Lupin III: Kutabare! Nostradamus

[THIS WAS WRITTEN RIGHT AFTER WATCHING IT AND ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACC. KEEPING THIS HERE FOR AN ARCHIVE]
Farewell to Nostradamus is done and like Ik I say “this is the strangest lupin movie yet” every time I watch one of these but genuinely this one takes the crown out of all the weird ones I’ve seen yet. Shits literally about some aum shinrikyo cult and some guy tryna run for US president and at the final leg of the movie the huge skyscraper tower the president guy built fucking explodes in an extremely devastating way that it felt almost 9/11-y even tho it was ... made BEFORE 9/11 (THE VERY BEGINNING OF FHE MOVIE HAD A PLANE HIJACKING TOO IRONICALLY ENOUGH 💀💀💀). The plot was batshit insane.
ASIDE FROM THAT helloooook the animation??????? Felt like I was watching some Warner bros cartoon the entire time and in a good way. There was even a quick tiny toons-y cameo somewhere in the movie too which was really fun to see, which also confirms that one of the Warner bros outsourcing studios worked on this. Literally every scene moved so nicely. I’m so used to lupin movies animations being more grounded in reality, so this was really cool and makes me wish more of the franchise could’ve been done in this kinda style. Apparently the studio behind this one was so exhausted and overworked they FLAT OUT REFUSED TO DO ANY MORE LUPIN FOR OVER 10 YEARS. I DONT BLAME GHEM.
Oh and I’d like to say the backgrounds in this movie r OFF THE CHARTS. UNREAL ASS SHOTS CONSTANTLY.
Plot wise this one was weak but literally every other aspect carried it above and beyond easily. I recommend this one to anyone who wants to shut their brain off and get hypnotized by fun animation.
This one is hard to rank but I guess my thoughts as of rn put this one at 9/10. I think my rating system is severely flawed bc i keep giving every movie high scores but :) yknow

[this was written right after watching it. easy 10/10 actually]

Originally released in 1995 I had the (mis)fortune of getting a copy of the 2003 Funimation Dub on DVD from a local shop for super cheap.

Frankly, thats the biggest problem with the version I watched. The dub is terrible, characters have 0 emotional range and a lot of scenes that would have worked better quite or with sound effects are just filled with poorly dubbed in grunting that never ever stops.

Why not watch the subbed version?
Cause the Japanese audio is in mono only. And as much crap as I give the dub, I can't stand mono.


Overall the writing is okay, the characters don't need ... much depth to work but I feel we spend too much time watching Lupin tote around a child so fans of the other members of his gang are going to be a bit disappointed. (I think Goemon my personal fave gets about 3 lines in the whole film)

The animation is fantastic, the original 1995 release must have looked stunning. Unfortunately when Funimation put it on DVD the film reel they used to digitize it had numerous scratches and burn marks. All of which remain throughout.

I realize it sounds like I'm really ragging on this and I guess I am, but the best part of a Lupin flick is the comedy and by god they delivered here. Almost every joke landed and the slapstick is still topnotch as always.

While I feel other films in the franchise are better overall, if your a fan like me you'll enjoy this one.

If you'd ask me whether or not I'd recommend this movie, I'd say "No". And if you ask me why:

A short answer would be: IT'S BORING. Go watch Cagliostro no Shiro or Lupin III The First. They're much, much better Lupin movies.

A long answer would be: There's nothing unique in this film. It looks like a failed attempt to market the series to a 90s western audience.

If you watched your share of Lupin, you might see that it's somewhat simillar in structure to Hergé's Tin Tin: A big mystery is placed on our protagonists' lap, which they slowly uncover it while outwitting villanous groups trying ... to shut them down, and end up screwing up said villains plans as "heroes of justice" along the way. Difference being the focus on the actions of mainly 3 characters in Lupin (Lupin, Fujiko and the main villain), instead of the usual 2 in Tin Tin (Tin Tin and the villain), with other characters used as seemed fit. Both have a blend of mystery and action, with the latter always being treated more as a puzzle for the main characters, as they're usually outnumbered.

Now, Nostradamus doesn't have a mystery. Everything is pretty much revealed on the first couple of minutes. Which is ok, it's trying to be more action focused. Except the action sucks. They either bruteforce their way into the obstacles in a complete non-Phanton Thief style, or have such absurd solutions that most of the time makes no sense:
Example: There's a scene where Lupin, after fleeing a prison island, is climbing a ladder on a moving helicopter while some armed guys are shoting both him and the heli. Those guys manage to hit Lupin's arm, making him fall into the sea, where a swarm of sharks instantly appears. Afraid of going above water and getting shot again, he GRABS one of the sharks, and it CARRIES him unscathed to safe land. Not to mention those armed guys had no reason to be at that island and they were only pursuing Lupin at that moment for a secret message he got that was created AFTER they arrived on the island. A lot of times the characters just happen to be at the right time and the right place, almost never taking decisions on their own and instead being dragged along by others.

It's either like this or just severely underwhelming, using a lot of "convenient technology" like a "memory to video converter", a lockpick + walkie talkie spy tooth, fake eye taken as a memento that happens to be the key to the coffer, etc...To make things worse, the animation and sound design falls flat. No impact, no comedy, no tension and no excitement.

Not helped by the empty husks that are the characters. No love put into them. The voice actors did an "OK" job to say the least, but the lines aren't enough to bring them to life. They have no personality, as if the writers saw the basic description of each of them and never tried to go beyond it. There's no character development. The motivation for both main characters and villains are pathetic and/or underexplained.

There's also an excessive use of guns and death, which is very out of tone for the series and for the film itself. All engages with the villains involve either guns or time bombs, making them very repetitive. Only at the end they try something a bit more unique with the bombs, and that's just saying they didn't just put it on the ground or at someone's hand, but it still is just timed bombs.

It's not even a mediocre movie, it's just plain boring and bad.

Let it play on the TV as background noise for you to sleep.