Lupin Shanshei (2012)

Watched June 15th 2023

Yeah, I should have honestly expected this kind of quality. It’s so awful that it makes me question how anybody thought this was a good idea

So this is like a “parody” series on Lupin and the word “parody” is a way too generous term to call this. I like the idea of a parody series poking fun at the franchise’s long history of clichés and throwing those clichés on heads, but this is *not* a parody series by any means, this is a very comedic show which Lupin kinda just being there for whatever ridiculous plot makes him. I’m pretty sure that “FROGMAN” or whatever their name is didn't even watch Lupin, he probably just glanced at the Lupin III Wikipedia article for like 5 minutes and then called it a day. There’s a bunch of wacky and stupid stuff that goes on, but never is it a satirization of Lupin as a whole. It feels like it was made by someone who has very limited knowledge of Lupin III which is most likely the case, FROGMAN was probably just asked to make a few short little episodes for Lupin’s 40th anniversary in animation and he really just did his own thing. I honestly find it ironic that this Lupin the Third TV series wants to dedicate a whole episode just to parody My Neighbor Totoro rather than the title of the show. The Lupin Gang in this aren’t the Lupin gang because satirization doesn’t work if the work itself doesn’t even know what it’s supposed to satirize because I guess that’s okay if even though this calls itself a parody, it’s just 3 and a half minute shorts about random character and Lupin stealing something. There were actually quite a few gags and jokes I did actually like, but none of the jokes are rooted in Lupin, they're just jokes that you would find in probably other FROGMAN works. Any character that isn’t Lupin get hilariously minor roles in the whole show and even then this Lupin the Third is not the same Lupin I know. The animation in this has to be the worst animation in the entirety of the Lupin franchise. Yeah, there really isn’t anything that much else to say, I mean all the episodes are all less than 4 minutes so it wasn’t the most excruciating thing to watch, I just never want to see this show again

Episodes Ranked

1. Episode 8 - 5/10
2. Episode 3 - 5/10
3. Pilot - 5/10 (doesn’t count)
4. Episode 2 - 4/10
5. Episode 10 - 4/10
6. Episode 9 - 4/10
7. Episode 7 - 3/10
8. Episode 5 - 3/10
9. Episode 4 - 3/10
10. Episode 1 - 3/10
11. Episode 6 - 2/10