BE ANIME, DO CRIME!
A Beginner’s Guide to Lupin the Third
Reasonably Accurate as of July 2024
CONTENT WARNING: This is a show for adults
Worth noting besides the general horniness: this series started in 1967. In its nearly sixty-year history there have been problematic depictions and insensitive humor, some of which is because of the cultural differences between Japan and the United States. There’s less than you’d expect for a show of its age, but it’s worth noting if you are interested in watching the series.
I was pondering this last year, and sitting at my booth in Artists Colony at ConnectiCon, dressed like Lupin the Third, and I got so many questions on where to start with this series that I decided to finally do the dang thing. So hello! I’m TabbieWolf, I got into Lupin the Third a few months before the pandemic took over, and this is what got me started:
Gorgeous, right? This was well before the movie got distribution in the United States, this preview and this gif:
…took over my little corner of social media. I wasn’t even into anime (animation, sure. Animation from Japan? Nope.) at the time! So I immediately needed to know how to get into the series.
And lemme be honest: the answers online didn’t help me. I ended up basically flinging a dart at a board (my partner-in-crime who’s been trying to get me into anime since before we started dating [we have been married 12 years now] happened to have the Funimation DVDs from the early 00s).
This was Farewell Nostradamus, by the way. We’ll get to that in a bit.
So this site is going to be a hopefully less random way of introducing you to Lupin the Third by someone who has spent the past several years absolutely fixated on the series.
So in 1905, Maurice Leblanc introduced the world to Arsene Lupin, gentleman thief, copyright twisting rival to Sherlo — excuse me, Herlock Sholmes. British rivalries aside, the French series was tremendously popular, and has seen almost as much interpretation as the famous detective. With 17 novels and 39 novellas about the thief, Maurice Leblanc rivaled Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in more than just their main characters.
In 1967, a fella called Kazuhiko Kato published a comic called Lupin the Third. It premiered in Manga Action Weekly, and the author’s name was given as Monkey Punch, because the series looked so Western the editor insisted Kato use an American-style pseudonym. Supposedly, Monkey Punch disliked the name, but it stuck, and he’s dead now so I’m gonna keep calling him that, sorry, Kato-san.
Monkey Punch’s style was inspired by MAD Magazine, particularly the works of Mort Drucker. He came up with the array of characters that we now know as Lupin the Third and his gang and rivals.
Lupin is a gentleman thief, like his granddad, though the comic certainly took liberties with the “gentleman” part of that statement.
Lupin’s personality varies from “extremely horny pervert who is okay with killing” to “softest, most gentle man you will ever meet,” and every version inbetween, depending on which series or movie you watch. His American voice actor once said “He’s the smartest man in the room who’s convinced you he’s the dumbest man in the room.”
You can’t have a thief without a rival detective, and so Koichi Zenigata — who for a while was Heiji Zenigata the Seventh, though according to Monkey Punch himself, he accidentally misspelled his given name. Heiji Zenigata is a famous fictional detective introduced in the 1930s by author Kodō Nomura, and yes, if you haven’t figured it out by now, this entire series is sort of fan fiction of famous characters’ Original Character Do-Not-Steal offspring.
Speaking of Original Characters, here comes Fujiko Mine — several hundred versions of her. Monkey Punch wanted every issue to have a different girl, similar to the James Bond girls, but he was running a weekly comic and the guy was horrible with names, so almost every woman shares the name Fujiko, whose full name translates to “Peaks of Mt. Fuji.”
Yes, it’s a boobs joke.
After several Fujikos, we meet Daisuke Jigen. Jigen is the gunslinger of the group, the best in the world. In the animated series, he’s been Lupin’s partner longer than Lupin has been chased by Zenigata, which is saying a lot. It’s very rare that Jigen is referred to by his given name alone, even by Lupin, though “Daisuke Jigen” gets shouted a lot when he’s up against an enemy.
