tek's rating: ½

Lupin III: Part II
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There was a shorter Lupin III series before this, which I haven't seen. There was also a third series after it, which I haven't seen. And a bunch of movies, which I also haven't seen. But I'd probably like to, someday. In any event, this series (also called "Lupin the 3rd" or "The New Lupin III") is just sort of okay. The first episode didn't do much for me, but after awhile I came to enjoy the series a bit more. Kinda funny stuff. Anyway, the main character is this international thief named Arsène Lupin III (his grandfather was a famous French thief). Lupin seems pretty full of himself, and as far as his strategizing talents go, deservedly so. But he's pretty much just a goofy wiseguy who's always hitting on women, particularly Fujiko Mine (who we like).

Fujiko is another thief who sometimes works with Lupin, but mostly she's just on her own side, and isn't above double-crossing her partners. This includes Lupin, as well as the two other guys he normally works with. One is Daisuke Jigen. He just looks sort of like Lincoln, to me, but I think he used to be in the mob in Chicago, or something. Anyway, he seems to take his work more seriously than Lupin, when he's actually on the job. The other guy is Goemon Ishikawa XIII, who's very calm and contemplative, and uses a sword... he's a master of some sort of martial art, and is kind of like a samurai or something. In fact he's supposed to be the descendant of a famous samurai of the same name. The other main character in the show is Inspector Kouichi Zenigata, of Interpol. He's constantly chasing Lupin and his cohorts around the world, but never manages to catch them. He's actually a pretty good officer, I think, just not quite as good as Lupin's gang, who manage to make him look rather goofy and bumbling.

Dunno what else to say about the show. It was made in the 70's, and the animation style today looks kind of goofy, something like the old Speed Racer. In fact alot of the plot and dialog seem kind of cornball, but fun. The dubbed version that aired on Cartoon Network, though, seems to be full of contemporary references, so that's just weird.... Still, I did kind of like the show, and it's a shame they didn't air the whole series. I mean the second series, which has 155 episodes, but adult swim only aired the first 26 of those.


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