The disconnect between the two halves of Lupin is best encapsulated through its opening. The first opening utilises freeze frames and timing its action in tune to the music to economically convey a feeling of momentum, and its stylisation is further recognisable through the use of a split-diopter shot and rapid-cutting psychedelic imagery. The psychedelic influence also bleeds into the overall soundtrack, with music clearly influenced by the emergent, experimental developments in rock from the 60s, but without the production value to really follow through. Although simplistic and sometimes repetitive soundtracks for older anime are quite standard, the lack of production value in Lupin's case is evidenced by the fact that all the songs (including the OPs) have the unifying quality of not having any ideas for lyrics beyond just repeating the show's title.
For any series, not just one constrained to the budgets of the 1970s, Lupin’s animation is significant for carrying an unprecedented level of monumentality via its commitment to a pure level of mayhem, which is really its principal goal as a series. Compared for a moment to most heavy hitters within the shonen genre, which concern themselves with questions of psychology and morality, Lupin is a refreshingly simple construction. It does not ask questions of morality, it makes an unwavering, declarative judgement: Guns are cool, cars are cool, and its singular intention is to make full use of the fluidity and dynamism of animation to demonstrate these principal truths.
The Western genre was upended by Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch in 1969, which, as with Lupin, did not invent any new ideas, it only found the force to push those relentless aspects of the genre’s most chaotic institutions to new heights. Similarly, Lupin did not find new ways to direct a car chase or a firefight, but it does have a unique strength in highlighting the intensity of these items, through a great emphasis on movement, rather than landscapes and orientating establishing shots. Accentuating the humour with this approach, whereby characters will have guns seemingly materialise in their back pockets at a moment’s notice, it commits to the intensity and emotional investment of its action sequences in a manner that might not be edited in an unusual manner, but through framing its action in a way that prioritises its intensity over any conception of ‘sense’, it has more commonality with its psychedelic and experimental musical inspirations than one may otherwise expect.
It is in full view of this stylised direction that the series’ latter half seems comparatively dry. The two openings implicitly reveal this change, as they both share a shot of Lupin running while under fire, allowing for a direct comparison. In the first opening, this is taken at a close-up, giving a view of Lupin’s facial expression and better emphasising the speed of the action, while the bullet holes are punctuated both with sound and visually. In the second, it’s taken at a medium distance, which gives the animators far less opportunity to highlight any aspect of his character, and instead of the more involved perspective of a low, Dutch angle seen in the first opening, it is completely flat, lacking in detail. The episodes themselves follow through on this de-intensified approach, treating its subject matter with a procedural distance. This is not to suggest that the later episodes approach anything close to being boring, mostly on account of the fact they are still working from the same original story, and retain the same episodic format that allows for an appropriate focus on action.
As a comprehensive entity, Lupin is always sharp in its direction, and its willingness to commit to a discontinuous, anarchic brand of action, closer related to Spy Vs Spy than something like Yamato, is precisely what allows it to remain consistently gripping across all of its episodes. But the change in tone that comes at the halfway point is one that lessens its most powerful qualities, aligning it closer to any standard TV production, rather than fully embracing its own unique strengths. The directorial style of Miyazaki and Takahata may work better for finding an emotional centre in a feature-length film, but within a singular, contained episode, the premise of Lupin works at its best when it operates under a currency of loosely defined moments of pure, distilled action and chaos. From their direction, Lupin establishes itself as a series with consistently adequate direction, animation and writing, which happens to have a few audaciously poignant outliers within its first half.