And finally, Goemon Ishikawa the Thirteenth. He’s another fannish offspring character, 12 generations after Japan’s own version of Robin Hood, Ishikawa Goemon. Goemon, like Jigen, is the best in the world at what he does, and what he does is be a samurai. His sword, Ryuusei-in-the-manga/Zantetsuken/zantetsu sword/The Almighty (depending with dub you watch), can cut anything, including buildings, satellites, and giant sharks.
So, is the manga a good place to start? Actually the Seven Seas hardcover publications have a really good translation of the original work. The TokyoPop versions from the early 00s…are a bit more liberal with their translation. The latter is a lot of fun, in a “man, I like ballsy humor” sort of way, but not the greatest way to get a good sampling of the rest of the series. Also, nothing against it, but the TokyoPop translation is NOT Monkey Punch’s original work, much of which are puns and humor that doesn’t translate to English that well and which got localized to the point where it’s an entirely new story in a lot of places.
Within months of the manga’s publication, the anime studios came calling, and by 1969 they had a pilot. Now, this wasn’t the first cartoon specifically for adults that Japanese studios had produced — ecchi & hentai were a thing back in the 60s, too — but it was the first cartoon shooting for the prized 18-36-year old adult male market. It was a comedy, it was a drama, it was a heist show! First of its kind!
It’s also known as the Green Jacket series, and it premiered on October 24, 1971.
It was cancelled by episode 23.
It was the first of its kind, and I highly suspect no one knew what to do with it. The producers didn’t like the hard, noir tilt that the original director, Masaaki Osumi, brought to the show by sticking heavily to the original manga. They pushed him to change it into something funny, something more all ages. He refused.
They threatened to fire him. He still refused to budge on his vision.
So they fired him.
And then they hired these guys.
You may know them better from more recent photos.
Or perhaps, their movies.
Or memes!
Uh, no comment.
(This is not technically what he said, but it makes a good meme.)
Alright, it didn’t happen quite in that order. Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata were both working on Part 1 anyway, as side directors, storyboarders, and in the animation department.
There’s an episode or two where the show direction was changing hands constantly between the three men. By the time we’re halfway through the series, though, two of the eventual Greatest Directors of Anime were at the helm.
So is Part 1 a good place to start? It’s not high on my list. It’s very obvious why it was cancelled. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great show, but it’s like starting your meal with a tuna milkshake: things that taste excellent separately, but put them together and it’s kind of a mess.
If you’re a completionist — and hello, welcome to the club — and you want to do the whole series in order? Sure, start with the pilot and Part 1. But be prepared to get whiplash before you’re even halfway through it, where you get an episode where a man questions his reason for living because he’s causing the death of another man and then a half-dozen episodes later locks himself in a bathroom because he’s pissed off at the same man.
The English dub is fantastic, though. We’ll get to why in a minute.
Short Interlude: I can’t talk about Lupin the Third without mentioning Yasuo Otsuka. He’s one of the grandfathers of anime, he was the man who taught Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and a whole lot of other animators & directors. He did the character designs for Part 1, and also is the reason all the modes of transportation and weaponry in Lupin III are extremely accurate.
Yasuo Otsuka has cameos in almost every Part of the series (I couldn’t find him in Part 3, which was done by a different studio), and can be seen occasionally in the specials.
Alright. How on earth is a series that got cancelled after 23 episodes still going?
Reruns, baby. Reruns.
By the mid-1970s, Part 1 was one of the most replayed shows on Japanese television. And since Takahata and Miyazaki HAD changed the direction of the show to make it funnier, and make it more appealing to all ages, it worked, and hit the family market.
And so, we got Part 2.
