Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Lupin the Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm taking a look at the next entry in this marathon that came out in 1978. That movie is "Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo".
Now, out of all the films I've covered in this marathon up till this point, this movie has one of the more interesting production histories to it. For starters, this movie, according to what I've heard from both fans and critics, is apparently one of the most polarizing films in Lupin's entire history. I'll get more into why in just a moment, but I should also mention that this movie is the very first full length feature film ever made by TMS. Which is really interesting, because most of the stuff I've seen from them is around the late 90's with "Animaniacs" and "Batman: The Animated Series", to the early 2000's with "Sonic X", and then the 2010's with "Lupin the 3rd" Part's IV and V. So getting a chance to watch something that predates all that, with what's also the first feature length film in their catalog, is honestly really cool.
Now, what exactly makes this movie so polarizing, you might be wondering? Well, it mainly has to do with a very unique feature that caught my eye when I bought this movie on DVD. You see, this movie, and I am not kidding when I tell you guys this, has a grand total...of 4 English dubs! Yes, this movie was dubbed at least 4 times, and it was all done through different studios, obviously. Now it's not just the fact that this movie has 4 English dubs, but according to what little information I found, apparently, all 4 versions of the movie have different dialogue alterations to them. Which is interesting to me, because usually, most animes that I know of usually get at least one re-dub. But it makes me even more curious now as to how and why this movie, in particular, was given 4 different dubs, all of which are very different from each other.
Now, before I tell you guys which dub I'm gonna be covering for this review, I'm first gonna go over all the dubs that this movie went through. The first dub was produced by a now defunct studio known as Frontier Enterprises. Now, I've looked up what this studio has produced beforehand and, to be honest, there's not much I can really say about them. The most notable works for me was when they were dubbing some rather early Godzilla movies. And of the three that they dubbed, the only one I can confirm that I've seen is "Destroy All Monsters". But aside from that, everything else is mostly obscure stuff to me.
Now the second dub of this movie was produced by Streamline Pictures. And Streamline was one of the founding fathers of bringing anime over into the U.S. from the late 80's to mid 90's. And unlike Frontier Enterprises, I have seen quite a few things that that was dubbed by Streamline. Things such as "Robot Carnival" and "Wicked City" as a couple of examples. I'm not gonna count "My Neighbor Totoro" or "Kiki's Delivery Service" because I never watched their dubs of those movies. I was first exposed to the Disney dubs of those movies, though I honestly would love to see how Streamline dubbed them, assuming copies of those movies are still around.
But anyway, setting that aside, the third dub was made by Manga Video UK, also known as Manga Entertainment, who later got rebranded into what is currently known as Crunchyroll. I've never used Crunchyroll before, and the only things I've heard about them are their shady business practices. However, I'm gonna leave that aside and I'll tell you guys that, pre-Crunchyroll, Manga Entertainment were also pioneers in distributing anime to the U.S. One of those being "R.O.D. Read Or Die". Which I covered for this series, and spoiler alert, if you haven't read my review of that thing yet, it's an amazing OVA and I would highly recommend it.
Now setting that aside, the last dub that produced this movie was a company known as Phuuz Entertainment. Now, the stuff that I was able to find them that they produced was not much, aside from, like, a couple of obscure cartoons, and even the first 100 episodes or so of the 2nd "Lupin the 3rd" series. And speaking of which, the other thing that I know about this dub is that it has the current dubbing cast for the series. I'm talking about Tony Oliver as Lupin and Michelle Ruff as Fujiko as examples. So, at least on that end, I know that the acting for that dub is going to be really good.
So now, it begs the question: Which dub am I gonna be covering? Well, I could cover the latter here, because, like I said, I really like the current dubbing cast for "Lupin the 3rd". But in this case, I've decided for myself that, since this is my first time watching this movie, I want to see how they handled it the *first* time around. Yes, I'm gonna be covering the Frontier dub of the movie because I really want to see if the first time around is any good. I don't know if it will be, or if it was worth it to be re-dubbed again later on. I won't know for sure, so I may as well finally stop stalling and see what I'm getting myself into here. So with that *overly* long introduction out of the way, it is time to kick back, relax, and check out "Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo".
3 minutes later
You know, guys, if I could, I would love to have a bat para-glider for myself. Granted, I would probably have to get over my fear of heights first, but still, I would love to have something like that for myself, you know what I mean?
