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|  "Re(5):LUPIN THE THIIIIRD!!! Maou is Coming" , posted Thu 18 Jan 10:07:  
quote:
I think you can get a really solid introduction to Lupin by watching the Hayao Miyazaki movie, followed by watching Cowboy Bebop. I can explain this in greater detail later, or Maou can deeply analyze this content and explain how right it is in the current milieu in spite of being inaccurate in the scheme of the entire oeuvre.
Fear not, Badoor, you need only look to the previous thread!
Spoon is mostly right, and Cowboy Bebop channels Lupin very consciously, but start with Lupin vs. the Clone/Mystery of Mamo. This is the truest the screen ever came to the spirit of the comics. You may or may not like it (you will like it, or else), but this will help determine if you like Lupin as such. Miyazaki's Castle of Cagliostro is one of the finest adventure films ever made, though whether or not it is the best Lupin film in light of its "mellowed out older Lupin" is up for debate. All the other characters are in perfect form.
Even shorter version: watch Clone/Mamo, Cagliostro, select Miyazaki-directed episodes of Part II (Albatross: Wings of Death and Farewell, Dear Lupin), Fuma Conspiracy, Alcatraz Connection, Episode 0: First Contact, and Part IV. But others here can tell you that there are many ways and films with which to enjoy your new Lupantic lifestyle!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Thu 18 Jan 10:09] |
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| "Re(6):LUPIN THE THIIIIRD!!! Maou is Coming" , posted Fri 19 Jan 01:22
quote:
Even shorter version: watch Clone/Mamo, Cagliostro, select Miyazaki-directed episodes of Part II (Albatross: Wings of Death and Farewell, Dear Lupin), Fuma Conspiracy, Alcatraz Connection, Episode 0: First Contact, and Part IV. But others here can tell you that there are many ways and films with which to enjoy your new Lupantic lifestyle!
That's a good listing, although I'm surprised you didn't sneak Dead or Alive onto the recommendation list. Then again, your list is already a good dozen hours worth of Lupin so that should be more than enough for a normal person.
Spoiler (Highlight to view) -
Twelve hours is nowhere near enough.
End of Spoiler
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| | "Re(10):LUPIN THE THIRD! & other spring animes" , posted Mon 26 Mar 00:11:
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Holy mackerel, I turn away for one week, and Lupin III Part 5 finally gets a promo video and an air date of exactly two weeks from now at 1:29am on the 4th, sort of like Part 4, on NTV. GET ON IT
Yeah, the art on the front page is kind of crappy, but the actual design in the trailer looks identical to Part 4, a fine turn of events. Meanwhile:
I always liked Zenigata. He looks like a goofball but he is competent and a good person. The problem is that he has to face terrible monsters INDEED
Ah Nice! So it's basically Lupin vs Social media(SNS), lol. Can't run away from it, it's all over the place! 
And talking about upcoming April animes, quite coincendentally there's also one called the SNS Police https://www.sns-police.com/ ...aaand also another one called Oshiri Tantei, which mean ASS DETECTIVE. We're not talking figuratively here, for anyone who can brave themselves to check the official site. Really, and I thought Pop Team Epic was weird.
For vintage lovers, there's a new Captain Tsubasa, Cutie Honey, and GeGeGe no Kitarou coming up. I don't think Kitarou is too well known though, is it?
Personally I think I'll be looking forward to the Lupin, Persona 5, and Professor Layton spinoff anime. A dark horse which I'm not sure what to make of is Megalobox, which is supposed to be a 50th anniversary tribute based on THE LEGEND OF SUCESS JOE... yes, seriously.
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| "Re(2):Re(10):LUPIN THE THIRD! & other spring" , posted Tue 27 Mar 22:42:
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For vintage lovers, there's a new Captain Tsubasa, Cutie Honey, and GeGeGe no Kitarou coming up. I don't think Kitarou is too well known though, is it?
I'm mostly curious to see how they'll handle the new Legend of the Galactic Heroes series, considering it has only 12 episodes while the original goes well over the 100 mark and part of the charm is how it backs up its huge scope with a high episode count while rarely making any single one feel superfluous, even when it can set a whole episode aside for a history lesson.
I'm a bit weary of the new designs (although Oberstein at least looks the part), but most of all I'll be disappointed if they leave out Hortense Cazzelnu( sp? Cazerne?), the smartest woman in the universe, who keeps herself safe from the violence on the ground or the exploding ships in space while giving insightful advice to her husband (in charge of logistics, a valuable position in any war or civilian effort) from the relative safety of her kitchen. It's kind of amazing how even the series wiki fails to do her justice, and I can't even find her dialog on Youtube, but just about every time she opens her mouth she quietly beats many a tactician in the series.
i also wonder if they'll make an infamous politician from the series look like someone who's been on the news a lot, since that sort of thing is so frequent nowadays - apparently the new series is basing itself more on the novels and possibly their character description, but how wonder how specific some of those descriptions were...
...!!
[this message was edited by Loona on Tue 27 Mar 22:56] |
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| "Re(3):Part 5 goes live" , posted Wed 4 Apr 15:28
Watched it as soon as I saw this, haha.
I was expecting the OP to not compare to part 4 but wow they sure weren't aiming high. The art style seemed like it was trying to imitate something, but I am the opposite of an art expert here so I can't really think of a good excuse for how jittery and awkward it was. Always love the theme music though, and I do have a soft spot for the accordion! The ED music is lovely too, and if I'm not mistaken that's Sawashiro herself singing, but part 4's closer was just so good the bar is set a little too high.
The episode itself was indeed a bit slow, although I liked the (perhaps inadvertently, given what it was setting up) smart touch of Lupin and Jigen adopting disguises even when they're in gallivanting about, which makes logical sense but never seems to happen that much. Also the bold move that acknowledges a great deal of Lupin III's history in the episode itself. I just hope that doesn't mean this will turn into another Red vs. Green situation. The girl character is whatever, as eccentric redheaded computer hackers go she's no Cowgirl Ed and her explanations of her situation and why she wanted to leave seemed really unnecessary, but I guess they needed to establish that she's so "wired in" that she has no common sense.
The Lupin Game idea has me intrigued, though. It could make for either an extremely clever thriller or an incredibly stupid one, depending on the level of tone-deafness it chooses to take with social media. While I don't think it'll last for the whole series, I hope it's given the proper time to develop as a clever threat and isn't just completely outsmarted by the end of episode 2.
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| "Re(5):Part 5 goes live" , posted Tue 10 Apr 11:38
Overdue reaction: hmm. It's impossible to equal the energy that Part IV brought back to the series, even if the animation quality is roughly similar and the music is excellent. There's certainly fun little touches like Jigen being disguised as the old man from Cagliostro, or the "welcome, Mr. (Yuji) Ono" sign by the greeter in the airport. But after the strong sense of place from Part IV, France seems kind of wasted on this high-tech yet depressingly familiar smartphone stuff.
It's a hard formula to balance: Lupin has always been on the cutting edge of things technologically, right down to the first film essentially predicting modern cloning as early as 1978. But on the other hand, the early directors also recognized that the appeal of Lupin in postwar Japan was the sense of the global, a thief who could go anywhere exotic and escape the mundane, which means that even without a series-long geographic setting, the sense of place always matters in the best entries of the series---whether it's globe-trotting through very specific national settings like Lupin vs. the Clone/Mystery of Mamo, or a clearly defined country estate like Cagliostro. Plus here, the high-tech is pretty boring since everyone has it (Lupin needs to be able to teleport to stay ahead of the curve), and the French setting is irrelevant, at least for episode 1.
As for the girl...another tough call. Fujiko was literally a different person each time in the early comics, which isn't that different from the Bond Girl approach that so many animated entries have fruitlessly employed. But after literally sixty years of history (continuity or not) of interation between the main characters, a "new girl" will always feel like a weak add-on unless she has a very strong personality and independent plot arc, like Rebecca did in Part IV. At least Ami chose a very good and Lupintic place to hide her gun.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(6):Part 5 goes live" , posted Thu 12 Apr 13:37
The grievous crimes of shameless Maou-blogging and double-posts are a certainty if the rest of the Cafe doesn't intervene with posts soon!
After episode 2: I still don't think the experimental opening succeeds, even though I was pleasantly reminded of Part IV when I realized that it too made an initial experimental attempt with the blocky police car sequence near the end, but at least the Lupin theme on accordian is probably even better. And like others have said, the ending would be quite good...if only "I Won't Love You If You Don't Say It Right" hadn't been literally the classiest thing to happen to Lupin since the "Treasure of the Flame" opening sequence of Cagliostro.
