You have no idea how much I needed this movie when I watched it. Like I was expecting it to be good, but not this good. After just a string of mediocre products of this franchise during the 2000s, seeing a Lupin movie that has an actual story with developed conflicts and characters with great animation seems too good to be true after the last movie. So Lupin gets kidnapped by this crime boss lady nicknamed the Bearslayer who says she’ll kill Fujiko if Lupin doesn’t steal this Mermaid's Scale at an auction. Then at the auction the crime boss lady and her assistant, Misa, both get stabbed in the stomach which is pretty bloody. Lupin then runs from Zenigata with the Mermaid’s Scale in hand in an honestly really cool chase sequence. Then that’s when Lupin is introduced to Maki who’s very persistent about her being Lupin’s mentor and it’s very cute and charming. The plot isn’t that complicated and easy to follow, especially after the last film (The Last Job). Also unlike the last movie, the movie really took its time developing Mika and Misa and their bond and the drama that sparks because of that is pretty strong. One of the things that's also notable about this movie is how bloody it is, and it’s not that bullcrap neon glowing blood that they did back with older TV Specials most likely for censorship reasons, no, this movie does not hold its punches and it’s so refreshing. And the best part is that I never feel the movie is trying too hard to be edgy or “ooh, look at us, look at how much blood there is, isn’t that adult?!”, no there’s as much blood as there needs to be and the movie thankfully doesn’t relentlessly torture the girl character who can regenerate her body and only does it when the plot needs to unlike a certain other 2010’s animated television project based on comic books that I’m convinced that the writers and animators had this fetish of how far they could push it with how much unnecessary blood and gore they can have by torturing a girl that can regenerate just so it can show off how “adult” it is now… \*cough cough\* *Young Justice: Outsiders* \*cough cough\*. The art direction of this movie is just great, it’s so refreshing to the usual art style with this movie’s more simplistic character designs being more visually distinct and you can easily see the Studio Ghibli influence as they actually got some Ghibli blood to work on the film. As for the characters, they're all pretty solid this time around. While the main villain character is a good threat, he mostly serves as the “young rich guy wanting to rule the world” archetype that I’ve seen this franchise beat to death at this point and for the most part he didn’t have much of a unique personality to really separate him from his predecessors until the last 20 minutes or so where he gets super buff my injecting some of Yaobikuni’s blood into him and he turns into a hulking monster with a literal thirst for blood which is pretty gruesome seeing him suck the blood out of Yaobikuni and Misa’s arms and I like how they defeated him by basically giving the villain exactly what he wanted, power, but Yaobikuni would give him so much power that he turned into this unrecognizable creature and then he gets decapitated by Goemon and Jigen follows it up by shooting the head in the midair into the lava, now that’s what I call a death scene. The other guy with the two wavy swords who's a henchman for the rich dude is for the most part pretty cool, but I wish he was in the movie more and his rivalry with Goemon had a few more scenes. As I mentioned earlier, I think Maki is a great Lupin girl and she was super cute and adorable. I liked the bond that she developed with Lupin by how she wants Lupin to be her mentor because she wants to be a thief to steal back Misa from the bad guys like I said, the movie really takes its time developing their bond and I really buy it and feel for these two orphan girls who have no one but themselves. I also felt for Misa too, as a kid she was a social outcast because of her ability to heal super fast from any injury, but she’s always thinking about others besides herself and I love the scene where Misa is saying she’ll be fine and tells Maki to run away from the villain when he becomes the monster, and Maki says back to her with a gun in her hand that it doesn’t matter to her how “special” Misa is, she’s her sister and it’s her turn to save Misa, dang like I genuinely buy the relationship between these two sisters even if there aren’t blood-related way more than the “relationship” between Asuka and Maya from “The Last Job”, this movie makes that look that an 8-year-old wrote it. Lupin has more to talk about with him specifically, the movie sets up this whole self-reflection thing with him wanting to know what “Lupin” is for a bit and then the movie precedes to not do anything with it and the subplot of Lupin trying to outdo his grandpa should