After scrolling through Letterboxd reviews of Lupin III movies, I started to notice that a lot of the top reviews were overwhelmingly negative and absolutely heinous. By which I mean these people are earnestly attempting to analyze plot, like "2.5 stars, the story was really absurd and flimsy and convoluted." But like, yeah dummy. It's Lupin.
The appeal of Lupin isn't the writing, it's the car chases, and the wacky spy gadgets, and the bitchin' jazz fusion soundtrack, and seeing Goemon cut entire helicopters in half, etc. If you can't handle a Lupin installment being a little bit insane, it's like, what are you even doing here? Do you even like this franchise?? Go watch something else!!!
So in a feverish haze of spite and caffeine, I went crazy and spent the last month watching all 28 of the Lupin III TV specials, so that I can review and rank them from the perspective of someone who DOES actually like this franchise.
(I've decided to cap this list off at just the TV specials, bc if I decided to include the feature films, OVAs, etc, this would've gotten SO out of hand. This post is already obnoxiously long, and this isn't even half of what's out there.)
Before diving into the full list and seeing what ranks as best overall, I wanted to shoutout a few extra films in particular:
Honorable Mentions
Best Entry for Beginners: Swallowtail Tattoo
Most Underrated: Angel Tactics
Best Use of the Ensemble Cast: Missed by a Dollar
Most Unique Change of Pace: Elusiveness of the Fog
Best Visuals: Tokyo Crisis
With that out of the way, it's time for the main event.
One more thing before we get started: I do not gaf about spoilers, and have made no attempt to avoid them. I don't think there are any REALLY egregious ones in here, but this is NOT sppoiler-free territory. You have been warned.
Okie dokie, let's get into it. Here is my complete ranking of all 28 of the TV Specials featuring Monkey Man and the Funky Bunch:
28. The Secret of Twilight Gemini
27. Princess of the Breeze
Evil. Fuck this evil, evil movie. Fuck that scary ass baby. And especially fuck this evil, evil movie for making me sit through a whole scene of that scary ass baby SHITTING ON SCREEN. I need to go and gouge my eyes out real quick.
26. The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure
Also pretty generally offensive, although not nearly as bad as Twilight Gemini. The thing that saves this one from the VERY bottom of the list is that when it decides to stop being offensive for more than 5 seconds, it actually DOES manage to be pretty funny. Unlike Twilight Gemini, I did actually enjoy parts of this. Just like, not that many parts. (Side note: remember that episode of Seinfeld where they go to see the fictional in-universe movie Chunnel? About the Chunnel getting blown up in a political conspiracy? That's like, the actual premise of this one.)
25. Lupin III vs. Detective Conan
I feel kinda bad for trashing this crossover because I'm not even the target audience. I’ve never seen Conan and I’ll probably never watch it again after this special. None of the Conan characters endeared me, and the art style pisses me off so bad, why does everyone’s face look like that omfg. Lupin and Co are barely even in this. Sorry Conan fans I guess, but taken purely as a Lupin special, this was dookie.
24. The Secret Page of Marco Polo
All the boring ones are lumped together at the bottom of the list here, and this is the boringest of the boring ones. Because my god, is this BORING!!! The main plotline is boring, the villain plotline is boring, the Goemon sidequest is boring, like I did not care about ANY OF THIS. All of the one-off episodic characters were so underdeveloped that this kind of felt like watching a crossover, as if all the character development happened in another movie and I missed it somehow. (It's not a crossover though, it just sucks.)
23. Blood Seal of the Eternal Mermaid
The other Lupin fans are going to flay me alive for ranking this so low, but I genuinely can't fathom why this one gets so much hype. It's not even BAD, it's just extremely flat and dull. It feels like they came up with the ending, but then forgot to properly establish how we get there or why we even care, so a lot of the important stuff just gets thrown in at the last second. And I can normally forgive poor pacing and writing if the hijinks are interesting enough to make up for it, but this barely had any good hijinks at all. I hate to rate something so low just because it's not goofy enough, but fuck it, it's MY blog and I can do what I want so: not goofy enough.
22. Sweet Lost Night
Started off extremely strong, and then fizzled out real fast. The first sequence where Lupin wakes up in the middle of nowhere with amnesia was one of the best comedic/action scenes in the whole franchise, and if the rest of the movie had carried that same energy, it would have been great. But after that scene, I guess the gang decides to make a pitstop in Expositionville for the next hour instead of doing anything else interesting. Also, for a movie about Lupin having amnesia, he sure as fuck doesn’t even have amnesia for most of it.
