully, you make a full recovery.
I will add it to the list for sure.