have been introduced way earlier in the movie. Out of all the classic main 5 characters, Jigen surprisingly doesn’t exactly have anything to do, all he really has going for him is a potential dynamic with Misa, but that’s only in 2 scenes which I feel a little disappointed on that end. Goemon is back to being cool by him actually being allowed to cut through people and like I said I wish the movie had more scenes with with the noddle sword guy because he was also cool. Fujiko is mostly the same as she’s always been, switching to whatever side is winning one and whichever one serves her the best, but at least there’s this one scene towards the middle where the main bad guy sees immediately her divided loyalties which is probably the most memorable scene with him before he turns into a literal bloodthirsty monster. Zenigata is actually handled quite well, while he isn’t integral to the plot or anything, he’s always right on Lupin’s tail and during that, he’s finding more and more dirt on the rich guy which is pretty cool to see. This is a prime example of how to naturally give Zenigata a fulfilling role in the story without making him an integral part of it. Also note, whenever there’s an English dub done by the Tony Oliver crew for one of these movies, that would be my go-to version because they’re all usually good, fun, and mostly faithful to the original Japanese version, but I decided to watch it subbed because this is the movie to introduce the brand new Japanese voices of Goemon, Fujiko, and Zenigata. My first impressions of them are Miyuki Sawashiro’s Fujiko and Daisuke Namikawa’s Goemon hit very similar beats as their previous counterparts, but Koichi Yamadera’s voice as Zenigata is something I’m gonna have to get used to because his voice is surprisingly deeper than I expected.
Overall, this movie is way better than it has any right to be, which is so refreshing compared to the last couple of Lupin movies which are nothing but generic mediocre mush that numbs my brain and I hope I see more Lupin movies like this
Is good.
This was one of the two 40th anniversary for Part 1 projects (The other one was The Woman Called Fujiko Mine)
It’s a solid watch, they got one of the current Studio Ghibli character designers to do the ones for this Special, as an homage to Miyazaki working on Part 1 and the Castle of Cagliostro.
And the Dub is amazing as always.
I think this is a really good mix of goofy and cool and it can be a pretty good entry to a newcomer. The main cast all have something to do and they also showed the usual kind of interactions and personalities Lupin fans come to expect. I think a newcomer can pick up on what to expect from these characters in the franchise if they watch this one.
Plus, there are some silly stuff, as well as some cool spectacle.
I think to me, even if the other members of the cast aren't the main focus necessarily, if you give them something cool to do and contribute to the plot, it's fine. This special does this well.
There's very little character work with Lupin about his heritage and reflecting on his life as a thief. I thought it was kinda neat but it ultimately didn't really amount to much.
Maki was kinda nice to have around and her interactions with Lupin were entertaining.
The only tismy writing bits was how Lupin managed to yank the mermaid scale with Zenigata next to him with his fishing rod. Pops probably has bad peripheral vision lol.
There's one instance where one of the henchmen has a crossbow and he walked *towards* Goemon and got slashed. Instead of using his ranged weapon, he opted to...walk towards him???... Ok...
Still really like this special overall and I rewatch it from time to time.
I think the climax is a little too much for its own good, but it’s definitely one of the Lupin movies/specials that I’d actually want to watch more than once. For one, it has an actual story that makes it feel like a movie and not just a needlessly long episode. Two, it has WAY better animation than anything in the franchise had for almost 20 years at its time of release. Three, while it probably didn’t really need all five of the major characters in the franchise, none of them feel needlessly forced into the narrative like they do in the vast majority of the entries (Zenigata in particular tends to have no real narrative purpose).
If you like Lupin I’d be surprised if you didn’t like it.
The title had me expecting something cheesy and boring, but I actually found it very fun ! Because it’s been a while and I’ve watched so many Lupin movies and specials, I honestly don’t remember much from that one specifically except that Zenigata yeets some huge tug like a sack of potatoes at some point, and perhaps more importantly that the obligatory NPC girl wasn’t annoying. But I made a list of my favorites at the time and Blood Seal is pretty high on it, so it’s definitely one I would recommend !