More generally, the enormous shadow of Part IV follows this series wherever it goes. After the consistent Italy setting, France is irrelevant here, and I literally forgot where everyone was half the time...and adding insult to injury, they went to a fictitious country, a crime against the realism that made Lupin a show for adults from the start: real cars, real cigarettes, real guns, real liquor brands, etc. That's an unforced error seen by other recent misfires like Fujiko TV series' pseudo-Cuban Missile Crisis episode.
It's funny, too: the hyper-modern tech really does make everything seem ironically mundane. Maybe this Lupin, with all the net instigation of violence and harrassment, is a little too realistic. Rather than the liberating feeling of a theif who can go anywhere, everything just feels kind of dreary. Or maybe I'm just sympathizing with Jigen and his disdain for idiot children with their tech.
I read in interviews that they were experimenting with displacing Zenigata's high-strung reactions into his new colleague, leaving him rather calm. This kind of reminds me of some early patterns in the comic, but I think that Part IV got the "serious threat but still easily agitated" balance better. Ah well.
On the other hand, I'm pleased to see the end of episode 2 and the episode 3 preview bringing in a classic element that is not tied with tech: GOONS! From the comic to Lupin vs. the Clone to Part III, goofy looking one-off bad guys with ecclectic and impractical weapons have always been a joyous part of the series.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(8):Part 5 goes GOON" , posted Thu 19 Apr 09:59:
Animation analysis: Let’s head back to Part II (red jacket), with this magnificent English article covering the key animators and studios involved! With 155 episodes, it can be hard to seperate the wheat from the chaff, beyond the obvious two superior Miyazaki-directed outings. Sure, you could go with the periodic favorite episode polls, but why not just head directly to the Telecom episodes, or your favorite animator?
Promotional goods: After all the expensive Lupin outfits they’ve been selling for Part IV comes a breakthrough clothing campaign that’s actually practical: “Steal Fujiko’s cleavage!” (I'm not joking.) It’s…a really good idea!
Episode 3: It’s really fun to see Lupin wasting an eclectic cast of random goons from the Nezumi Clan per the comics, and with major enemies like Sherdock and Dr. Furanken among the assassins. The social media stuff still doesn’t add anything for me, though I’m not sure if it’s just that I’m unfairly associating “modern tech Lupin” with the mostly abyssmal 2000s TV specials.
I finally realized that Part V takes the polar opposite approach to Part IV on setting. Part IV's direction let characters wander in and out of a consistent, living setting, with mostly unconnected episodes. Part V’s “France” has been a total red herring so far, with characters converging on a featureless, fictitious country, yet the story continues across each episode. I still feel like it’s a bit of a loss. Even Part II’s scattered episodes could achieve a great sense of place: humble episode 5 mostly centered around trying to smuggle a truck whose body has been replaced with melted down gold bars from Switzerland, but it also shows the struggles to find an open border and literally superimposes a map across the screen as everyone works their way south from Switzerland to Italy. Even if it’s not as vivid as Part IV’s Italy, there’s a lot to say for being somewhere. Part V is kind of fun but it’s…nowhere at all.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Thu 19 Apr 11:57] |
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| "Re(3):Re(10):Part 5 goes GOON" , posted Fri 27 Apr 13:16
While I'm still hoping the Cafe will take up the Part II best episode challenge, you're still stuck with Maou-blogging! I'm puzzled by Part V. Because it's the first TV series to use totally linked episodes, rather than the occasional continuity of Part IV, it's really hard to judge the series. It doesn't make for satisfying episodic watching at all, but will it work as one (?) long story?
The featureless settings are reminding me, probably unintentionally, of some of the "puzzle" episodes of the second early comic series, where Lupin would be...somewhere, looking across a booby-trapped area towards a treasure he'd been challenged to acquire. Unlike the globe-trotting TV series, these comic episodes wouldn't be anywhere in particular other than "a field" or "a castle" or something, Lupin at least would have a clear goal or object to steal. Four episodes is a long time to be on the run, while running through indistinct places. I also think that the youtube and niconico viewer comments on this Lupin live-stream, while realistic, are just as annoying as in real life. Are they subtitling them for the English version?
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(4):Re(10):Part 5 goes GOON" , posted Tue 1 May 00:10
Gee, I thought you were going to start the proverbial ball rolling with the Part 2 discussion so I didn't want to impede on your retrospective. But if I was going to pull an episode out to muse about it would be (checks notes) episode 58 The Border is the Face of Farewell - 国境は別れの顔.
Jigen having a doomed romance with a sophisticated woman is such a go-to plot for the guy it's practically a cottage industry. It's shown up in the anime, tv specials, manga spin-offs, and probably Takarazuka performances for all I know. However, if I was going to pick one of these many times when a writer thought it would be jolly fun to break Jigen's heart it would be this episode.
In spite of having a premise that could lend itself to crime thrillers and international intrigue most Lupin stories are too silly for all that. The positive outlook of Lupin himself often keeps the stories from getting bogged down in too much drama. But when a story calls for a less comical tone Jigen is a good choice for a protagonist. It's been shown that Jigen needs to be around the fun energy Lupin exudes or he immediately turns into a nicotine addicted grump. So the first thing the story does is separate Jigen from the rest of the gang by having him get wounded while on a job in Moscow. He is taken in by a prima ballerina and the two of them make a desperate run for the border. Along the way they journey by train, hide in an abandoned farmhouse and even do an homage to "The Third Man." It's an exciting, romantic plot but what makes the story work is what it tells us about Jigen.
As the couple trek across a superimposed map we learn more about who Jigen is when he's not acting as a foil for Lupin. At one point the ballerina Monika enthuses about all the wonders the West holds the world-weary Jigen opines that it's also a dirty, violent mess. At this point it could be thought that Jigen is simply a cynic when on his own but that's not the case at all. Instead, he's as romantic as Lupin but in a much different way. Lupin loves everything he experiences, including his interactions with women. He loves staring at every skirt he sees on the street, he loves interacting with every guest heroine that shows up and he even loves when Fujiko's weaker side causes her to sell him out. For Lupin life is a gas. Jigen is different. There's a finality to Jigen's world. Back when he was a gun for hire Jigen knew that every action he took possibly meant the death of him or someone else. Jigen also takes the end of any romance personally so instead of being able to bounce off to something new like Lupin he ruminates on yet another tragic ending. It's why Jigen sometimes carries himself as disliking women; even if he would never admit it he knows he's the type who lets himself get burned badly when things fall apart.
What makes the episode so memorable for me is that when Jigen finds himself trapped in this predicament without Lupin's manic example to follow he doesn't fall back on his bad habits. Instead, Jigen's romantic spirit comes to the forefront. It's a more somber an mature view but it's every bit as romantic as Lupin. At one point Jigen remarks that he is pleasantly surprised to find himself walking down a snow covered trail with Monika. It's an understated moment -possibly due to limited animation and budget than anything else- but it comes across as a quiet, grown-up expression of emotion. More often than not when the show calls for a reaction it looks to Lupin. However, it's episodes such as this that shows the rest of the cast are characters in their own right and not just props to help Lupin through his adventures.
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| "Re(6):Re(10):Part 5 goes PINK" , posted Tue 8 May 13:06:
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spoiling things too much, I'm looking forward to next week's episode already!
Truly! If nothing else, perhaps this will give Pink Jacket some of the love it's been so lacking in English, outside of the aforementioned blog's excellent outline of the subject. In any event, it's sort of interesting to see the experiments with continuity and mini-arcs in TV format. When do we get Dectective Melon instead of this other assistant, though?
MMCafe's Favorite Part II episodes: Overdue, but I'm in complete agreement with Jigen Ishmael on what a smart thing the much-beloved episode 58 does with a familiar lovelorn Jigen scenario. I...really need you to tell me where the Third Man homage was (I love that movie (I have not watched it for years)). While the interplay between Lupin and his partner has always been one of the most fun parts of the show, I hadn't stopped to think about what a contrast there is in the way the two handle hardship. "Lupin loves girls, Jigen distrusts them" is a far too simplistic explanation for the way the two are actually just reacting to repeated disappointments. This episode adds to Jigen's character by showing it in isolation, rather than changing it as such. Narrowing down the cast gives directors a chance to develop different sides of cast, while also keeping them in character, a harder challenge than it looks (look at the disastrous Fujiko TV series for proof).
