Lupin III - Pursuit of Harimao’s Treasure
OK, I’ve a feeling I’ve reviewed this before somewhere else on the internet, but I can’t find it. It’s a treasure hunting story, as Lupin tries to track down the loot of the WWII thief Harimao. This hunt ends up involving a thinly veiled James Bond cipher, his granddaughter and a transvestite Nazi. Called Herr Mafroditte.
Osamu Dezaki directs and goes nuts with his postcard memory technique, overusing it at times to distraction. The whole film is all over the place, never quite finding a constant mood, both in terms of its plot, characterisation and visual style. It appears to have some aspirations to making Lupin very cartoon-y, but the execution isn’t quite up to it, and it loses some of the character’s cool in the process. And the approach is fairly uniform across all the regular characters. It’s one thing to have Lupin and Jigen goofing around, another to have the stoic Goemon suddenly do wacky takes.
Also it contains a horrible version of the season 2 opening theme. It’s like that version of the Seinfeld theme were they added extra twiddly bits and female vocals. Here someone decided that it would be improved by having the singers intone that “he’s so groovy” at various points in the theme.
How much do the characters look like the animators might have seen a Monkey Punch drawing at some point in their lives?
Facially the gang are pretty good. The figures feel a little off though. Lupin in the opening heist looks very rubbery, and there’s something about a lot of the movement that lacks the snap of other Lupin projects. Plus Fujiko’s design is a little too soft for my taste.
“Guest” characters vary in their looks. The Bond-clone Lord Archer and Neo-Nazi bruiser Goering have a lot of Monkey Punch flavour, but the granddaughter and the Lloyds insurance man are generic TMS designs. Even Herr Mafroditte looks like he/she belongs in another show.
How ludicrous are the capers?
The capers are similarly all over the place, with some being very down to earth (eavesdropping at Lloyds) and some being full of illogical videogame gimmicks (the stealing of the statue in Holland). The final treasure is amusingly gloriously unfeasible - a solid gold submarine.
How much is Goemon involved in the story, rather than just a third act deus ex machina?
I think this is one of the films where I got the impression of Goemon’s misuse from. He’s working as a mercenary here, Jigen saying they’ve hired him as a part-timer, which handily takes care of any moral qualms he might be expected to have (though as it’s a treasure hunt, I don’t know why he wouldn’t be happy to help out anyway). Then at the end of the Holland sequence says his part time work is done, and disappears from the plot for awhile. He then turns up at random as the story nears its conclusion, providing a handy distraction to allow the story to finish.
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Originally published at AWESOME ENGINE. You can comment here or there.