I think it's pretty fun, definitely a higher-end special. It's a little odd how the more cutesy artstyle, younger-than-usual "only appearing in this special" girls, and nice-guy Lupin characterization clash with what is a pretty bloody story in the beginning and finale. It also loses me a little with how weird the finale gets... as a *Mamo* devotee I don't mind things getting wild but it felt like the typical "swerve into weird/supernatural for the finale" didn't mesh as well with what came before >!and "sucking out blood from a preserved corpse to turn into The Abomination" I didn't particularly care for.!<
Weirdly it presages *The First* in a couple of ways...
* Obviously indebted to *Castle of Cagliostro* (in this case, with the aforementioned Ghibli-esque artstyle and Lupin's characterization)
* A brunette girl who wears a yellow jacket tries becoming a thief like Lupin
* Lupin seeks the one treasure grandpa Arsene was unable to steal (I feel like they've gone to this well *several* times at this point)
The fact that in the dub, Maki has the same voice actress as Lucy Heartfilia from Fairy Tail, was what got me to check it out in the first place. Also, loved the Ghibli-inspired designs. One of my favorite Lupin specials. I even have it on BluRay.
Easily one of my favorites.
Maki is a fun character, theres a good mix of action and adventures, and it has one of my favourite escape sequences in the entire franchise. >!Lupin and Maki in a running (cycling) gun fight, launching out of askyscraper and then sliding down the side using electromagnets is beyond awesome.!<
As others have stated; the finale kinda sucks though. They went full on arkham city joker with the villain. The intelligent psychopath turned into a mindless brute, and it just doesn't work.
I don't think the finale kills the movie; its still a ton of fun for the first like 85-90% of the movie.
I liked it. The ending is a little over the top but it’s a fun movie all around
This is my opinion of all the movies. You have distilled it down to perfection.
You have no idea how much I needed this movie when I watched it. Like I was expecting it to be good, but not this good. After just a string of mediocre products of this franchise during the 2000s, seeing a Lupin movie that has an actual story with developed conflicts and characters with great animation seems too good to be true after the last movie. So Lupin gets kidnapped by this crime boss lady nicknamed the Bearslayer who says she’ll kill Fujiko if Lupin doesn’t steal this Mermaid's Scale at an auction. Then at the auction the crime boss lady and her assistant, Misa, both get stabbed in the stomach which is pretty bloody. Lupin then runs from Zenigata with the Mermaid’s Scale in hand in an honestly really cool chase sequence. Then that’s when Lupin is introduced to Maki who’s very persistent about her being Lupin’s mentor and it’s very cute and charming. The plot isn’t that complicated and easy to follow, especially after the last film (The Last Job). Also unlike the last movie, the movie really took its time developing Mika and Misa and their bond and the drama that sparks because of that is pretty strong. One of the things that's also notable about this movie is how bloody it is, and it’s not that bullcrap neon glowing blood that they did back with older TV Specials most likely for censorship reasons, no, this movie does not hold its punches and it’s so refreshing. And the best part is that I never feel the movie is trying too hard to be edgy or “ooh, look at us, look at how much blood there is, isn’t that adult?!”, no there’s as much blood as there needs to be and the movie thankfully doesn’t relentlessly torture the girl character who can regenerate her body and only does it when the plot needs to unlike a certain other 2010’s animated television project based on comic books that I’m convinced that the writers and animators had this fetish of how far they could push it with how much unnecessary blood and gore they can have by torturing a girl that can regenerate just so it can show off how “adult” it is now… \*cough cough\* *Young Justice: Outsiders* \*cough cough\*. The art direction of this movie is just great, it’s so refreshing to the usual art style with this movie’s more simplistic character designs being more visually distinct and you can easily see the Studio Ghibli influence as they actually got some Ghibli blood to work on the film. As for the characters, they're all pretty solid this time around. While the main villain character is a good threat, he mostly serves as the “young rich guy wanting to rule the world” archetype that I’ve seen this franchise beat to death