While the later Telecom episodes are all obvious choices for favorite Part II episodes, a much earlier episode I like quite a lot for similar reasons is Episode 20: Cornered Lupin. Here, Lupin and Fujiko are under siege in a fortress in a fascist country, and share a surprisingly understated and tender moment in what appears will be their last---uncharacteristic in a series where the hero always has something up his sleeve. Whether or not he did, it's interesting to see the two of them appear ready to say goodbye. Where weaker TV episodes and TV specials simplify their relationship into the easy comedy of having Fujiko repel Lupin's advances every time, here we have a dynamic that recalls the scenes of just the two of them in Clone/Mamo where they remark on how it's been a long time since they've had time alone together. Clone actually came out later that year, though it's hard to know which was planned first.
In addition to the characterization side of things, this episode, as noted in that same blog analysis, has some great animation courtesy of a pre-Telecom Tomonaga Kazuhide, our hero who later brought us Part IV, among other things. The fascist leader's movements are hysterical while making a political point about the insanity of it all.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Tue 8 May 14:24] |
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| "Re(1):What happened to Spain" , posted Thu 10 May 08:29:
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So part 5's first chapter ended last week and instead of going straight to the next Spain arc, we get an intermission episode that is so... Showa era Japan 
W, WHAT'S GOING ON IN THIS TOWN
I chuckled here and there, but I think I laughed a lot more at various Part IV episodes, especially "Lupin's Day Off!" As Ben's blog above would note (which I will keep quoting until he is compelled to post here), studios today aren't quite brave enough to produce truly off-model, free-form Lupin in the vein of Part III, so this episode felt strange to me. I guess it's a clever idea to have an "intermission," but I still don't get Part V's plan. Ah well, next week, seven episodes in, we might actually make it to the much ballyhooed France...or not.
Part II: For actual Part III-style antics, I will instead direct the Cafe to take Mamou Kyousuke's time machine back to Part III's most obvious antecedent and another favorite in Part II, Episode 117: The Chewing Gum Disguise Operation, featuring animator Aoki Yuuzou at his freewheeling best. Here we have Lupin inexplicably hanging out in a Prohibition/Las Vegas-looking America, making disguises out of chewing gum with his new buddy, all while running away from the entire US military who are somehow doing the bidding of a local night club owner crime boss because he gives them free tickets, with some good breaking of the fourth wall. Like Legend of the Gold of Babylon, it might be one of the stupidest Lupin outings ever made, but at least it's only 25 minutes long, and as META-LUPIN in which the director is making a completely different show while merely riffing on Lupin as basically a genre, it's hysterical.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Thu 10 May 12:14] |
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| "Re(2):What happened to Spain" , posted Sat 26 May 01:53
quote:
Part II: For actual Part III-style antics, I will instead direct the Cafe to take Mamou Kyousuke's time machine back to Part III's most obvious antecedent and another favorite in Part II, Episode 117: The Chewing Gum Disguise Operation, featuring animator Aoki Yuuzou at his freewheeling best. Here we have Lupin inexplicably hanging out in a Prohibition/Las Vegas-looking America, making disguises out of chewing gum with his new buddy, all while running away from the entire US military who are somehow doing the bidding of a local night club owner crime boss because he gives them free tickets, with some good breaking of the fourth wall. Like Legend of the Gold of Babylon, it might be one of the stupidest Lupin outings ever made, but at least it's only 25 minutes long, and as META-LUPIN in which the director is making a completely different show while merely riffing on Lupin as basically a genre, it's hysterical.
Upon rewatching that episode I now know why I wasn't impressed with it; they never do anything creative with the gum. Given the start of the episode I was expecting a finale where everyone found themselves turned into Lupin or something else huge and absurd that felt like a proper climax. Instead, the gum was used as a prop for the occasional visual gag even though the show was more than happy to do wall-breaking jokes without any sort of explanation. Episode 117 felt like a cartoon from the 1930's where an animator would draw a gag and then pass it on to another animator who would draw an unrelated joke. I don't mind Lupin being stupid but at least be consistent in the stupidity!
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| "Re(1): Farewell, Dear Monkey Punch" , posted Wed 17 Apr 03:36
"Farewell, dear Lupin." I don't need to tell the Cafe how great Monkey Punch and his finest creation were, so instead I'll celebrate the playful, international spirit of his raucous, obscene, creative, incredibly fun world.
It means everything in terms of creative exchange that Monkey Punch adored the visionary American comic satire magazine MAD, which he said taught him "a spirit of play" and "a sense of the game." The comics, best represented on screen by Lupin vs. The Clone/Mystery of Mamo, pulled the unique trick of not being highbrow entertainment while still being worldly, taking MAD-inspired art and making it unpretentiously cosmopolitan. Lupin was a breath of freedom and possibility and internationalism at a time when the country had only recently emerged from seclusion and postwar ruin.
Here's a short piece by Monkey Punch from the Mamo movie program in 1978 that I like a lot:
Lupin III, from the Nation of Earth and the Village of Freedom
At the time, I'd been thinking that if there was such a phrase as a stateless movie, there should be such a phrase as a stateless comic, too, and that I wanted to draw one of those. Lupin III was born from this idea.
There were these phrases like "extolling the Japanese spirit" or talking about "the soul of the Japanese" that went out of their way to emphasize being Japanese. I don't like these things at all.
From this perspective, Lupin III isn't Japanese in the least. I really love this way of life! In the world, there are people who monopolize wealth or power, but my Lupin III doesn't let them get away with it. I think Lupin III's purpose in life is to teach these people the hard way that trying to hoard wealth and power for yourself is really stupid.
Lupin III isn't a virtuous thief at all. He doesn't do something uncool like stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. He plays it cool, and uses it stylishly for himself. For example, he'd have no problem using hundreds of millions of yen just to nab something worth 10,000 yen.
People may say this is totally removed from reality, but I say that's fine. I'd be happy if people could watch Lupin III in action and forget about the real world for a little while.
Even if it's just for an instant, if Lupin III lets you escape from school exam hell, debts, hellish traffic, taxes, or any other kind of trouble in the real world, that's more than enough reason for him to exist.
Lupin III is a resident of the Nation of the Earth, and the Village of Freedom. He's at home anywhere in the world. Who knows, he might be sleeping in the rafters of your home this very evening...
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| | "Re(6):Pili the 6th" , posted Sat 13 Jul 13:56
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I'm pleasantly surprised! CG movies have never done much for me, and mostly just remind me of Pixar and thus of Disney and the collapse of mass-market hand-drawn animation outside of Japan, but this one has a lot of energy. The trailer reminds me a lot of Spielberg's Tintin movie, another case where the animated television version was more interesting artistically but the movie still ended up being a ton of fun.
And with such a variety of Lupin shows available lately, from the great all-around (Part IV), to the anodyne (TV specials), to the overly grim (Koike movies), to the occasionally interesting (Part V), it feels like there's more than enough room for an odd CG movie in the mix!
I think what bugs me about the success of Pixar is not Pixar movies themselves (a lot of them are really good!) but the fact that many of the things that have followed them haven't been very bold in trying to differentiate themselves stylistically. There are certainly exceptions (like Into the Spider-Verse!), but it takes a lot of technical and artistic expertise to execute well, whereas in the world of pure 2D animation the requirements for purely technical expertise are not as great. I do think part of it is that the challenge of executing it well in the first place is great enough that simply having a large body of quality existing work to serve as reference means that that reference winds up providing possibly too much influence.
It's totally possible to do some really amazing things with 3D as basically the entire field of video games using 3D technology demonstrate!
Maybe just watch Pili puppet+CG shows and remember what it's like to be totally transported away by your imagination!
Alternatively let's just have Thunderbolt Fantasy but robot-themed instead of wuxia-themed. I'd be down for that, too!
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| | "Re(8):Pili the 6th" , posted Sun 14 Jul 20:19
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One of the stranger things has been my occasional misfortune to turn on American television and see what is at best early 2000s graphics technology masquerading as children's animation for audiences deemed too undiscerning to notice. Sure, very few productions out of the (frequently Japan-assisted) 1980s and 1990s American highlights ever had very good art, but the lack of effort is especially jarring now.
Not that Japanese children's TV is entirely immune to it. The 3D version of Shimajirou sucks @$$.
Cuphead really feels like the swansong of the western hand-drawn animation. People often wonder how possible it is we can't recreate some objects from the middle-age or renaissance: well, this is how technologies are lost.
But to be less negative... while 3D animation may threaten classic 2D masterpieces such as classic Disney or Don Bluth, it may also kill really bad, cheaply done, "by the numbers" adaptations. I think many people were thinking that the Naruto anime would have been less terrible if instead of being created in the (probably terrible) conditions it has been, it was entirely made in CC2's engine. Maybe DBF is a more up-to-date example.
