first and favorite

[davemerrill]

There is a new Let's Anime post that is actually an old Anime Jump review I did about Lupin III Mystery or Secret of Mamo, whichever you prefer. I don't know if Anime Jump is ever coming back, and if it does I don't know if all the old reviews will still be there, and anyway I need to get back to a more regular schedule of updating Let's Anime. Plus, I'm sure there are people reading this who never got to see Anime Jump in its heyday. So go read about my favorite Lupin III movie!

No, I haven't seen "Lupin III Meets Detective Conan". Not a big Detective Conan fan. In fact the most recent Lupin film I saw was "Assassination Order", I believe, though I could very well be wrong, they have cranked out so many Lupin III films that it's impossible to keep track of them all. From what I can remember there's a scene where Lupin's cornered the bad guy, and just like every other action movie ever, the bad guy has surrendered but whips out a hidden gun so that Lupin has a reason to kill him. Come on fellas, this was tired the first four or five times Dirty Harry did it. Just shoot the guy and be done with it, quit trying to justify it.

Friday we went out to Canada's Wonderland to visit the theme park and experience the horrifying nightmare of their Halloween themed "Haunt". It had been raining earlier but the weather cleared up and it became a perfect night to go through their haunted house type attractions. Cold though. Most of the attractions featured variations on the "guy in mask leaps out and says BOO" theme, I was expecting a little more of a production out of Canada's Wonderland. The pirate-themed haunted house has a mechanical squid, though, and there's one set in a mine that gets genuinely spooky, narrow corridors, weird lights, a hall that gets smaller, lots of fog. We got some funnel cake and rode some rides, saw the Action Theater Elvira movie and played some video games and generally enjoyed the Halloween Wonderland. Yesterday we did some thriftin' for lampshades for the crazy lamps we got last weekend, and went to IKEA and got some more Expedit shelves because apparently those are getting discontinued or something. That's what the tags said, anyway. The Expedit is a key element in our campaign of 'getting junk off the floor' and its loss will be a shocking blow to us all, so stock up now. My general plan to deal with this is to not buy any more books, ever. Or at least make sure that new books coming in are balanced by old books going out. Today I get to put the sucker together, that's my big Sunday plan.

Comments

[psychoshinji.livejournal.com]

Hehe, awesome! I think Mystery/Secret of Mamo is my favorite Lupin film, too. I liked how it dealt more with the main 5 characters and their relationships instead of a new "damsel of the day". I also thought Mamo was a freaking awesome antagonist... he actually SEEMED up to par with Lupin's intellect. You're not missing out on much when it comes to the newer TV specials anyway... a lot of the villains in those are either totally 1 dimensional or half-assed incompetent, so there's not much at stake.

I will say though, that Lupin III: First Contact (The 2002 special) was pretty cool and incorporated a lot of elements from the classic TV series and the Part II Red Jacket series. Did you have anything to do with the AWA screening of the Secret of Mamo movie? Emma and I were thinking of going to see it, but we decided to skip it in favor of socializing around the con and artist alley instead. :) Ever since Emma got me hooked on Lupin, though, I've been keeping up with the TV specials just for kicks even though they aren't great by any stretch of the imagination. I'd like to see more Lupin in the style of the Pilot Film!

[(Anonymous)]

Even though I must have seen Mamo dozens of times, Psychoshinji pointed out something about it I never noticed--the fact it doesn't have a "damsel of the day" character so common to other Lupin films. To be fair, in the anime, I think this goes back as far as Linda in the the third episode of the 1971-72 series (and Lupin was always running into new women in the manga), but you're right that the five main characters are strong enough to carry the story. You also hit on the weakness of First Contact: the villain is very uninteresting.

I always see Lupin as a master showman. When he steals something, it's not just going to be a job, it's going to be a performance--he'll use disguise, illusion, pyrotechnics, acrobatics, physical comedy, visual jokes. This is why I thought Hudson Hawk had the spirit of a live-action Lupin--and so did the climactic heist of the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair; filling the museum with guys in bowler hats is exactly how Lupin would have done it. So you can't have boring antagonists for Lupin. You need villains who are colorful, obsessive weirdoes to really balance things out. Count Cagliostro qualifies, with his neo-Borgia ways. Anyone who builds an atomic bomb factory inside a giant flying boat probably fits the bill, too (I was showing my 1987 fansub of Albatross: The Wings of Death at a con just to discuss the technical aspects of it, but was surprised to realize no one in the audience had ever seen it or even knew it existed, despite the fact they all knew Miyazaki. Albatross used to be an anime you'd show to people who were new to anime).

