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This is an odd one historically. Its the return of Lupin part 1 director Osumi, its the beginning of what I call the "funimation era look" after Dezaki's run of the first five tv specials, and (perhaps less importantly) its the first funimation dubbed Lupin effort. This special is disappointing on all three fronts. 

While I enjoyed Osumi being able to taken Lupin back in a, albeit slightly, grittier direction (gotta love Lupin shooting one of the antagonist in the head), it doesn't go nearly hard enough to be noticeably different. The animation style and character designs are very... See full review

I'm judging this purely as a pilot and not as a finished product. Seeing this for the first time in 2024, its pretty impressive this kind of animation was achieve in (albeit late) 60s. This is also still the closet we ever get to seeing these characters look the way they do in the manga, which is I feel a real shame (Koike comes close). I love banana headed lupin. This feels like a peak into a lupin series that never was and I'll always be fascinated by the idea that lupin may have remained an adult oriented, grittier show. 

Under a different director, with a different writer, this feels like it could have been one of my favorite shows ever. As-is, it's a painful yet interesting mess of anime tropes, fun ideas, and frustrating characters.

This is weird

This show loses a lot of steam in the second half, particularly after a big monster battle. Still, the characters remain interesting, most of then are complex, and the emotional payoffs are worth sticking around for. My biggest problem with the show is that the world Subaru (our protagonist) inhabits seems to occasionally feel bad about the torment it inflicts on him. It'll kill him off a bunch of time and then suddenly people around him just decide that now they like helping him. It's particularly glaring in the second half when the show drops its mystery element and instead just becomes, "what does... See full review

Loved litererally every second of this show

This second film doesn't carry the same weight or stakes as the first, yet still provides some fantastic set pieces and puzzles. 90s shonen anime films have such a unique visual style, and this is a great example of both that style and Detective Conan's distinct artistic style. The finale especially would have been a real treat to witness in the theater back then. 

     I tend to love Mazinger and most Go Nagai adaptations. I was pretty excited to finally watch this one but that excitement began to wane when I noticed the runtime. This barely 50 minutes if you cut the end credits. This doesn't immediately mean its going to be bad, but I knew it was going to be rushed.      In actuality, it didn't feel rushed though because there was so little plot that instead it felt like they were stretching to fill time. The plot can be described very quickly. Koji and Sayaka are on vacation when a new enemy group attacks. They kill two side... See full review