There are probably many technical and cost issues with this approach, but I think we will get there at some point. They were teasing it with some of the Jojo OP. And while the Jojo adaptation has had some really beautiful scenes, it also had a lot of static episodes with cheap art that could have been made more dynamic.
It depends on the source material, some might be more suited than others. For example, I can see why Saint Seiya is heading in that direction because the metallic reflection on the armours (unfortunately, the result is terrible, but it's more a matter of budget/people involved over the technology. And the source material). Saint Seiya in particular is an interesting case study, since the original anime was so beautiful... but that was more a case of Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno being incredibly talented artists thrown onto a property that didn't really deserve them. Saint Seiya's popularity owes at least as much to them as to the source material. Will moving the industry of boring adaptations to 3D deprive us of the new Shingo Araki/Michi Himeno, or will it allow these geniuses to focus on better materials? Will we see new 3D geniuses arise to replace the 2D ones?
Looking at stuff like Hôseki no Kuni or Beastars, I feel like 10 years from now, the heights may have been lost, but the average quality will have risen (and we'll probably have less blunders like the dreadful 3D Berserk).
I feel like the TV series of Pokémon might be a potential candidate. It's paradoxical because the current Alola region is the best the series as ever been 2D art-wise, and the 3D remake of the first movie is hilariously terrible, but since the Pokémon anime changes its entire visual identity every arc, they could be able to make the jump. It's not so much that the technology needs to mature, and more that the production process needs to adapt to create 50 episodes a year, and that the artists need to be able to express themselves the way they have been in the Alola ark. I could see maybe the ark after the Sword/Shield anime trying that, so 2024?
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|  "Lupin the Third, the first" , posted Sun 6 Dec 08:54
The pandemic has been a good time to introduce people to Lupin III and to reintroduce people who grew up with it peripherally (usually via the second series=red jacket, and maybe Castle of Cagliostro), mostly through the two contrasting poles of movie masterpieces, Mystery of Mamo/Lupin vs. the Clone (most like the comic) and Cagliostro (probably the best adventure movie ever made). But we also had fun watching this 2008 mini-documentary on the first series, and I thought the Cafe's small Lupin faction would enjoy it.
Most people probably remember the story of how the first 10 episodes or so of the first series (green jacket) were directed by Oosumi Masaaki to be fairly hardboiled and adult-oriented, in the spirit of the comics. Unfortunately, they purposefully ignored kids, who were expected to be the prime TV anime audience, and it bombed, with Miyazaki and Takahata famously being brought in midway to give it more mass appeal.
My personal theory is that it failed not because it was it was adult-targeted, but because it was the wrong type of adult show. The documentary has a lot of talk with Oomsumi I'd heard years before through genius animator Ohtsuka Yasuo's really great book on his history in animation, including Lupin. Oosumi was going for a certain sense of ennui in an era when Japan's idealist leftist movement had collapsed. But this is actually pretty far from the comic, where Lupin is having so much fun in every story. I think green jacket lacks this energy, especially with its weak-ass music, but it comes through in red jacket, especially with Ohno Yuuji's jazz. Ironically, the spirit of the comic is split in two, with the adult approach in green jacket but the adult fun in red. I think they have only every truly come together in the first movie. Mamo's movie program at the time pitched it as a spiritual successor to this first series, but it was also benefitting from the fun of the second series that was running at the same time.
The beginning of the first series sure has fantastic character designs, though, especially for Fujiko! That't to say nothing of Ohtsuka's obsession with realism, which led him to animate these incredibly intricate cars, guns, and watches...he is probably the best animator of vehicles of all time. Still, I get more out of the best episodes of the second series, which you can sort through via Ben Ettinger's famous Anipages on the history of the second series' huge variety of animators and directors.
Red jacket Lupin was basically the start of Lupin as a "genre" where people could try all kinds of things of varying quality, whereas green jacket feels very consistent and personal. It may not always be the personal series I want to watch, but I'm glad it existed, even for a short time.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(1):Lupin the Third, the first" , posted Tue 8 Dec 05:47:
Thanks for the write-up! The first series is fascinating in how dramatically it changes from the start to finish. It's one of the few shows where you can practically hear the hammering as the show is rebuilt week to week.
quote:
The beginning of the first series sure has fantastic character designs, though, especially for Fujiko! That't to say nothing of Ohtsuka's obsession with realism, which led him to animate these incredibly intricate cars, guns, and watches...he is probably the best animator of vehicles of all time. Still, I get more out of the best episodes of the second series, which you can sort through via Ben Ettinger's famous Anipages on the history of the second series' huge variety of animators and directors.
The enduring popularity of that Fujiko design says something about Ohtsuka's work. When more recent Lupin works have attempted to present a more classic, bombshell Fujiko the design usually has more of Ohtsuka in it than Monkey Punch. I guess Ohtsuka is the one who managed to give Fujiko a sense of volume and movement.
The realism in the designs of the vehicles and accessories is also an unsung part of Lupin. One thing that separates James Bond from the host of swinging spies that followed in his wake is the travelogue aspect of Fleming's writing. The ordinary details of the exotic locales Bond traveled to grounded the setting and made it feel accessible even when the stories would go off into Lupin levels of insanity. Ohtsuka understood the need for that real world connection, as did Miyazaki when he gave Lupin that goofy little Fiat. Not only are Lupin, Jigen, Fujiko and Zenigata the last four characters in popular fiction who smoke, it's important that we know their favorite brand of cigarettes as well.
Speaking of Lupin, Seven Seas has announced that in eleven short months from now a Lupin book will be published in English. Something to eventually look forward to.
[this message was edited by Ishmael on Tue 8 Dec 05:52] |
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| "Re(2):Lupin the First meets Omar Sy" , posted Tue 26 Jan 11:43
Thanks for the CG Lupin comments, Ishmael! While I prefer hand-drawn animation, Lupin's had enough different looks that he can surely give CG a go, plus he's now in the same companiy as the mostly really good Tintin CG movie. I heard it was a sanitized, Cagliostro-style Lupin who appears, but it's fun regardless?
Baron Iggy, I'm just back from stealing Marie Antoinnette's phantom necklace and can report that Sy himself is fantastic. There are only five episodes out of ten released so far, so it stops aggravatingly in the middle of things and is hard to judge overall, but I've had fun. Since we are thievery-minded Lupintics around here, I think it's best when Sy-Lupin is stealing things and outsmarting people, and a lot less when they're in the backstory as to why he's doing it. It'll be interesting to see how the balance is by the time all ten episodes are out. It'll still be better than dismal latter two seasons of Sherlock, at any rate.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(3):Lupin the First meets Omar Sy" , posted Tue 26 Jan 23:46
quote:
Thanks for the CG Lupin comments, Ishmael! While I prefer hand-drawn animation, Lupin's had enough different looks that he can surely give CG a go, plus he's now in the same companiy as the mostly really good Tintin CG movie. I heard it was a sanitized, Cagliostro-style Lupin who appears, but it's fun regardless?
It was the more cuddly version of Lupin on display in the movie but that is certainly understandable. A movie like this needs to bring in new people and lapsed Lupin fans so it needs to cast as wide a net as possible; Lupin is off in wild directions in pt.5 and the III throwback series so it's good that a cheerful, pt.2 red jacket Lupin has a place to shine.
Interestingly, the movie was set in the mid 1960's, which is around the time Cagliostro takes place. I guess the setting was partially to invoke Cagliostro and partly to accommodate the Boys From Brazil plotline... or is it a plotline from an old episode of the Avengers? Either way, Lupin is one of those characters who is flexible enough to fit into any time period.
(Side note: has Lupin ever met a thinly disguised version of John Steed and company? The cheerful adventuring feels like it would be a natural fit for a crossover. Plus, Fujiko and Emma Peel could talk about the difficulty of finding a properly fitting leather catsuit.)
Overall the CG was a good fit and used well. The scene where the Lupin gang had to go through a series of trials to get the magic MacGuffin was the highlight of the film and probably couldn't have been done as well in 2D animation. However, you could tell Lupin did not have the budget of the recent juggernaut films from Disney. The pacing and editing of scenes in Lupin was sometimes just a bit too quick. Compare this to the film Soul where the movie could stop and linger on a character playing the piano. This wasn't a issue with directing of Lupin but budget was more likely the culprit. In the exhaustive Frozen 2 documentary it was shown how they were willing to remake portions of scenes to give them greater impact or even throw them out altogether. By necessity, I think every second of animation that was scripted for Lupin ended up in the film.
The plot didn't break new ground - Lupin chasing after another powerful whatzit that he always seems to come across - but that's not the point. This sort of story is about watching likable characters interact as they romp about. In that respect the film was a success. It's good to see that after all these years and many, many different anime fads an old warhorse like Lupin can still be just as much fun as ever.