The Pilot Film is an amazing artifact; it was made before even I was born ^_^ and it's a reminder of the unfortunate truth that, decades later, anime for adult (non-otaku) audiences is still the exception. My single favorite scene is where Fujiko, with a grin, shoots the Mauser through a copy of Playgirl--four times through the paper, then, lowering the magazine, another four rounds over it. I love the implication that the first four rounds accomplished the ambush, and the other four were just for emphasis. It's like when Bond shoots the already dead Dent in the back in Dr. No...As was pointed out to me once, Playgirl didn't exist until four years after the Pilot Film was made--as ever, Fujiko is steps ahead of everyone else...

--Carl

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

Very insightful Carl!

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

It's funny, as I have known people that completely LOATH Mystery of Mamo. They don't like the structure, the don't like the pacing, they don't like how 'loose' the chara design is and they REALLY hate the Big Reveal in the 4th act.

I have nothing but love for the film and the JAL/International dub. Big, wet sweaty sloppy love. I saw most of it in Chicago 1982, ran into some east coast C/Fo folks in May, and had my own copy in June. Showed it over and over at various cons, watched it a bunch of times, it's ingrained and brother, if we could find who dubbed it and turn them loose on 1st series Lupin III I would probably be able to die a happy man.

(SOMEBODY has to know, even if TMS still claims to this day the dub does not exist)

I really waffled on getting the Pioneer DVD because of rumors of altered content. I had figured digital blurring on the whiskey bottle in the ruined hideout, maybe erasing the Benz 'star' on the radiator cap on Lupin's SSK, crap like that but to just cut out that brief throwaway gag with the Superhero ad? Crips, that's nuts. That's like going into a movie and cutting out a scene because there's a Coca-cola sign in the background. I don't think the candy company, DC, or Warner Bros. would give a crap. Hell, it's free advertising!

and again, it's a throwaway gag that's there and gone. I'm sure trimming those frames doesn't completely disrupt the flow, but it's the principle.

So, while I regret not having the DVD, I have no regrets I stood by my beliefs.

(did the same thing with Cagliostro. Found and bought the 1st Manga Ent. release when I heard about the nonsense pulled with the opening title scenes on the later, 'cash in on Disney's Miyazaki deal' release)

Didn't Streamline release Mamo via Image in like, '99? Or was it only on VHS?

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

I had figured digital blurring on the whiskey bottle in the ruined hideout, maybe erasing the Benz 'star' on the radiator cap on Lupin's SSK, crap like that but to just cut out that brief throwaway gag with the Superhero ad? Crips, that's nuts. That's like going into a movie and cutting out a scene because there's a Coca-cola sign in the background. I don't think the candy company, DC, or Warner Bros. would give a crap. Hell, it's free advertising!

Let alone whether or not I can still find Clark Bars that easy where I am! Used to be like I could find them quite easily but I guess times have changed.

Didn't Streamline release Mamo via Image in like, '99? Or was it only on VHS?

I think all there was is that VHS release. Somehow that movie escaped the Image deal for some reason (many early Streamline titles often ended up with the cheapo Best Film & Video Corp. guys for whatever reason). Many of Image's releases often came from the former Orion Home Video deal I believe.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Image is one of the last holdovers from the original days of VHS releases. Back when it all started in the late '70s studios just didn't want to invest in the infrastructure of mastering, production, duplication and distribution of videotape, so various farsighted companies started up and licensed films from the studios.

DVD was no different. Universal (then owned by Vivendi), for example, just wasn't sure how that DVD thing was going to work out so they farmed out their early DVDs to Image, and boy, did that turn into a circus, with lawsuits over pricing and release windows. Image wanted to lead the way with lower pricing, Universal said "huh what now?" and it was just a huge mess, with Universal eventually taking over their own releasing and Image dumping a s**tload of product on the market at like $5 a disc. Interestingly enough, some of those Image/Universal discs go for huge money nowadays.

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

Like that one for MST3K: The Movie I had once.

Reminded of those days when we had companies like "Magnetic Video Corporation" that released those early tapes like the "9 to 5" cassette that was my mom's first VHS tape to go with her first VCR.

[gyopi.livejournal.com]

I sure hope that the Expedit shelves aren't discontinued. They are perfect for storing records and laserdiscs.

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

Feel like I should look into getting those too.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

A disturbing amount of our home collection storage strategy is wholly dependent upon the Expedit. It's perfect for LPs, for books, for displaying tchotchkes, and even for comics in magazine boxes.

[gyopi.livejournal.com]

If you know the trick to making all of the screws align so that they go together without frustrating trial and error, please tell me! I always have trouble with things being just slightly out of alignment and the threads not catching.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I had one screw not want to go in this time around, but a little pressure (or a rap with a hammer) seems to do the trick. If I get more than one fussy screw then I figure something's wrong somewhere.

With the big Expedits where the shelves are fitted in with pegs, I find it's helpful to use a rubber mallet to tap the shelves into place. Not that I can can FIND my rubber mallet, but that's beside the point. Once the whole thing is together, I actually climb up on it and let my not inconsiderable body weight press the whole thing down, and then I tighten the heck out of the screws.