Lupin III: Prison of the Past

I LOVE Lupin III and I really appreciate that they used red Jacket Lupin! This special is really fun and nostalgic. Within the first opening scene they used the Lupin III theme with vocals and it was truly music to my ears.

ART 10/10
I think the art style is really crisp and clean for 2019. Although I’ll always love the classic Lupin artstyle I quite like this new modern art style too! I guess it’s important to realise that anime is changing and so will old art styles. It’s good to appreciate both!

MUSIC 10/10
I always love Lupin III soundtrack. Love going on a drive ... and putting the OSTS on. I definitely downloaded the remastered vocal version and played it a couple of times and many of the other tracks from this special.

STORY 8/10
It’s quite a good story but there definitely has been some more outstanding storylines within the Lupin III series. I really enjoyed that they maintained the personalities of the characters especially Goemon when he is a bit moody haha. I guess I am quite open minded and mostly appreciate the overall of the special but it’s quite enjoyable and worth a watch!

CHARACTER 10/10
What can I say? I love all the characters and they were well maintained! I love how they were shown

Overall

I loved this special and I look forward to more in the future. Lupin III is a series getting recognised more world widely instead of just Japan and I hope it continues. The special was very enjoyable and nostalgic. Give it a watch!

[THIS WAS WRITTEN RIGHT AFTER WATCHING IT AND ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACC. KEEPING THIS HERE FOR AN ARCHIVE]
PRISON OF THE PAST DONE 🤩🤩🤩 IT WAS SO GOOOOOD OMG
The plot was kinda lame and been there done that but had some small slivers of something that could’ve been much deeper but like usual w this kinda shit they never actually MAKE ANY USE OF ANYTHING HANDED TO THEM. THEY SPRINKLE IT AND GIVE HINTS AT IF AND JUST LEAVE IT LIKE THAT. PLEASE GUYS JUST FUCKING. USE THE MATERIAL.
But other than that the character moments were so good and funny and the dub cast sounded ... like they had a good time recording it :D in terms of the dub script I’m still miffed modern lupin dubs never do anything fun anymore, but this one really had that bang zoom way too true to the source material vibe like anyone who wasn’t in the main loop gang sounded so stilted and stiff which was sad. The bang zoom curse has poisoned lupin now too 💔 hopefully whatever they dub next will be more loose and goofy
I now realize everything I’ve said so far has been negatives. BUT THE MOVIE WAS SO MUCH FUN I WAS SMILING THE WHOLE TIME. I ALSO noticed the character designer for part 6 also did the designs for this movie which was fun to see!!!! I like how they make lupin look a lot older w the wrinkles, makes it feel like he’s actually aging in some way. Also his mouth is constantly going :3 which is obviously another big plus. Soundtrack wise this movie has to be like one of my favorites ever omg yuji ohno fuckinv does it again!!! This time most of the ost was remixes of old songs which was really fun given that the name of the movie is “prison of the past”. I heard Manhattan joke, superhero, gift, and there’s probably a lot more I just never noticed was playing. In terms of remixes this one is definitely the best hands down.
Anyway prison of the past was so much fun I loved it a lot even if parts of it were a little bit on the blander side
I give it B/C rating

I've watched all Lupin III's seasons and a lot of the movies. This film felt like a parody of Lupin's 50 year legacy and I'll explain why in this review.

Animation: clean, colourful and with the old school charm that is part of Lupin III's iconic visuals. However, at the end of the movie, it was quite inconsistent.

Sound:
1) Lupin III's iconic theme song was ruined by some dodgy lyrics and vocals. For 50 years, the instrumental has been a constant presence in every episode, movie, OVA, special. Yet, for some odd reason, this movie wanted it to be different and it was just ... awful. There's a saying that goes "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" and it fits perfectly here.
2) "Super Hero"'s version for this movie had terrible vocals. Again. if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Story and characters:
1) this film is more cartoon-like in terms of comedy and action and I feel that this new approach didn't help the level of enjoyment at all because it's just not Lupin III's style.
2) Lupin's gang and Zenigata and his assistant felt like parodies of themselves: Zenigata is never really focused on arresting Lupin, Lupin doesn't act as expected towards Fujiko, ... just to give a few examples.
3) the story feels rushed and many events make no sense whatsoever.
4) SPOILER: in every Lupin's story there's always a girl/woman that happens to pretty and they need help. I would love to see some creativy story-wise because it just gets old and too predictable for it to be enjoyable.


Overall, because the story is poorly executed and the characters don't feel like their real selves and also because the iconic soundtrack got butchered, I have to rate this film a 3/10.