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| "Re(3):Lupin the First meets Omar Sy" , posted Tue 26 Jan 23:46
quote:
Thanks for the CG Lupin comments, Ishmael! While I prefer hand-drawn animation, Lupin's had enough different looks that he can surely give CG a go, plus he's now in the same companiy as the mostly really good Tintin CG movie. I heard it was a sanitized, Cagliostro-style Lupin who appears, but it's fun regardless?
It was the more cuddly version of Lupin on display in the movie but that is certainly understandable. A movie like this needs to bring in new people and lapsed Lupin fans so it needs to cast as wide a net as possible; Lupin is off in wild directions in pt.5 and the III throwback series so it's good that a cheerful, pt.2 red jacket Lupin has a place to shine.
Interestingly, the movie was set in the mid 1960's, which is around the time Cagliostro takes place. I guess the setting was partially to invoke Cagliostro and partly to accommodate the Boys From Brazil plotline... or is it a plotline from an old episode of the Avengers? Either way, Lupin is one of those characters who is flexible enough to fit into any time period.
(Side note: has Lupin ever met a thinly disguised version of John Steed and company? The cheerful adventuring feels like it would be a natural fit for a crossover. Plus, Fujiko and Emma Peel could talk about the difficulty of finding a properly fitting leather catsuit.)
Overall the CG was a good fit and used well. The scene where the Lupin gang had to go through a series of trials to get the magic MacGuffin was the highlight of the film and probably couldn't have been done as well in 2D animation. However, you could tell Lupin did not have the budget of the recent juggernaut films from Disney. The pacing and editing of scenes in Lupin was sometimes just a bit too quick. Compare this to the film Soul where the movie could stop and linger on a character playing the piano. This wasn't a issue with directing of Lupin but budget was more likely the culprit. In the exhaustive Frozen 2 documentary it was shown how they were willing to remake portions of scenes to give them greater impact or even throw them out altogether. By necessity, I think every second of animation that was scripted for Lupin ended up in the film.
The plot didn't break new ground - Lupin chasing after another powerful whatzit that he always seems to come across - but that's not the point. This sort of story is about watching likable characters interact as they romp about. In that respect the film was a success. It's good to see that after all these years and many, many different anime fads an old warhorse like Lupin can still be just as much fun as ever.
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| "Fuma Conspiracy is the proto-Part IV" , posted Tue 9 Feb 04:51
Thanks for the review of the CG movie, Ishmael! Cuddly Lupin or no, it sounds like an outing I need to see. But when do I get my DVD reprint of Lupin III: Strange Psychokinetic Energy?!
Meanwhile, it's the return of Maoublogging and no one can stop me! I had a ton of fun watching Lupin III: the Fuma Conspiracy for the first time in years after being educated in the various Lupin animator factions through Ben Ettinger's trailblazing Pelleas/AniPages articles I mentioned above.
Basically, it's Lupin III: Now The Animators Are in Charge, and the only OAV/movie fully made by TMS subsidiary Telecom, where Miyazaki Hayao once worked and which made some of the best and best-animated Part II episodes. There is no credited director, with foundational Lupin animator Ohtsuka Yasuo (Part I, Clone/ Mamo, Cagliostro, and the person who insists on real-word machines, guns, and cigarettes) as "supervisor," and Tomonaga Kazuhide (later director of Part IV!) as animation director.
It feels like a long-form Telecom episode or Part IV, in mostly good ways: beautifully animated, a really excellent car chase, a wonderful ninja-yakuza villain named simply the Boss, a highly competent Zenigata, an attractive but clothed Fujiko (oh well), and an overly nice Lupin (despite being voiced here by the same actor as for top Urusei Yatsura perv Moroboshi Ataru).
It's also got a few great throwbacks beyond the green jacket: a hallucination scene where others see Lupin's face shift between his many looks over the years, and Zenigata becoming a monk after believing Lupin has died, which was originally planned for Clone/Mamo but cut.
It's wild to think that such a beautiful animated and coherent Lupin came out so soon after the cartoony insanity that Part III became midway through...and the Legend of Gold of Babylon. Fuma is big in the US as one of the earliest Lupins to be released by subtitling pioneers AnimEigo, but it has a more complicated reputation in Japan since the usual voice actors as well as Ohno Yuuji's music are missing. If someone redubbed the whole thing and added better music I bet it would be hugely popular. Part IV feels like the first time they tried something like this again, 20 years later!
In the end, the best fan-made anime music video of the 1990s, set to a 50-second song called Spider by the quirky They Might Be Giants, says it all.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(2):Fuma Conspiracy is the proto-Part IV" , posted Tue 9 Mar 13:28:
quote:
the deathtraps in Lupin the First were terrific.
Has there ever been a Kagero type movie about someone who spends their days building these trials for the would-be Indiana Jones types
It's worth wondering whether the trap designers in Lupin III and similar caper films are themselves evil geniuses telegraphing some serious thieving plans of their own, or are more benignly interested in Rube Goldberg devices. Kagero traps, of course, reminded me of one of Toxico's legendary posts...
In other Lupintic news, I'll have you know that the Japan Self-Defense Forces perform an extremely excellent take on the bossa nova version of the Lupin III theme from Part II, though as is universally the case, the perennial rivalry will be between the navy and the air force. You be the judge.
In other, other news, I had the joy of re-watching Alcatraz Connection and First Contact for the first time in a while. After having found that the Dead or Alive movie had aged a little worse than I remembered (too many nanomachines and the music is bad), I found not only that they're still the two best TV specials by a million miles and two of the best Lupins period, but also that, to my surprise Alcatraz, is even better than I remember First Contact being. It's helped along by being based on one of the best multi-chapter episodes in the comic that has been adapted at least twice (first episode of Part III...was it in Part II, also?). The pace is unrelenting without being overwhelming...but there's zero slack, just constant momentum, and it's amazing. Zenigata is in perfect form (better than First Contact). It's more sexy, more violent, and more fun, all with fun self-referencial comments by the cast that they are getting on in years.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Tue 9 Mar 14:08] |
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| "Re(1):RIP Yasuo Otsuka" , posted Tue 16 Mar 11:38:
quote:
The character designer for the first anime adaptation of Lupin, and a significant figure in its animated depictions, including being the animation director+character designer for Castle of Cagliostro! What a legacy.
90 years is a good run, but I am really, really sorry to hear this. A good portion of what everyone loves about Lupin is owed to Ohtsuka: real cars, real guns, real places, incredible attention to real-world detail, and great art. As he said, there's no such thing as a "car," only Mercedes-Benzes, Fiats, Rolls-Royces...
But aside from working on 90% of all worthwhile Lupin entries (Part I, Part II, Mamo, Cagliostro, Fuma), Ohtsuka's career basically tracks the history of the medium, as you can read in his wonderful book "Sakuga Ase-mamire" ("Sweat-drenched Animating"). He started with Touei in the earliest days of Disney-inspired long-form theatrical productions, many of them wildly interesting and little-known abroad. He had his opinions on the revolution that Tezuka Production's low-frame animation brought to TV, but he clearly adapted to the changes, and the way he researched his visual subjects made him more like a director...which he was only once, as the de facto director on the literally director-less but beautiful Fuma Conspiracy.
A Lupintic send-off could include Fuma or any of the Telecom episodes his team did, which not coincidentally are among the best in Part II:
Ep. 99: The Combat Magnum Scattered in the Wasteland
Ep. 143: The Miami Bank Heist Anniversary
Ep. 145: Albatross - Wings of Death
Ep. 151: Operation: Arrest Lupin on the Highway
Ep. 155: Farewell, Beloved Lupin
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Tue 16 Mar 11:43] |
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| "Re(4):RIP Yasuo Otsuka" , posted Wed 17 Mar 11:50:
quote:
What are some of the non-Lupin animated works (and particularly, feature works) that he worked on that you would recommend seeing? I'm interested in both "this represents the most polished form of this" as well as "this is historically interesting/important, even if not the most polished form of this" type things!
I'm so glad you asked! Basically, you follow the history of Touei, and then Telecom. All happily in print in Japan, less so in North America, though the wonderful Discotek Media has done a few of them. Chinese speakers will likely have more release options. Some of these early films received limited international releases with weird English names no one remembers. Short version: watch Hakujaden (historically important), Horus (early modern animation style), Fuuma Conspiracy (peak Ohtsuka Lupin), Nemo (misfire but historically interesting). Long version:
Hakujaden ("Legend of the White Snake") (1958): Adaptation from the Chinese legend. The first Japanese color animated movie. He did the animating and the backup key animation.