Part 2, or the Red Jacket series, premiered in 1977 and is what a lot of folks would agree as the Defining Lupin the Third series. I suspect primarily because a lot of folks saw it on Adult Swim in their teens or early twenties (and, in Japan, because it ran weekly for 155 episodes). Sometime in the 90s, the two Hayao Miyazaki episodes — remember Miyazaki? — from Part 2 got dubbed into English, and then in the early 00s, after Cowboy Bebop and Trigun (both of which got inspiration from Lupin, by the way) and such had kicked the American desire for anime into high gear, Cartoon Network and the no-longer-in-business Geneon/Pioneer/Phuuz dubbed the first 79 episodes of the 155 episode series with a new crew of voice actors.
See what other roles these amazing actors have played (and the things that they have directed) by checking out their Anime News Network pages: Tony Oliver, Richard Epcar, Lex Lang, Michelle Ruff, and Dan Lorge. In the modern series, starting with Part 4, Inspector Zenigata has been taken over by Doug Erholtz, who is doing an amazing job.
It’s worth noting that as wild as the dub is, outside of the random out-of-place pop culture references in the first two dozen episodes, it follows the original pretty closely. The original was, in fact, just that wacky. And a lot of the references in later episodes are localized — American instead of Japanese — pop culture references from the 1970s.
I can’t talk about the American voice actors without mentioning the Japanese voice actors. Yasuo Yamada, Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Makio Inoue, Eiko Masuyama, and Goro Naya carried the series from Part 2 until Yasuo Yamada passed away in 1995 (to be replaced by Kanichi Kurita). 3/5 of them had done Part 1, and everyone except Kobayashi would continue acting as these characters until 2011, when their roles were taken over by other actors ala Doctor Who’s regeneration. Kiyoshi Kobayashi continued his role as Daisuke Jigen until 2021, the 50th anniversary of the series.
Can you start with Part 2? Yes! Part 2 is a great place to get in, honestly. It’s episodic — you can start anywhere, there’s only a few episodes that have any degree of continuity — and both the dub and the original are fantastic. Want a story about the curse of Tutankhamen, a parody of Some Like It Hot, a deadly orchestra conductor, aliens coming to Stonehenge, ghosts talking to the main character, or Jesus Christ’s sister being a vampire? You will find them all, and more, in Part 2.
It and the two movies released while it was being broadcast basically influenced the rest of the series. But first, I’m going to talk a little about the music.
The only man who may outdo Yasuo Ōtsuka in his cameos in the series, Yuji Ohno is responsible for almost all of the background music of Lupin III, starting with Part 2. He also has done the soundtracks and themes to numerous other movies and TV series, though most of them have not made it to American shores, as well as other albums of his own. His jazz has had an effect anime in general — he may not have composed it himself, but I’d lend him some credit for influencing the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack.
There are only a few Lupin III movies and series that do not feature Yuji Ohno as the composer.
I mentioned two movies before talking about jazz, so let’s talk about Mystery of Mamo.
Mystery of Mamo was heavily influenced by the manga, as well as movies like “Phantom Of the Paradise,” which was more popular in Japan than it was here. It has a sci-fi slant and it features the Lupin gang kind of being dicks to each other for most of the movie.
Can you start with Mystery of Mamo? Well. If you go in knowing you’re going to get a plot that makes your head spin, maybe. There are 4 different dubs, along with the original Japanese, and 3/5 of them have very different scripts to match their voice actors, so if you do choose to start with it, you get 5 different movies in one go.
It’s one of my favorite movies, I don’t want to say you can’t, but it certainly is a very different swing at the series than Part 2 or the movie I’m gonna go over next.
Castle of Cagliostro, which came out a year after Mamo (and annoyed a lot of manga fans) is one of the most influential animated movies of all time. Even if you’ve never seen it, you’ve probably seen something inspired by it. Pixar, as an animation studio, wouldn’t exist without this movie, that’s how much influence it has.
It also influenced a pretty large chunk of Lupin-related things that came after it.
I’d like to note that The Great Mouse Detective was one of the first uses of computer animation, specifically for the clock. In Castle of Cagliostro, the entire thing was hand-drawn.
And The Simpsons Movie may not look exactly the same, but the animators have stated it was inspired by Castle of Cagliostro.
