EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

bse513 Well, first off, if you haven't seen a lot of Lupin you probably won't like this that much. So...please watch some of the second series, "Episode 0: First Contact," "The Secret of Mamo," and "Castle of Cagliostro" beforehand. Second, it can be really confusing, which I believe is on purpose. The first thing that turned me off was that I thought they'd changed Lupin's voice to some dude with a really low voice. It turns out later that this is not the case, at least not exactly. If you don't want anything to be really spoiled then just stop reading here and go watch the movie. You can see it and some other Lupin films on Hulu for free.It would be really awesome to see a fan-edit of this where they put everything in chronological order. A couple parts of the movie seemed like they went too fast and I had to re-watch those parts (like the part with the huge robot). I think the end is great, it gave me a fuzzy warm "yeah!" feeling. As to what happened in the end I suppose it's open for debate, but I think if you look at all the clues in the movie it's pretty apparent (at least somewhat) although if you really want to go there, I guess it's possible that neither of the main Lupins in the film really were Lupin...which I'm starting to lean towards. But according to 'Lupin,' Lupin-ness is something that can be attained and so perhaps one or both of them were Lupin, or at least were/are Lupin for some amount of time.What a head trip. Great movie.

Ian Gear (psychogoatee) This OVA celebrates the 40th anniversary of Lupin, and it includes a bunch of nods to previous Lupin anime. Pretty much every criminal on the planet has taken to disguising themselves as Lupin, and we end up seeing pretty much every Lupin character design used, even the pink jacket.A new main character for this is a guy named Yasuo, named after Lupin's original voice actor, who looks just like Lupin and wears a green jacket.Meanwhile, the real Lupin in the red jacket and his partner Jigen are doing their thing as always. They're on the run, all sorts of random wackiness happens to them, and there's a constant mob of fake Lupins causing them trouble.Pretty much, a lot of this is somewhat somber slice-of-life stuff focusing on the Yasuo guy. This is decent stuff, though of course it's kind of odd for a Lupin story.As for the story, well, it's pretty much just Yasuo competing with Lupin to try and become the "real" Lupin.Fujiko is only in this briefly, although there are some interesting scenes where Yasuo sees her and it's animated like a psychedelic trip. Goemon pretty much has a cameo role, and Zenigata is great as always.This is a pastiche, sort of an abstract, arty anime that pays some tribute to that laid back Lupin feel of old. The actual story however is pretty esoteric, and not entirely satisfying.All in all, this is an interesting anime that is somewhat thought provoking and beautifully animated. While it's not a proper entry in the Lupin series, it's still well put together and worth a watch.