Shounen Sarutobi Sasuke ("Sarutobi Sasuke, the Boy") (1959): Adaptation of Sarutobi ninja folklore. He did the key animation.
Saiyuuki ("Journey to the West") (1960): You know what this is. He did the key animation.
Anju and Zushioumaru (1961): Adapted from the Japanese fairy tale. He did the key animation.
Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad (1962): It's not just Asia anymore. He did the key animation.
Wanpaku Ouji To Orochi Taiji ("The Mischievious Prince and the Hunt for Orochi") (1963): Takin' down Orochi. He did the key animation.
Prince of the Sun: The Great Adventure of Horus (1968): Mixes Ainu story with Norse setting. Here's where it starts to look like Japanese animation as we think of it design-wise today. He did the key animation.
Puss in Boots (1969): Not the later 1970s one. He did the key animation.
Lupin III: The Fuuma Conspiracy (1987): No official director, but basically a nonstop party of animators, with Ohtsuka in the lead.
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989): Ambitious but unsuccessful joint project with American studio adapting the famous early American comic; a case of Japanese studios trying hard too hard to be like the US/Disney rather than excelling at their own thing. He did the storyboards.
Lots of important TV, frequently in close association with Miyazaki and early Ghibli crew: Future Boy Conan, Lupin III Part I, Lupin III Part II
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Wed 17 Mar 12:27] |
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| "Re(1):Lupin the Third Part 6 is coming" , posted Tue 1 Jun 11:37
Inspector Ishmael’s hot tip was on the money! Site for Part 6 and inconsequentially short trailer are here. Theme: “is this man a villain or a hero?” Promising a deep mystery.
Unlike the glorious Part IV, which was basically run by the Telecom team that made some of the best episodes of Part II=red jacket, the people here are strangers to Lupin. Director is Suganuma Eiji, better known as an animator for Nadia, Serial Experiments Lain, Sol Bianca, Ah! My Goddess, Key the Metal Idol, new Eva, etc. The most Lupin-like things he worked on were (MMC alert!) the bouncy Garou/Fatal Fury movie and insane fantasy sex comedy Hot Exploding Time-Space Maze.
The series creator is...mystery writer Ookura Takahiro?! I guess they weren’t kidding about the mystery focus!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(6):Lupin the Third Part 3 (!!) is coming" , posted Fri 2 Jul 05:49
Hahaha, what a great description of Part III! I'm still trying to figure out how Part VI will combine series design by a serious detective writer and direction by someone closely associated with Maze, and I realized what I wrote above might not sound positive enough, so I'm reformatting it here! Maze:
-starts with a Wizard of Oz homage when the heroine's house from the real world falls on top of bad guys
-features a heroine whose breasts are constantly being fondled by men and women alike, and who transforms into a class-A male pervert at night
-has such explosively heroic music for male Maze that when wimpy female Maze transforms into male Male at sundown and proceeds to kick ass on the villains who were previously giving her trouble, you will stand up and cheer like a madman, I guarantee it
-includes a villain who is a facially scarred pretty boy named Gorgeous who is later replaced by his brother, Sick
-includes an infinitely excellent ending song called Junk Boy with adorable super-deformed versions of the cast
-now has the added fun of being a treasure hunt, like looking for non-modified version of the original Star Wars movies: in Japan it's only on LD, in the US only the censored version is on DVD, fansubbed digitial versions of the LD are allegedly online somewhere, and the raucous movie never saw a home release at all!
Given the choice between the lifeless, plastic-looking late 1990s Lupin TV specials and a madcap mix like Maze, I think I know which one I think is the best match for Lupin.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(9):Lupin the Third the Mystery" , posted Thu 2 Sep 01:31
quote:
More details about the Lupin series, including the return of Mamoru Oshii, Herlock Sholmes, and Lupin's green jacket.
Thanks! This is really interesting: besides the prospect of finally seeing Oshii's modernist Lupin who steals abstract concepts, they are really serious about the mystery theme with guest writers who are seriously prolific mystery authors like Tsuji Masaki and Ashibe Taku, plus Higuchi Akio, who's even written multiple Lupin choose-your-own-adventure books, as well as legitimiately fascinating author Minato Kanae, who you might know from the too-scary-for-me "Confessions" that was made into a movie. She's the only one I've read and her stuff is really great...bringing it to Cafe terms, her probably untranslated novel "Homesickness" features a SaGa Frontier/Dragon Quest IV-like mix of various parallel mystery stories taking place in the same island commmunity that may or may not intersect. It is awesome.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(2):Re(10):Lupin the Third the Mystery" , posted Wed 8 Sep 08:14:
Of all original actors, Kobayashi feels the most important, probably because he's the source of the hard-boiled, noir tones that balance out Lupin's manic vibes. I suspect he has the second-most lines of all the characters after Lupin, too. I welcomed the new actors for Zenigata and Fujiko when the age of their original actors made them no longer fit the part, but even 88-year-old Kobayashi's voice was great. I can't imagine anyone else. As Kobayashi said through his agency, "If I had it my way, I would've kept going till I was 90, so this is too bad. [shifting to Jigen tone] 'Lupin, looks like it's about time I blow this joint. Adios!'"
Still, Ohtsuka "Solid Snake" Akio is about as cool a replacement as you can get. Weird MMC-relevant trivia: this is the second time Ohtsuka is replacing a superior original: he played Daigo in the second Justice Gakuen and SFV, replacing the perfect Yamadera Kouichi...who now plays Zenigata!
quote:
Also of note is a new trailer and some really gross looking food that wouldn't be worth stealing, much less paying good money for.
This is hard to imagine after the early years of Miyazaki direction set the tone for extremely high-quality depictions of food! No scenes make me want to eat spaghetti more than the ones in Cagliostro or Albatross: Wings of Death.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Wed 8 Sep 08:39] |
| | "Re(4):Re(10):Lupin the Third the Mystery" , posted Tue 14 Sep 08:02
quote:
In the last several years Kobayashi didn't have the range he used to, but since Jigen comes across like he drinks gin for breakfast so most of the time his voice acting still worked. The problem I had was that the writers sometimes let Kobayashi's age affect the story and started writing a much older Jigen. Jigen is one of those characters who was born old but in some newer stories that dealt with Jigen's past he would have to be John Cho levels of ancient to make the timeline work. Hopefully a fresh sound will remind the writers that Jigen isn't older than Zenigata.
In the end, I will miss that iconic voice. I know I will spend most of my viewing of the next Lupin series feeling that the whole thing is slightly off, like a picture that is ever so slightly crooked. It's also going to be rough since Kobayashi was the last link to the initial start of Lupin. Still, the fact that Lupin itself is still going strong in spite of replacing every single original part is a cause for celebration.
Yeah, I feel like Jigen is a weird character in that his attitude and appearance gives all the indications of being noticeably older than Lupin, but Zenigata being the "dad" of the series should always be the oldest of them all in spite of Jigen's beard.
However, Zenigata isn't like a white-haired Commissioner Gordon, in terms of age, either. And Lupin himself could be anything between a man in his 20s to a main in his 40s!
Really they're just some indefinably "adults" people, whose centrally important oldness trait is that they are significantly past high school student age!
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| "Part III to Part VI" , posted Mon 4 Oct 05:13:
After loving Part IV's vivid Italy and falling asleep in Part V's not-really-France, I'm excited for Part VI in a few days, but meanwhile, I bought something almost as imprudent as Ishmael’s Gold of Babylon: Part III and its fabulous pink jacket!
Much smarter people than me have written about how the series had only loose oversight by Aoki Yuuzou (whose Oh Pro! group did the most playful Part II red jacket animation) with tons of different animation studios. It's a funny counterpoint to Fuuma Conspiracy, another director-less animators' party but with Ohtsuka Yasuo and his more refined style in charge.
The initial designs are beautiful but fall off-model really quickly. It’s often unrecognizable by episode 10. Insane revisionist fans of American cartoons on the internet will tell you it looks great when it reallllly doesn't, but what they mean to say is that it animates entertainingly, and on a good day, it does have some of the fun of Mamo/Clone and the comic! The wild malformed designs make people misremember it as nonstop mayhem (even the Part V tribute makes this mistake), when it actually vacillates between some cool noir episodes and fun capers (which is how they initially advertised it) and the worst of Part II. But there's still some good stuff in here!
Ep.1: The Gold Bars Beckon Lupin - Wonderful Aoki-directed adaptation of the comic's great San Francisco chapter with the best art in this series! Also, Wakamoto as a gangster.
Ep. 3: Hello, Hell’s Angel - A sweet little variation on the Cagliostro maiden-in-a-tower theme, but slightly more in character and with more nudity.