I have spoken with the director of Cars and their favorite movie was Castle of Cagliostro, so I am pretty sure Luigi being a cream yellow Fiat 500 is an intentional nod.
This isn’t even all of them.
And of course, the references made in Lupin the Third itself:
This is not all of them, not by far. I’m pretty sure I could do an entire panel on the Castle of Cagliostro’s influence on animation and its own series.
Can you start with Castle of Cagliostro? You CAN. Should you? Ehhhhhhh. Listen, I love this movie, it shows Lupin as older, as soft and sweet and caring, and it’s absolutely nothing like the rest of the series portrays him, even though every single movie and series since this one came out has been trying to be this movie again.
A lot of people interested in getting into Lupin III have already seen Castle of Cagliostro, and this is fine! It’s encouraged by everyone, and it’s a fantastic movie! Do not feel bad for starting with it! It’s simply a very different take on Lupin, and not necessarily the best starting point for getting into the series as a whole.
Part 3, or the Pink Jacket series, premiered in 1984. Directed by Yuzo Aoki, who started on the series when he was 19 with Part 1. He allowed the animators to go nuts, the most obvious sign of which is the changing character designs as the show went along. This is one of the lesser appreciated Lupin series, though I think it has a similar tone to Part 2 (though it hasn’t been dubbed). It gets a bad rap because it didn’t get an official translation until a couple years ago, and the fan translations online tended to make the show seem even weirder than it was to start with.
Can you start with Part 3? It hasn’t been dubbed, but if you’re comfortable with that, it’s got a lot of silliness and a lot of seriousness. It feels a lot like Part 2, especially towards the end.
Keep in mind, like all of this (and any other 53-year old) series, there are some situations and character designs that have not aged well with time.
Someone asked Hayao Miyazaki to make another Lupin movie. He wholeheartedly said no, but recommended Mamoru Oshii take a shot at it. You may know Oshii from Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor.
That’s how it started, anyway. Oshii wanted a different take on Lupin — the concept of whether it was just a name, a real person, and what exactly IS being human? Some reports say the original script killed Lupin off, which the production company did not want to do, so Oshii was fired from the project…
And the resulting movie, while a lot of fun, clearly has shuffled through a lot of hands. It also has some problematic depictions of race, yes, even in the mid-1980s.
Can you start with Legend of the Gold of Babylon? I like the dub of this one a lot, and think the story is a lot of fun — it’s a heist, it’s a treasure hunt, I won’t spoil the big reveal but the big reveal is absolutely bizarre (as weird as Mystery of Mamo? …yeah actually, it’s comparable). If you’re comfortable with acknowledging that animation history has problematic elements, it’s not a terrible start to the series!
In 1989, Nippon Television started sponsoring yearly Lupin the Third television specials — a 90 minute animated movie featuring our favorite gang of thieves and their police inspector.
As you can see, there are 28 Lupin specials (they aren’t yearly anymore, sadly). Is this a good place to start? Well, you CAN, but it’s a lot to undertake. However, there’s one in particular I consider my number one recommendation for getting into Lupin III that isn’t a series.
Episode: 0 – First Contact! Specifically the English dub, because the original has one really problematic “joke.” It’s sort of an origin story, or a soft reboot, or whatever you’d like to call it, and it’s an excellent introduction to the characters as they are in the majority of the series. It’s also only 90 minutes, so you don’t have to watch an entire 24-to-155 episode series to get the hang of things.
Of course, I put this in the middle of this essay for a reason. There’s still more recommendations to come.
Original Video Animation, or OVAs, are straight-to-tape (or DVD, or blu-ray) releases. Lupin has had a few, though a couple are simply shorts that were added to DVD collections of the various Parts and are more or less part of the season. The Fuma Conspiracy got theatrical release, but it was originally planned to be an OVA. That one is notable because Yasuo Otsuka, who I mentioned earlier, was the supervisor, and due to devoting all the money to the (very lovely) animation, they had to change the voice actors. It’s the only Lupin III release pre-2021, minus a couple video games, where Kiyoshi Kobayashi is not Jigen. The American release got a different voice cast as well.
