Rupan vs Fukusei-ningen

As a story goes, this drifted from somewhat interesting to someone boring to just odd. As such, it was hard to give it a final rating. On the whole, I was entertained and don't mind that I rented it, but there are problems.

First, we have Fujiko reduced to little more than a sexpot and the animators get her nude a few times. On one hand, the story tries to play up the romantic angle with Fujiko while on the other hand making it seem all a bluff for Fujiko to get eternal beauty and youth. Um, OK. Jigen and Goemon start off strong with both strongly warning Lupin about Fujiko. But then Goemon's unbreakable sword gets broken and he's reduced to tears and thus exits well before the movie is over. Ugh! Jigen is OK, but like the rest, he is reduced as a character.

The villian Mamo could have been more. Yeah, he looked like some DBZ reject, but his problems went beyond that. I won't spoil it for you, but his true identity was just awful! And how they got rid of him was just stupid because someone as smart as Mamo supposedly was shouldn't leave himself so exposed, especially if you are planning a trip into space!

As to the Pioneer DVD, the English dub cast is fine, but the English dub script is a hack job, much like the way they treated the first 24 episodes of Return of Lupin III. So it often has little resemblance to the original Japanese script. Supposedly Pioneer will do future Lupin titles better. Here's hoping! The subtitles are readable and that's a start. No honorifics are used though.

Bottom line: Watchable and I don't regret renting it. However, unless you are a Lupin fan, there isn't much here for you.

Last updated Sunday, August 03 2003.