Ep. 5: The Peerless Goemon - Great episode testing Goemon's discipline, with giant Andean condors, good designs, and a good caper.
Ep. 15: Murder Arrives Slowly - Raunchy globetrotting fun that feels a lot like Mamo or the comic.
Ep. 18: Showtime Smells of Death - Since off-model faces and variable animation quality are in full swing by now, it's easy to miss this Aoki-directed treasure. Sure, it has the odd elongated faces, but unlike what often follows, the animation, visual direction, and incidental character designs are all great. It's also totally 80s pink jacket fun, with leotard aerobics, roller girls, and Lupin and his new lover performing a psychedelic disco dance to dodge machine gun bullets.
Ep. 24: Sleep Deeply, Friend - Another top notch Goemon episode, quite violent and hardboiled. Designs are nuts by now.
Eps. 27-28: Alaska Star - Rare two-part cold war caper, just as good as any TV special and recalling Mamo as the KGB, CIA, and Lupin all search for the same treasure.
Ep. 30: A Cocktail Named Revenge - Wonderful noir episode built around Lupin as a bartender. Is it Madman's Cafe!?
Ep. 37: Pops Bursts with Rage - In this production, Zenigata is usually as goofy as the animation, but he's cool here.
Ep. 44: Our Daddy’s a Thief - It's so stupid but I love it...Lupin gang has to take their illegitimate children along on their heist.
Ep. 50: Orders to Destroy the Ivanov Nuclear Sub - It's unwatchably ugly, but I laughed my @$$ off seeing the constantly dancing CIA party people in "CIA" t-shirts fight with other spy agencies to buy a stolen sub from Fujiko. Funniest thing since Mamo.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Thu 21 Oct 09:00] |
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| "Re(2):Part III to Part VI" , posted Mon 1 Nov 06:03:
Ohno, Oh Yeah: Awesome video, Gojira! Ohno is king, and in that video, he looks like the fifth member of the Lupin gang that he is. Even the retroactively popular Part I just doesn’t do it for me without his classy, energetic, irrepressibly fun music.
Part III: I added a few more great episodes above! But like Ishmael said, the art is mostly incomprehensible by the second half, with the staff busy also making the Babylon movie, so it’s not just a stylized break and unlike the Monkey Punch-inspired original concept sketches, it’s often amateurish and unfinished. If you want expressive, cartoonish animation, you’re still better off just watching Looney Tunes or something. And since the scripts are generally bad (old retreads, and all Zenigata can say is “I’ll get you next time”), it’s really no different than the weaker parts of the family-friendly Part II it was supposedly breaking from.
For something much more like Monkey Punch, these Lupin skits from the Mankatsu variety show mimic the original comic's twist endings and booby trap gags really well.
As for Part VI!
-I agree the special Episode 0 has a great world-weary Jigen, and it briefly lets unusual pairs of characters (Jigen-Zenigata) interact one-on-one in interesting ways. Like Fujiko says to Lupin in Clone/Mamo, “how long has it been since we were alone together?” There’s also some good introspection on Lupin and Jigen’s outlooks that Ishmael already wrote perfectly, way earlier!
-I really disagree with dropping Kobayashi's Jigen when it’s Kurita’s Lupin who sounds nasal and off! Ohtsuka “Solid Snake” Akio does a decent Kobayashi imitation.
-The designs are good but the animation is by TMS, not Telecom (best of Part II, Cagliostro, Parts IV and V) and consequently much worse.
-Those are some really crappy, out of place CG vehicles! It’s like time travelling to a late 1990s anime!
-The opening is jazzy and continues the Part IV/V tradition of broadcasting Fujiko’s ass, but what is going on with that Milk Tea ending theme?
-Why does Sherlock Holmes look like Rebecca’s butler from Part IV? I like that he knows Bartitsu, as (not our) Professor Moriarty learned the hard way at Reichenbach Falls.
-If you look really carefully during the next episode preview, you can see which if any of the mystery authors are acting as guest writers (Tsuji Masaki on the silly-fun Ep. 3...oh, and not a mystery writer, but Oshii Mamoru on Ep. 4 next week!?).
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Tue 2 Nov 09:00] |
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| "Re(4):Part III to Part VI" , posted Wed 10 Nov 09:44:
quote:
Is the new season building upon what was started in part 4 or is it off in a new direction? How are the many, many writers doing? Since Ohtsuka is voicing pretty much everyone nowadays how is he doing as Jigen 2.0?
Ohtsuka is basically in the same boat as Kurita on Lupin, doing a close imitation that will always be inferior to the original, but is still pretty good.
Following Tsuji Masaki's dumb-fun little ep. 3, Oshii Mamoru's (not a mystery writer but definitely a mysterious writer) ep. 4 is super good. It's not the surrealist Lupin we expected from his past cancelled scripts, but instead an incredibly tense 10 minutes of uncomfortable banter between Lupin, Jigen, and a very surly waitress while surrounded by assassins in a bar, including a Golgo 13 lookalike and a bunch of Hemingway and Agatha Christie references. Eps. 5-6 will be by a famous mystery writer again, Ashibe Taku. The guest writers just do one-off episodes rather than contributing to one big mystery, which would've been interesting.
I do not understand the series' direction at all! Starting off with Holmes and London for two episodes, then immediately abandoning the scene for four episodes in a row is very strange. Why bother with an overall story at this rate? It's different from Part IV, which established Italy as a common setting for both one-off and long-term stories. Maybe it's more like Part V, which I barely saw? The French guy from ep. 1 is from there. Making a Part I-III style series of random episodes that maybe had some mysteries would have set expectations better than advertising a continuous London story.
Weirdly, they have announced that the second half of the show will have a different theme, "Women," which I hope at least means not a lot of crappy guest heroines like the TV specials. I think this means they'll ditch the Holmes-London thing after a mere 12 episodes, meaning they only have 6 episodes left to do anything with it! Anyway, the opening credits are great and I had fun with Hemingway the Third.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Wed 10 Nov 10:58] |
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| "Red Jacket legends" , posted Mon 15 Nov 10:44
Who knows whatever happened to London, but Ashibe Taku's Ep. 5 is loads of fun and continues the mystery theme from Ep. 4, this time in prewar Tokyo with lots of references to famous mystery writer Edogawa Ranpou!
Way earlier in this thread, we were talking about favorite Part II Red Jacket episodes, and since I was on a kick lately, here are some treasures in case anyone needs something fun to watch! The top ones are already famous, but there's a lot of truly great ones just below. I would happily ramble on about any of these with you!
Top
Ep. 58 - The Border is the Face of Farewell: Ishmael already covered one of the all-time great Jigen episodes above!
Ep. 99 - Combat Magnum Scattered on the Battlefield: Each Lupin gang member is so good at what they do that lesser directors just give everyone their predictable speciality role, but assembling a gun on the fly during a deathmatch is truly one of the most clever Jigen feats you'll ever see!
Ep. 145 - Albatross, Wings of Death: Miyazaki's direction is so perfect that you'll never realize you were watching a TV episode and not an hour-long OAV. It's way more Monkey Punch that Miyazaki usually is...is this the only nudity he's drawn in his entire career?
Ep. 155 - Farewell, Beloved Lupin: Famous for the proto-Nausicaa (same actress) and proto-Laputa elements. Similarly incredible pacing.
Great
Ep. 20 - Cornered Lupin: I mentioned this one before, but it's one of the few outside of Mamo/Clone to give Lupin and Fujiko's relationship its proper due, as they share unusual tenderness as they seemingly face their doom together.
Ep. 85 - ICPO’s Top Secret Order: Fun Zenigata romance thing and one of the greatest booby trap solutions you'll see outside the comic.
Ep. 108 - Zantetsuken’s Lament: A totally unique ep with a mostly featureless Japanese setting based on its comic source, moving between two main locations for the action/puzzle. Skipping the globetrotting lets them develop a great Goemon relationship with the one-off characters.
Ep. 137 - The Magnificent Team Play Operation: I remember laughing out loud over how cleverly everyone's specialties are used here.
Ep. 143 - Anniversary of the Miami Bank Raid: Possibly the funniest episode in Part II, with playful animation.
Ep. 148 - 555 Meter Target: Another of the cleverest heists of the series.
Ep. 151 - The Lupin Highway Arrest Operation: Top-class heist by Telecom (Miyazaki and Ohtsuka's team), with very soft designs no doubt influenced by their recent work on Cagliostro, even though Miyazaki himself was not involved. One of the joys of Telecom is that their stories are as great as their animation.
Very Good
Ep. 91 - The Girl Who Lept through Time: A rarer Persia episode and prototype for Gemini-style heroines.