Green Vs. Red is the concept of Lupin the Third as a title instead of a generational thing, and Return of Pycal is a 50-minute movie devoted to an enemy from Part 1.
I do not recommend starting with the OVAs as your entryway into Lupin III.
Farewell Nostradamus is a feature-length film shown in theaters and produced by the same guys who animated a lot of things I watched on TV in the 1990s, like Tiny Toons and such (it came out in 1995). In it, a cult is trying to predict the end of the world and to influence the presidential election (let’s not get into that) and Lupin and his gang are attempting to find the book that the cult claims it’s following (for money, mind you, not to stop them).
Is Farewell Nostradamus a Good Starting Point? If you are okay with the titular character being called a pedophile (he is not one, by the way) as a nickname for the entire movie (though in Japanese it does get away from that by the end, and apparently it doesn’t happen at all in the German dub), it’s not a terrible starting point? It’s where I started, and look at me now!
This may be a bad example.
The year after Farewell Nostradamus, a new Lupin movie made its way to theaters. The first few minutes and the ending of the Dead or Alive feature film were directed by the creator of the series, who swore off ever being put in the director’s chair ever again.
Like some of the other movies, it has a sci-fi slant, and, like so many Lupin specials and movies, a country under threat by some wild-ass villains. I personally don’t recommend it as a starting point, though the style is similar to the manga because of Monkey Punch’s involvement, which means it’s very different and very cool.
It also features one of the strangest Zenigata chins in the entire series.
Voice actor break! Some of the specials and both movies I just showed were dubbed by Funimation, with a completely different voice cast than the one I showed earlier. Check out their other work over on Anime News Network, you’ve probably heard them in or directing other anime: Sonny Strait, Christopher Sabat, Mike McFarland, Meredith McCoy, and Philip Wilburn. It feels wrong to not point them out, though I have left out Streamline, Manga UK, and other dubs because I’m already pressing my luck on time here. Greatest respect to voice actors like David Hayter, Bob Bergen, and William Dufris, to name a few. I haven’t forgotten you!
The Woman Called Fujiko Mine features a lot of nudity which I am not showing because otherwise this panel would be rated Adult. It’s a show that is even more for adults than the rest of the series. It’s also the only Lupin series directed and written by women (though a few episodes here and there have since been). The character designs are by Takeshi Koike, who worked for Madhouse and directed the movie Redline, and I’ll be getting to him in a few slides.
The Woman Called Fujiko Mine is a prequel to Part 1, before all these characters meet. It goes into why Fujiko is who she is and does what she does, and why the Lupin gang is linked because of her.
Is The Woman Called Fujiko Mine a Good Starting Point? Depends entirely on your tastes! Each character gets their own episode, which is a great introduction, but the series itself features much, much darker themes than the rest of the series. If you’re interested but not sure, it’s best to investigate anything that may cause you distress and then watch it. If anything I’ve listed makes you go “Eurgh,” then it’s not the best starting series for you.
Alright. I could have done this earlier but it made more sense to get you used to the enormousness of Lupin the Third before introducing the fact that they’ve made live action movies of the series.
Strange Psychokinetic Strategy is Austin Powers before Austin Powers. It’s a wild romp, and silly as hell, though it’s from 1974 and it shows (there’s some very dated and sometimes problematic humor in it).
Lupin the Third came out in 2014, and it is…certainly a movie. I personally am not a huge fan of it, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be! It has a few great moments, and the actor who plays Goemon (who I’ve heard was not a samurai in one of the drafts of the script, though they changed that) is fantastic.
“Inspector Zenigata” is a live-action series from 2017 and it’s fantastic…but it’s difficult to find, and really only works if you already know the character.