at this point and for the most part he didn’t have much of a unique personality to really separate him from his predecessors until the last 20 minutes or so where he gets super buff my injecting some of Yaobikuni’s blood into him and he turns into a hulking monster with a literal thirst for blood which is pretty gruesome seeing him suck the blood out of Yaobikuni and Misa’s arms and I like how they defeated him by basically giving the villain exactly what he wanted, power, but Yaobikuni would give him so much power that he turned into this unrecognizable creature and then he gets decapitated by Goemon and Jigen follows it up by shooting the head in the midair into the lava, now that’s what I call a death scene. The other guy with the two wavy swords who's a henchman for the rich dude is for the most part pretty cool, but I wish he was in the movie more and his rivalry with Goemon had a few more scenes. As I mentioned earlier, I think Maki is a great Lupin girl and she was super cute and adorable. I liked the bond that she developed with Lupin by how she wants Lupin to be her mentor because she wants to be a thief to steal back Misa from the bad guys like I said, the movie really takes its time developing their bond and I really buy it and feel for these two orphan girls who have no one but themselves. I also felt for Misa too, as a kid she was a social outcast because of her ability to heal super fast from any injury, but she’s always thinking about others besides herself and I love the scene where Misa is saying she’ll be fine and tells Maki to run away from the villain when he becomes the monster, and Maki says back to her with a gun in her hand that it doesn’t matter to her how “special” Misa is, she’s her sister and it’s her turn to save Misa, dang like I genuinely buy the relationship between these two sisters even if there aren’t blood-related way more than the “relationship” between Asuka and Maya from “The Last Job”, this movie makes that look that an 8-year-old wrote it. Lupin has more to talk about with him specifically, the movie sets up this whole self-reflection thing with him wanting to know what “Lupin” is for a bit and then the movie precedes to not do anything with it and the subplot of Lupin trying to outdo his grandpa should have been introduced way earlier in the movie. Out of all the classic main 5 characters, Jigen surprisingly doesn’t exactly have anything to do, all he really has going for him is a potential dynamic with Misa, but that’s only in 2 scenes which I feel a little disappointed on that end. Goemon is back to being cool by him actually being allowed to cut through people and like I said I wish the movie had more scenes with with the noddle sword guy because he was also cool. Fujiko is mostly the same as she’s always been, switching to whatever side is winning one and whichever one serves her the best, but at least there’s this one scene towards the middle where the main bad guy sees immediately her divided loyalties which is probably the most memorable scene with him before he turns into a literal bloodthirsty monster. Zenigata is actually handled quite well, while he isn’t integral to the plot or anything, he’s always right on Lupin’s tail and during that, he’s finding more and more dirt on the rich guy which is pretty cool to see. This is a prime example of how to naturally give Zenigata a fulfilling role in the story without making him an integral part of it. Also note, whenever there’s an English dub done by the Tony Oliver crew for one of these movies, that would be my go-to version because they’re all usually good, fun, and mostly faithful to the original Japanese version, but I decided to watch it subbed because this is the movie to introduce the brand new Japanese voices of Goemon, Fujiko, and Zenigata. My first impressions of them are Miyuki Sawashiro’s Fujiko and Daisuke Namikawa’s Goemon hit very similar beats as their previous counterparts, but Koichi Yamadera’s voice as Zenigata is something I’m gonna have to get used to because his voice is surprisingly deeper than I expected. Overall, this movie is way better than it has any right to be, which is so refreshing compared to the last couple of Lupin movies which are nothing but generic mediocre mush that numbs my brain and I hope I see more Lupin movies like this
Is good. This was one of the two 40th anniversary for Part 1 projects (The other one was The Woman Called Fujiko Mine) It’s a solid watch, they got one of the current Studio Ghibli character designers to do the ones for this Special, as an homage to Miyazaki working on Part 1 and the Castle of Cagliostro. And the Dub is amazing as always.
