Lupin: Return the Treasures

[Dracos]

As far as I understand it, Lupin: Return the Treasures is the latest movie that has come out in the Lupin set of Movies.  Staring a familiar cast of Lupin and his friends, the movie follows Lupin's quest to fulfill an old friend's last wishes and return the treasures said friend had stolen in order to retrieve a prized diamond.

Notably, my first experience with this was battling with the codecs for a number of hours to get it to run.  So, I may be more positive than it deserves when it finally did run.

The story, for the most part, is pretty predictably outlined.  Lupin commits theft.  Lupin is given quest by someone with power over him.  Lupin trusts Fujiko.  Lupin is betrayed by Fujiko who herself is betrayed.  Lupin and Fujiko work together to take out other crime lord wronged in first heist resulting in retrieving a treasure Lupin can't steal.

Textbook lupin without any real twists in the tale and stuff that they've done better before, which bears definite note.

That said, it is better than average for a Lupin movie, the art is sharp, and while the artists couldn't pull off a fight scene to save their lives (You do not show Goemon cutting through bullets and then having trouble doing the same with a simple knife), there's plenty of amusing lupin comedy to help carry the show along.

Overall, the bad guys lack flair and it kind of brings down the sense of it since they really tried to get a whole rivalry bit going.  They toss in stuff designed to bring the attention to them and make them seem 'pro' but really it doesn't work in light of overall weak cheorographing throughout.

Zenigata is ...not Zenigata.  In fact, he goes out of his way to mention this every time he shows up.  He's 'DIFFERENT'.  HE's NEW.  He's...not nearly as charismatically amusing as usual.  In fact, he seems to be one step ahead of Lupin almost the entire movie, tossing Lupin in jail a multitude of times and consistantly pulling out these ranged handcuffs.  Overall, I didn't really like the changes or the attempt to emphasize them.  They didn't come off as awesome as he showed in First Contact or in Castle of Calistigro.

The art quality is pretty high throughout the anime, looking like something made today instead of in the eighties, while still retaining the Lupin feel to it all.

Overall, the best part of the film really was the opening heist and it sort of went down from there with a few good parts (Lupin's deceased rival was amusing on his own).  A middling showing all around, worth watching once if you're a lupin fan, but not keeping around.

Dracos