Jigen Daisuke — yes, they kept his name in the Japanese order for the title — is a fantastic John Wick-type movie, featuring the same actor who played Jigen in the 2014 live action movie. There’s some amazing action sequences. The only character it’s a good intro to is Jigen, the others do not appear.
Are the Live Action Movies & Series a Good Place to Start? Probably not. They rely on you knowing the characters to some degree, which serves badly as an introduction to the series.
The Jigen movie can be watched as a standalone story. It’s quite good, and it’s on Amazon Prime.
The Koike Movies, as they’re known, are a series of 3 50-minute films (and they’re not OVAs; they were released in theaters) about the Lupin gang: Jigen’s Gravestone, Goemon’s Bloodspray, and Fujiko’s Lie. Like The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, they are darker, bloodier takes on the Lupin series. They also feature new English dub actors for three out of five of the main cast: Cristina Vee as Fujiko, Dan Woren as Jigen, and Keith Silverstein as Lupin the Third. Lex Lang returns as Goemon, and Richard Epcar retakes his role as Inspector Zenigata (as he played it in The Woman Called Fujiko Mine).
Each movie features a new, bizarre villain that’s specific to the title character’s skills. These are sort of prequel movies — Takeshi Koike himself, the director (I told you I’d mention him again), has stated that they work alongside Part 1: Jigen and Lupin aren’t close partners yet, just business associates in Gravestone, and Bloodspray is not too long after Episode 5 of Part 1, where they have just met Goemon.
Are the Koike movies a good place to start? It depends. Though there’s a lot more battling than usually in the series, it’s not shonen anime level. It is, again, like The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, a much more serious take on Lupin and his gang. I also will note that it IS best to watch them in the order listed. It’s a continuous story that builds up over 3 movies.
It also has not been finished yet. It was said a few years ago that plans for both Zenigata and Lupin movies have been made, but it’s been 5 years since the release of Fujiko’s Lie.
I will warn: Jigen’s Gravestone features a robot with…ahem…extremely specific usage, and Goemon’s Bloodspray is called that for a reason. There’s an exceptional amount of blood and the animators got a chance to show off how the muscles in an arm look. It’s also my personal favorite of the series.
Part 4 is the first Lupin series that wasn’t about Fujiko since 1985, and to me (and keep in mind this is just my opinion), it feels like a soft reboot of the series. The gang acts a little less friendly to one another than they do in Part 2 and Part 3. This doesn’t detract from the show, though — there are some fun adventures and a new love interest: Rebecca Rossellini.
The main storyline in Part 4 was written by the same fella who wrote the Koike movies, Yūya Takahashi, which may explain why the characters seem like they just met each other.
Can you start with Part 4? You can! Besides not needing to know the rest of the series to enjoy it (though, not gonna lie, it’s full of references to both Part 1 and Castle of Cagliostro), each character gets their own episode that goes into who they are and what they’re about.
Getting it out of the way upfront: Part 5 is my favorite of the Lupin the Third series. It has four different arcs, all of them linked together as one big story, and several standalone episodes that reference previous Parts (as well as the humor styles of each of them). This series introduces Albert, the series’ first canonically gay character and more than likely, according to the director’s commentary, one of Lupin’s many cousins. We also meet Ami, a young hacker who is up against the main villain in this series: The internet. And we meet Goro Yatagarasu, named for the actor who used to voice Zenigata, Goro Naya.
Is Part 5 A Good Place to Start? In my opinion, hell yes. Part 4 may have modernized the series, but Part 5 modernized the plot: What good is a gentleman thief in the 21st century, when the internet and mass surveillance exist around the world? The looks back on the previous Parts is also a great place to see which ones you may have a taste for. There are an absolute ton of references to previous series and specials, but none of them need to be known to “get” the story. It carries itself on its own.