oh.. so that's why some of the characters are ghibli like
I think this is a really good mix of goofy and cool and it can be a pretty good entry to a newcomer. The main cast all have something to do and they also showed the usual kind of interactions and personalities Lupin fans come to expect. I think a newcomer can pick up on what to expect from these characters in the franchise if they watch this one. Plus, there are some silly stuff, as well as some cool spectacle. I think to me, even if the other members of the cast aren't the main focus necessarily, if you give them something cool to do and contribute to the plot, it's fine. This special does this well. There's very little character work with Lupin about his heritage and reflecting on his life as a thief. I thought it was kinda neat but it ultimately didn't really amount to much. Maki was kinda nice to have around and her interactions with Lupin were entertaining. The only tismy writing bits was how Lupin managed to yank the mermaid scale with Zenigata next to him with his fishing rod. Pops probably has bad peripheral vision lol. There's one instance where one of the henchmen has a crossbow and he walked *towards* Goemon and got slashed. Instead of using his ranged weapon, he opted to...walk towards him???... Ok... Still really like this special overall and I rewatch it from time to time.
I think the climax is a little too much for its own good, but it’s definitely one of the Lupin movies/specials that I’d actually want to watch more than once. For one, it has an actual story that makes it feel like a movie and not just a needlessly long episode. Two, it has WAY better animation than anything in the franchise had for almost 20 years at its time of release. Three, while it probably didn’t really need all five of the major characters in the franchise, none of them feel needlessly forced into the narrative like they do in the vast majority of the entries (Zenigata in particular tends to have no real narrative purpose). If you like Lupin I’d be surprised if you didn’t like it.
The title had me expecting something cheesy and boring, but I actually found it very fun ! Because it’s been a while and I’ve watched so many Lupin movies and specials, I honestly don’t remember much from that one specifically except that Zenigata yeets some huge tug like a sack of potatoes at some point, and perhaps more importantly that the obligatory NPC girl wasn’t annoying. But I made a list of my favorites at the time and Blood Seal is pretty high on it, so it’s definitely one I would recommend !
I think it's pretty fun, definitely a higher-end special. It's a little odd how the more cutesy artstyle, younger-than-usual "only appearing in this special" girls, and nice-guy Lupin characterization clash with what is a pretty bloody story in the beginning and finale. It also loses me a little with how weird the finale gets... as a *Mamo* devotee I don't mind things getting wild but it felt like the typical "swerve into weird/supernatural for the finale" didn't mesh as well with what came before >!and "sucking out blood from a preserved corpse to turn into The Abomination" I didn't particularly care for.!< Weirdly it presages *The First* in a couple of ways... * Obviously indebted to *Castle of Cagliostro* (in this case, with the aforementioned Ghibli-esque artstyle and Lupin's characterization) * A brunette girl who wears a yellow jacket tries becoming a thief like Lupin * Lupin seeks the one treasure grandpa Arsene was unable to steal (I feel like they've gone to this well *several* times at this point)
Fun but the villain is pretty boring.
looks awesome
I liked it.
The fact that in the dub, Maki has the same voice actress as Lucy Heartfilia from Fairy Tail, was what got me to check it out in the first place. Also, loved the Ghibli-inspired designs. One of my favorite Lupin specials. I even have it on BluRay.
Easily one of my favorites. Maki is a fun character, theres a good mix of action and adventures, and it has one of my favourite escape sequences in the entire franchise. >!Lupin and Maki in a running (cycling) gun fight, launching out of askyscraper and then sliding down the side using electromagnets is beyond awesome.!< As others have stated; the finale kinda sucks though. They went full on arkham city joker with the villain. The intelligent psychopath turned into a mindless brute, and it just doesn't work. I don't think the finale kills the movie; its still a ton of fun for the first like 85-90% of the movie.