Today I want to introduce Lupin the 3rd. You probably have no idea who this is from the name. Outside of Japan and anime geeks, Lupin III is not a famous name, but the character has been around for nearly sixty years, so you may have seen him before.

This this Lupin the 3rd.

Pronounced Lu-pAHn, he is the grandson of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief who is as famous in France as Sherlock Holmes is in England. He first appeared in 1967 in a popular manga. From there he moved into animation which is where he found fame. There have been six TV series by this point and nearly 30 movies and longer specials. There have even been a few live action movies.

The most popular of them I'm sure is The Castle of Cagliostro, directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

I'm not writing a review, so you'll have to go read @aurzeq's review which he coincidently wrote just a few days ago (I hadn't seen his post yet before I started writing this post). This was popular worldwide and has been given as the inspiration for their movies by many Hollywood directors for their films. Some even think it inspired Raiders of the Lost ark (released two years after Castle of Cagliostro) as many of the scenes and situations in Raiders are remarkably similar.

Usually Lupin is depicted as a somewhat ruthless guy and his adventures feature a lot of adult situations. Miyazaki changed him into a pure hero got rid of the adult elements, things that may be factors in his movie being the most popular Lupin adventure.

Lupin's adventures usually feature three others. We have Jigen who carries a Smith & Wesson and never misses, no matter how difficult or impossible the shot. His character was inspired by James Coburn in The Magnificent Seven, and you can definitely see the inspiration.

Goemon, who carries a samurai sword which can cut anything. Goemon was based on Kyūzō from Seven Samurai, which interestingly was the movie remade into The Magnificent Seven. Goemon always dresses in traditional Japanese attire and prefers traditional Japanese things (food, entertainment, etc).

Then we have Fujiko. She is Lupin's love interest and also his foil, usually only helping him and crew long enough to steal everything for herself in the end.

Set against this gang of thieves we have inspector Zenigata of Interpol who is always chasing them.

Here, watch one of the show openings

here's another version of that opening from the most recent movie

and here's a clip showing the amazing talents of Jigen and Goemon

That song that you heard in the opening and in the background of the scene, by the way, is iconic. It was composed by the legendary jazz musician Yuji Ohno and has remained with us in nearly every version of Lupin. Here is a longer jam session with Ohno and band playing an absolutely fantastic version of the song.

Anyway, that's all. Just wanted to introduce you. If you like what you saw, do a few YouTube searches to see more clips. It's a fun show. If you have kids, you may want to avoid the TV series if you don't want them to see adult situations, but many of the movies are made more with kids in mind so the violence and sex are toned way down.

I only discovered Lupin through my son actually. I've never been a huge anime fan so I had only seen Lupin in commercials and on posters (anime characters often appear on completely unrelated posters around here—@koto-art talked about this recently) and so on. My son was shown a little of one of the movies when he visited a friend's house and he loved it, and before long he convinced me to get some of the movies for him to watch. It grows on you—especially that great music.

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.

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