21. Goodbye Partner
Had bits and pieces that were alright, but had a lot more bits and pieces that pissed me off. The highlight of this was easily the team-up of just Lupin and Goemon without the other two, which was a fun little change of pace (especially when they threw Zenigata into the mix). The Jigen backstory we got in this was borderline cool too, but it would've been better if they didn't abandon it for half the movie. The worst part of this was the piano sequences (featuring horrible, horrible CGI hands), especially the one at the finale. ALSO that wasn't even swing jazz, smfh.
20. Voyage to Danger
The premise of a Zenigata and Lupin team-up is interesting enough, but it's completely wasted here on the most lackluster execution ever. It's just generally slow-paced and dry and not very visually interesting, especially all the parts set on the submarine. It's especially strange that the gimmick of this one seems to hinge on the Zenigata team-up when we've seen this done a million times before. And done BETTER, too (see: several entries below). The one thing I will say in this movie's favor is that Fujiko's character is actually done justice for once. She CARRIED this for me.
19. From Siberia with Love
Man, for a film with “Siberia” in the title, they sure do spend a LOT of this movie in Texas. This one was mostly fine, but there was a lack of good action sequences, which made the whole thing fall a little flat. It either needed to be slapstickier or like, 30 minutes shorter to keep it moving. Judy (the one-off NPC girl) is kind of awesome. Loved her lezcoded dynamic with Fujiko. The one-off villain on the other hand was.....bizarre, like wtfreak was with the FINGERS? The animation here was also WAY worse than usual. Usually idgaf about the cheap-looking animation (bc I'm used to watching like, Part II), but this one did actually start to annoy me a little.
18. The Columbus Files
This one was actually alright, but I can't in good faith rank it any higher because they did my girl Fujiko SOOOO dirty. There's already such a dearth of good Fujiko content already, so having HER be the one that gets memory-wiped? Pissed me off so bad. All that said, literally everything else about this was good. The humor is on point, Rosaria was a great NPC girl, and I loved that villain whose schtick was like, having an annoying laugh. I also really liked that we got to see Lupin and Fujiko's situationship developed beyond just being a running gag. My new favorite character is Boat Engine.
17. The Italian Game
This is kind of an odd entry because it's just 3 episodes from Part IV Frankensteined together, like straight up completely re-used scenes. And this DID end up being really enjoyable, because Part IV is really enjoyable, but I can't really justify why anyone should watch this when they could just watch the original Part IV episodes instead.
16. Island of Assassins
This one is pretty solid, but it's also DARK. Lupin is already crazy violent, but it's usually like, goofy, slapsticky Looney Tunes violence that you can safely assume everyone will bounce back from. But in this one, there was like, the actual threat of real death and injury the whole time. Bummed me out big time. Everyone also looked really off-model. Never thought I’d say this, but I missed Lupin’s Curious George looking face. Anyways this is all just personal preference, so if you ARE a dark and gritty Lupin enjoyer, I do heavily rec this one.
15. The Hemingway Papers
The girls are fightingggg! All the previous ones were skippable at best, but we're officially into the ones I liked. This is near the bottom of that section because the action felt a little drier than usual and because I couldn't bring myself to gaf about the war subplot. Zenigata also kind of gets the shaft big time, worse than usual. But there were also enough cool or fun or goofy moments to save this one from the doldrums for me. Goemon chuffing back a fat dart while slicing through a cave wall is easily one of the tuffest moments in the entire franchise. Loves it.
14. Napoleon's Dictionary
This one gets a bad rap for being slow and boring, and it IS slow, but I didn't find it boring. I think it's partially because the plot was so stupid and ridiculous that it kind of looped back around to being entertaining in a good way. I also really liked the visuals of this one. Obsessed with the Great Race style vintage cars and outfits, especially Zenigata's. Actually, this was a really good Zenigata moment in general. Goemon also watches some samurai film and then won't stop quoting the main character, which is so iconic, like girl me too.
13. Seven Days Rhapsody
I should probably like this one a lot less, considering that like, barely anything happens in it. I guess there is some generic heist storyline, but it's mostly just 90 minutes of shipbaiting and character bits. But like, I am not immune to shipbaiting and character bits, soooo.......fuck it, this ruled.
12. Alcatraz Connection
Kind of felt like an episode of The Lone Gunmen, so obviously this was mega awesome. I'm pretty sure that we, the audience, are supposed to take all the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory stuff with a grain of salt, but idk. It all seems to check out to me. Either way, probably still less insane than actual U.S. political history.
11. The Last Job
Somehow, I find it hard to believe that this was going to be Lupin's last job.....Anyway, this was pretty bog standard for a Lupin special, by which I mean it was still really, really good. The action scenes are all immaculate and there's a lot of really insane plot elements in this one, including: a ninja woman, a ninja DOG, a gay half-chicken half-man who's ALSO a ninja, and the gang almost getting sucked up by an actual black hole. (My one complaint is that there's far too much, uhm, pissing and farding and shidding jokes in this one. It was like they let a 9-year-old into the writers' room.)
