Castigating Cagliostro...
I finally watched the Manga "Special Edition" DVD of Cagliostro yesterday.
This movie is important to two groups of anime fans: fans of Hayao Miyazaki and fans of Monkey Punch's LUPIN III manga/anime series. I have a DVD set of the first LUPIN III series ('71), which was quite fun, but didn't blow me away a la YAMATO or DAIMOS. The only Miyazaki I've seen is the first episode of FUTURE BOY CONAN, which didn't make much of an impression. (Unfortunately, I have neither DVD set at hand at the time I'm writing this review).
Honestly, I got this thing wanting to somehow make burgers out of a sacred cow, but I really enjoyed the movie. The animation was excellent, both drawings and direction. The story didn't blow me away, but it was quite fun. My grandmother watched it with me and enjoyed it as well ("This isn't as noisy as those other things you watch.")
As noted on Wikipedia, Lupin himself is quite different from the manga/anime incarnation. Frankly, I prefer the sleazy anime Lupin (would he REALLY ever say that a treasure is too big for him, as he does at the end)? The creaky animation of the first series has its own charms, but there is something to be said for animation that's actually good, as is the case in CAGLIOSTRO.
I watched the movie with the dub on as well as the Jpn-track subtitles. The dub was decent aside from a few dippy one-liners put in because Amurricans can't handle no silence ("Now that's upscale living!" when looking at the castle, for example).
A few snarky n' spoilery comments (highlight them):
-Why is County getting married in what looks like a goat-headed S&M outfit?
-Why is the clock tower set to kill whoever activates it? What if the goat was eyed by someone who wasn't an evil pedophilic S&M wearing A-hole?
-The destruction of the clock tower was imitated by many entries in the Castlevania series of games. (Short summary: whip-wielding hippie hunts down Dracula). The north tower that Clarisse lives in is apparently accessed via a horizontal elevator from another tower - Dracula's abode in CV is a tower which is unreachable except by a rickety bridge (in at least one of these games, the bridge rapidly collapsed and the player had to race across it without dying or getting knocked off by attack crows).
-I know it's not the writers' fault, but it's hard to mentally disassociate the name Clarisse from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (which came out 12 years after this film).
-A Roman city at the bottom of a lake? Where did THAT come from?! And why hide it with a killer clock tower? This reminded me a bit of the ending of UMI NO TRITON, although I'm almost certain that was a coincidence. You'll be hearing plenty about TRITON in the future...
One of the extras is a very informative interview with "Animation Director" Yasuo Ohtsuka, who worked on Cagliostro and directed the first LUPIN series. Not sure where this was filmed, but it wasn't soundproof - a siren can be heard at about the 10 minute mark. One interesting factoid - the original LUPIN was yanked off the air early at a 6% share, which is apparently very good now where shows are kept running at 0.8% shares. Too much junk around these days.
Summary - I paid 18 bucks, and the movie and interview were well worth it.
Ugh - giving a positive review. I suddenly feel so dirty.
I finally watched the Manga "Special Edition" DVD of Cagliostro yesterday.
This movie is important to two groups of anime fans: fans of Hayao Miyazaki and fans of Monkey Punch's LUPIN III manga/anime series. I have a DVD set of the first LUPIN III series ('71), which was quite fun, but didn't blow me away a la YAMATO or DAIMOS. The only Miyazaki I've seen is the first episode of FUTURE BOY CONAN, which didn't make much of an impression. (Unfortunately, I have neither DVD set at hand at the time I'm writing this review).
Honestly, I got this thing wanting to somehow make burgers out of a sacred cow, but I really enjoyed the movie. The animation was excellent, both drawings and direction. The story didn't blow me away, but it was quite fun. My grandmother watched it with me and enjoyed it as well ("This isn't as noisy as those other things you watch.")
As noted on Wikipedia, Lupin himself is quite different from the manga/anime incarnation. Frankly, I prefer the sleazy anime Lupin (would he REALLY ever say that a treasure is too big for him, as he does at the end)? The creaky animation of the first series has its own charms, but there is something to be said for animation that's actually good, as is the case in CAGLIOSTRO.
I watched the movie with the dub on as well as the Jpn-track subtitles. The dub was decent aside from a few dippy one-liners put in because Amurricans can't handle no silence ("Now that's upscale living!" when looking at the castle, for example).
A few snarky n' spoilery comments (highlight them):
-Why is County getting married in what looks like a goat-headed S&M outfit?
-Why is the clock tower set to kill whoever activates it? What if the goat was eyed by someone who wasn't an evil pedophilic S&M wearing A-hole?
-The destruction of the clock tower was imitated by many entries in the Castlevania series of games. (Short summary: whip-wielding hippie hunts down Dracula). The north tower that Clarisse lives in is apparently accessed via a horizontal elevator from another tower - Dracula's abode in CV is a tower which is unreachable except by a rickety bridge (in at least one of these games, the bridge rapidly collapsed and the player had to race across it without dying or getting knocked off by attack crows).
-I know it's not the writers' fault, but it's hard to mentally disassociate the name Clarisse from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (which came out 12 years after this film).
-A Roman city at the bottom of a lake? Where did THAT come from?! And why hide it with a killer clock tower? This reminded me a bit of the ending of UMI NO TRITON, although I'm almost certain that was a coincidence. You'll be hearing plenty about TRITON in the future...
One of the extras is a very informative interview with "Animation Director" Yasuo Ohtsuka, who worked on Cagliostro and directed the first LUPIN series. Not sure where this was filmed, but it wasn't soundproof - a siren can be heard at about the 10 minute mark. One interesting factoid - the original LUPIN was yanked off the air early at a 6% share, which is apparently very good now where shows are kept running at 0.8% shares. Too much junk around these days.
Summary - I paid 18 bucks, and the movie and interview were well worth it.
Ugh - giving a positive review. I suddenly feel so dirty.
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