Ep. 92 - Madame and the Four Thief Quartet: Charmingly funny with very expressive faces.
Ep. 97 - Search for Lupin the First’s Treasure: Famous for Holmes III, but best for a top-tier Zenigata fight, rare in Part II where he's less effective.
Ep. 98 - A Day without Pops: Zenigata manages to survive as many death-defying stunts as Lupin without all the gadgets, so this is a great chance to ask what happens if he doesn't.
Ep. 103 - The Wolf Saw an Angel: A good Goemon ep that incidentally has an extremely good depiction of Death Valley and driving.
Ep. 115 - Mona Lisa Smiles Twice: Amazing pacing on this one and a great trick ending. Did they watch Orson Welles' wonderful F for Fake?
Ep. 117 - The Chewing Gum Disguise Operation: It's so dumb and insane and I love it. Part III wishes it were this.
Ep. 153 - The God-given Bills: More good Telecom.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Lupin meets the Professor" , posted Sun 5 Dec 09:12
Back to Part VI again: it's not the best, TMS and their crappy CG cars are so low-budget compared to Telecom's Part IV, and a lot of people online in Japan don't like it, but if you treat it as the Lupin Mystery Revue you'll have fun.
Mystery writer Ashibe Taku's unique prewar Lupin for eps. 5-6 is good, then we actually get a brief reappearance of the "main" London story for ep. 7, together with some references to Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Empty House. It's too bad all the time away means “Lupin vs. Holmes” lasted for a grand total of three episodess before they resolved it, but at least there are references to the Cafe's famous criminal mastermind Professor Henry "Howlin' Mad" Moriarty, er, I mean, Professor James Moriarty.
Ep. 8 is interesting mainly because they finally let a guest author do a story for the main London plot with Jigen--it’s Higuchi Akio, who’s written a lot of stuff, including some choose-your-own-adventure Lupin books!
Ep. 9 is yet another one-off in Latin America, but it's by excellent female thriller author Minato Kanae, so better luck next time, London!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(2):Lupin meets the Professor" , posted Sat 12 Feb 10:50:
I bet you thought I forgot about Part VI! Well...I did! I finally went back to finish the London story, such as it was, but had to back up further since the actual London bits were so few and far between that I forgot everything that had happened with what were sometimes four whole intervening guest episodes!
The second Oshii Mamoru episode is maybe the strangest Lupin since the famous Suzuki Seijun-directed episode 13 of pink jacket, though not in a particularly wild way or with Suzuki's social commentary. The whole Holmes thing was so spread out and perfunctory that it didn't amount to much of interest. Then again, it's all still better than 90% of the TV specials, I guess!
Has anyone watched the second half?
Edit: I have! Or rather, ep. 13, the start of the women and mystery arc, whatever that means. Surprisingly, it's been the most exciting of the bunch! Typically, a series of guest female characters has been an annoying distraction in the specials, but I'm curious what they'll do with this. Getting a different director and out of the overplayed Holmes setting is helpful, I think.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Sun 13 Feb 10:40] |
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| "Re(3):Lupin meets the Professor" , posted Mon 14 Feb 23:54
quote:
Edit: I have! Or rather, ep. 13, the start of the women and mystery arc, whatever that means. Surprisingly, it's been the most exciting of the bunch! Typically, a series of guest female characters has been an annoying distraction in the specials, but I'm curious what they'll do with this. Getting a different director and out of the overplayed Holmes setting is helpful, I think.
Good to hear! Lupin's interactions with the guest girls have always been interesting, which is probably why it's happened so often. Trouble is, those characters are often cut from the same cloth and all run together. Having a story that comments on these women and why Lupin seems to attract a certain type could be fun. That, or the show will instead fart around with one-off episodes and totally lose the plot. We shall see!
I'm looking forward to watching the latest Lupin series when it is finished and put in a tidy little package. While Lupin fighting Encyclopedia Brown or whatever was going on in the first half sounds a bit played out, it still sounds like the people making the show are having fun playing in the Lupin sandbox.
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| "Lupin: The Shoes" , posted Tue 15 Feb 11:47:
quote:
While Lupin fighting Encyclopedia Brown or whatever was going on in the first half sounds a bit played out, it still sounds like the people making the show are having fun playing in the Lupin sandbox.
I think they are! I've never seen a show where the second half is so noticeably better than the first. It's not that strange since it's a totally different series director now, but the first two mainline "mystery women" episodes 13 and 14 are very good, followed by ep. 15, “Gunshot, Ring Like a Wedding Bell," which is the best Jigen-only episode since Part IV's godly "A Gun for This Hand of Mine." I didn't know the writer for this guest episode, Kindaichi Akira, but his hardboiled lines were so good that I misassumed he was a mystery writer rather than involved in some modern animes I've never heard of.
Too bad it's followed by a different guest episode so idiotic as to almost feel kind of nostalgic like it's one of those random bad episodes from the never-ending Part II/red jacket grab bag! But that in turn is followed by an outstanding episode 17, with a hilarious, sweet, and unique premise for Lupin's opponent, and more fantastic dialogue by the same Kindaichi above. If he's got this kind of range, he should clearly be directing this whole series! I didn't think it still was possible to iterate on Part II team caper masterpieces like "Magnificent Team Play Operation" and "Target: 555 Meters," but I was wrong!
But meanwhile: there have been lots of good Lupin clothing promotions, from Lupin's jacket and Zenigata's trenchcoat all the way to the "Steal Fujiko's Cleavage!" brand push-up bra, but selling everyone's shoes might be the most practical so far. Imagine my delight when I discovered I already own multiple pairs of what are essentially Lupin's shoes. I knew I liked them for some reason when I first saw them!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Sun 6 Mar 11:42] |
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| "Re(2):Lupin: The Shoes" , posted Sun 6 Mar 11:59
quote:
now I'll know who the Lupin viewers are by their footwear
You'd better believe it! Not pictured: me running away as bowleggedly as possible when up to mischief.
Meanwhile, since Part VI is about done, an evaluation for the busy viewer: no need at all to watch the first half, but the entirely unrelated second half has a surprisingly interesting main story for eps. 13-14, 18-19, and 23-24, and guest eps. 15 and 17 are legitimately great. Everything else is pretty bad and harkens back to the dark ages of the TV specials, it's been panned in Japan, TMS' animation is pitiful compared with Telecom even if the chara designs are good, and the unfocused switching between main story and guest eps. feels like a failed experiment overseen by a new generation of amateurs. On the other hand, if you just watch the episodes above, it's kind of like watching a pretty good TV special with two bonus episodes!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(3):Lupin: The Shoes" , posted Tue 8 Mar 00:01
quote:
now I'll know who the Lupin viewers are by their footwear
You'd better believe it! Not pictured: me running away as bowleggedly as possible when up to mischief.
Meanwhile, since Part VI is about done, an evaluation for the busy viewer: no need at all to watch the first half, but the entirely unrelated second half has a surprisingly interesting main story for eps. 13-14, 18-19, and 23-24, and guest eps. 15 and 17 are legitimately great. Everything else is pretty bad and harkens back to the dark ages of the TV specials, it's been panned in Japan, TMS' animation is pitiful compared with Telecom even if the chara designs are good, and the unfocused switching between main story and guest eps. feels like a failed experiment overseen by a new generation of amateurs. On the other hand, if you just watch the episodes above, it's kind of like watching a pretty good TV special with two bonus episodes!
Incredible! When I think of anime clothes, my mind usually goes to some sort of horror from Hot Topic. However, those are actual shoes!
The latest Lupin series seems to be about commenting on the past while moving forward, so it's not surprising that at some point the show would turn into one those listless television specials. At some point someone should write an episode that cleverly comments on those specials and how they share so many similarities that they all sort of blend together.
Now that I think about it, not all the TV specials featured cookie cutter plots. For example, I remember a TV special where Lupin visited Skypiea from One Piece, but that was so bizarre I might have hallucinated the whole thing. There's a difference between trying something different and just plain weird.
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"Re(8):LUPIN THE THIIIIRD!!! Maou is Coming" , posted Sat 20 Jan 06:42
who follow the path of a warrior
The mid-budget landscapes of Europe has suddenly changed to low budget cell-drawn Japan and we're back to the days of Lupin loosening his belt for a Fuujiko-chaaaan! moment. 
) I did not know until after his passing that he originally debut on Playboy magazine as Muta Eiji, no relation to the Great Muta, and ironically at the time not too good with drawing woman. Let's not forget to mention that he was a pioneer at going digital on his drawing tools, which probably lead to the longevity of his drawing carrier.