10. Missed by a Dollar
Plot was CRAZY, it was so good omfg. Lupin is at an auction, then all of a sudden he's dead, then all of a sudden he's alive again, then all of a sudden he's an OIL TYCOON. Like, the rest of this is so crazy that Goemon gets brainwashed into a cult and it's not even really a major plot point. I really like the ones that kind of forgo any kind of rational storyline and just kind of vibe for 90 minutes. Special shoutout to Sandy, who's barely even in this tbh, but who does give us some absolutely sicknasty vocals in the soundtrack. Girl has PIPES. This rules.
9. Elusiveness of the Fog
Heavily based on what is no doubt my favorite episode from Part I, and this feature-length adaptation did NOT disappoint. Mamoh is even more entertaining here than he was in the original episode. The introduction of equal parts futuristic sci-fi AND historical drama into the typical setup was a very fun way to mix things up. Fujiko needed like 10x more screentime (par for the course), but Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon were in peak form. I guess a lot of people find this one too boring, and while I don't think “boring” is fair, I WILL admit that it’s not very visually interesting. But the story is more than enough to carry itself without added visuals, so idec.
8. Swallowtail Tattoo
A lot of these specials try to subvert the “Lupin formula” (i.e. the various recurring tropes and plot beats) to justify their longer runtime, but this one sort of does the opposite. Like this is THE Lupin formula, just done really, really well. Becky and Lumberjack are easily two of my favorite one-off characters in the entire franchise. (Although the romance stuff with Lupin and Becky was a little.....certified WTF moment.) The whole gang gets plenty of great moments to shine, the action scenes are tuff, Lupin is a total fuckwad, and the real treasure ends up being the friends they made along the way. No seriously.
7. Angel Tactics
Girl Power: The Movie, and it's cool and sexy as fuck. It was also fucking INSANE. I never knew where this was going next and it was epic awesomesauce. The gang jacks an alien UFO from outer space and then have to face off against their girl gang assassin counterparts (Fujiko's is a drag king). Even Zenigata gets a little girl assistant. Every beat in this was either sicknasty as hell or sexy as hell. Usually both at the same time. People tend to dislike this one for some reason, but I think those people probably just hate fun. Couldn't be me.
6. Prison of the Past
5. Episode 0: First Contact
Sometimes, the fun of Lupin is how unpredictable it is, and being caught off guard by the crazy antics. Other times, the fun comes from knowing exactly what's about to play out, but enjoying the particularly unique or polished or amusing execution of it anyway. This special is very much predictable fun, but with the added appeal that, for the characters, this is their first time going through the motions of a Lupin story. It's like watching all the puzzle pieces click into place all at once, and it's fucking awesome.
4. Tokyo Crisis
3. Dragon of Doom
Okay, I'm definitely biased here bc this is the Goemon one, and everyone and their mother knows that he's my favorite character. But this actually does still fuck severely, even if you're not a hardcore Goemon fan. The rest of the gang get up to enough insane antics that this should be enjoyable for anyone, regardless of who your fav is. (Said hijinks include: infiltrating the Titanic, piloting a getaway boat shaped like a big rubber duckie, and attending a costume party. In costume.) Goemon IS the best part of this though. Like, you know that running gag where Goemon cuts like, a plane or a helicopter in half? This is like that, but if it was stretched into the central conflict of a 90-minute film, and it's the tuffest thing I've ever seen.
2. Bye Bye Lady Liberty
This movie is a mess, but it's a beautiful mess and I can dig that. This is one of the entries that's REALLY fun if you just embrace the chaos and go along for the ride. Like, this is a movie where a guy steals the Statue of Liberty, it's best not to get bogged down in trying to make sense of the writing. Had an absolute blast with the gang on their wacky Cross-America road trip adventure, complete with scrumptious visuals, an evil cult, a genius hacker kid, and one of the coolest anti-villains in Lupin history. It's fucking crazy and it fucking rules. Did they even return the Statue of Liberty at the end? Who even cares. Hell yeah.
1. Operation Return the Treasure
This is the best one. I know that because every 5 seconds, something else cool would happen and out loud I would go, "Oh okay, THIS is the best one." I like the silly ones, and this is the silliest one of all. No notes.
BONUS: The Lupin TV Specials Drinking Game
- The MacGuffin is vaguely tied to some random historical figure (e.g. Napoleon, the Romanovs, etc).
- Jigen is spot on about Fujiko betraying them.
- Goemon takes down a helicopter.
- Fujiko is shown taking a shower or a bath.
- There's a background pianist character clearly modeled after Yuji Ohno.
- Lupin disguises himself as Zenigata and/or Zenigata is disguised as Lupin.
- Lupin gets cock-blocked.
Go nuts.