I already showed the preview for The First, and there’s not a whole lot else to say. A young woman named Laetitia has her chances at becoming an archeologist — her dream job — stolen by very literal Nazis; a world-ending alien technology falls into the hands of those Nazis; Lupin and his gang have to save the world. Roughly in that order.
Is The First a Good Place to Start? Yes! It also works well as a standalone film, similar to Castle of Cagliostro, if you’re only interested in watching one or two movies in the series. The main characters are introduced within the first twenty minutes of the movie (which is actually faster than in Cagliostro), and it was written and directed by now-Oscar winner Takashi Yamazaki.
Part 6 was done for the 50th anniversary of Part 1, which is why Lupin is wearing a green jacket again. Like other anime, it’s divided into 2 stories — the first half is Lupin Vs. Sherlock Holmes, the second half is Lupin Vs. His Mom.
Though there are 2 stories, like Parts 4 and 5, there are one-off individual episodes. The first half of the season was written almost entirely by mystery novel writers, except for two by Mamoru Oshii (remember him? I mentioned him earlier. Ghost in the Shell guy). The second half is written by anime writers.
Is Part 6 A Good Place to Start? Though Part 6 has individual character episodes — in fact, Yata, Zenigata’s fellow officer, gets his own episode! — they all rely on you knowing the personalities and a bit of the history of the characters themselves. Sherlock Holmes is written very differently than he usually is, which bothered a lot of Sherlock Holmes fans I know.
There are a few standout episodes, but all in all, not the best place to start your Lupin the Third journey.
Lupin Zero is a look at Lupin before he’s Lupin the Third: a 13-year old in late 1950s/early 1960s Tokyo.
I’m not going to explain the whole “how does this series work with time” thing, that’s for another essay.
It’s when Lupin meets Jigen for the first time, we get a look at his canonically bisexual grandfather Arsene Lupin AND his father (Lupin the Second), and once again he has to save the world, or at least, Tokyo.
Is Lupin Zero a good place to start? Lupin Zero relies on you knowing the characters and knowing a lot of the series to “get” a lot of the story. It’s incredibly cute, and like Part 5, a love letter to the series and a love letter to Lupin and Jigen’s partnership. But it’s not the best thing for a beginner. You know a lot more about the series now, though, so who knows, maybe it will work for you!
In 2023, Lupin got a kabuki production of its own, and because it’s popular enough worldwide to justify it, it is getting an English subtitled DVD & blu-ray release this August. I’ve seen the show myself, though I don’t speak Japanese (especially the old-fashioned style of it used in kabuki), but it’s absolutely beautiful and, best I can tell, true to the series.
So, hopefully I’ve piqued your interest in Lupin the Third. You may be wondering, Tabbie, where can I watch this amazing show? Luckily, it’s on a ton of streaming services — both in dubbed and subtitled forms!
Where to Watch Lupin the Third
Services You May Already Subscribe To
Prime Video • CrunchyRoll • Hulu • HIDIVE
Services That Are FREE!
PlutoTV • Tubi • TMS’s YouTube Channel
Likewise, I highly recommend purchasing the blu-rays if you can. Discotek, who’s in charge of the American distribution, does some amazing stuff (not sponsored, I just like their work).
Top Recommendations from TabbieWolf
Episode 0 – First Contact: Best way to get into the whole series in 90 minutes.
Part 5: Best way to get into the series in a full series (if you’re cool with something longer than 90 minutes)
Lupin III – The First: Best way to test the waters if you’re unsure about the characters.
Image & Info Sources
The Internet: Behind the Voice Actors, IMDB, Lupin Central, Plex, r/VintageTelevision, SoraNews24.com, waltherp38709.blog.fc2.com, wikipedia.jp, Wikipedia
Discotek: Almost Everything except…
GKIDS: Lupin III: The First, “English Cast Reunited”
HIDIVE/Sentai Filmworks: Part 6 & Lupin Zero
Lupin III: Part 2 Collection, Japanese Release Interview with Monkey Punch
Yasuo Otsuka’s “Joy in Motion”