Five visually stunning and mostly-watchable shorts.
Gala - Fine 5/10. A unique premise about the marvels of life, for lack of better words. Good visuals, but nothing too spectacular. Also could've been shorter and nothing would've been lost.
Moondrive - Good 8/10. Entertaining, Lupin III-esque action comedy. Has a plot. Fun cartoony animation style, memorable scratchy linework and backgrounds, decent number of actually funny jokes. Brought down a bit by its less funny sexism.
Wanwa the Doggy - Okay 6/10. Really unique art style that kind of resembles Masaaki Yuasa's short in the first Genius Party. Little more than just a very long chase scene, but the abstract
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May 16, 2021
Underrated gem among the Lupin III series. Don't pass it up.
Bad stuff first: Plot-wise, this is a pretty average Lupin movie, it's got the standard cast of forgettable side-characters, a very straightforward quest for treasure, and a generic villain with generic evil motives. There's a bit of awkward pacing too, with really fun action sequences being separated by sequences of characters literally just walking around a cave. If you've seen Castle of Cagliostro, then this will come off as a weaker retelling of the same ideas. Audio here is below average, unfortunately. The soundtrack doesn't have any memorable tunes, and a lot of it feels kind ... |