8 minutes later
OK, that's really cool. I like how, despite the fact that one of the tires has been slashed off, Lupin is able to ride a motorcycle on a tightrope like that. That is really creative and awesome at the same time.
3 minutes later
Wait, so in this movie, Fujiko is called "Margo" here? O...K, granted, I'm sure this is probably just for this dub, but honestly, I find that name change really kinda odd. I'm sure I'll probably get use to it later on, but still, it's just very odd to change her name like that, you know?
14 minutes later
All right, I have an obvious question here, but I still want to ask it anyway. So, up till this point, Lupin and the gang have been chased by a helicopter through the sewers, a giant ass trailer truck, and now they're being bombarded with missiles from a plane. And the one question I have in my mind is why are they being targeted? My only guess is that they want the stone that Margo was after. But still, it all just seems a little overboard to me to use all this firepower on them like this. But maybe that's just me.
12 minutes later
By the way, guys, I probably should've mentioned this early on, but Goemon in this movie is not called Goemon, he's just known as the "samurai". And no, I'm not joking about that either, that's literally what he's called in this movie. That is honestly even more stupid than changing Fujiko's name to something else, I'm just gonna say that right now.
7 minutes later
You know, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, Lupin doing the Nazi salute while shouting "Heil Hitler" was definitely not one of those things. Granted, I'm pretty sure it was just a robot version of Hitler or something, but still, *definitely* not what I was expecting.
13 minutes later
So, Lupin's subconscious consists of boobs, Zenigata, Margo, and uh...some kind of food. Not totally sure what it's suppose to be, but still, you learn something new everyday.
9 minutes later
Whoa, hold on a second here! So, Zenigata-oh, my bad "Scott", has a daughter, according to the police commissioner. That's...new information I didn't even know about until now. Hell, come to think, I don't think that was *ever* brought up before! At least, with my experience watching this series anyway. Again, you really do learn something new everyday, don't ya?
8 minutes later
Did I seriously just see an ad where Lupin is hanging out with the Justice League? That is awesome in many ways that I didn't think were possible, guys.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Wow, um...where to even begin here? Well, first off, I'm gonna make a clarification, just in case somebody might ask this of me. No, I am not gonna be reviewing the other dubs of this movie because, one, I would just be reacting to the same thing again, and I don't want to bore you guys by doing a thing like that. And two, any movie I cover for this series will be covered only once. Now if there's an exception here and there, I'll let you guys know when I cover it, but all in all, I'm not gonna waste the time by reviewing the same movie again under a different dub.
And right off the bat, I, once again, have to change my usual protocol, like I did with "The Fuma Conspiracy" last week, and start with the English dub. And before I talk about the acting for the dub itself, I do want to start with the name changes for certain characters first. Now, as I mentioned way early on, I talked about how each version of this movie's dub had different alterations with their dialogue. And this movie, at least with the name changes for our main characters, is definitely prevalent here. The only exception to the name changes is Lupin himself, since his name stays the same. However, every other characters name gets changed. For starters, Fujiko in this movie is called Margo. Zenigata is actually named Scott here. I honestly don't remember what name Jigen was suppose to have in this dub. I *think* his name was supposed to be Ben, but I could be totally wrong there. And Goemon is just referred to as the "samurai". Which is still really fucking lazy, because you could've easily come up with any sort of name for him, but for some reason, the writers didn't do that here.
Now, my theory as to why most of these names were changed was probably because they wanted it to feel more...American, I guess. Maybe it's because they thought viewers in the U.S. wouldn't be able to pronounce their actual names, so they went with something more normal. Now, I know a lot of people would be turned off by these name changes, and I could easily understand why. However, as someone who's grown up watching anime dubs intended for children that also did this sort of thing, this isn't something that bothers me too much. And the reason why it doesn't bother me as much is because unlike "The Fuma Conspiracy", where they basically just flip-flopped on how certain names should be pronounced, this one at least stuck with the names that they were given. Mind you, it's definitely something that you're gonna have to get use to, if you decide to end up watching this dub of the movie, but I still think it's worth checking out, if at least just once. Now I'm sure the other dubs might've given them their proper names, but for this dub, I'm willing to give it a pass here.
Having said that, what about the dub itself? How does it hold up nearly 4 and half decades later? Um...well, it definitely has aged a little bit. However, I honestly think this dub ranges on fitting into the laughable category. Because, I'm gonna tell you, guys, a lot of the acting in this English dub is just laughably stupid. Now granted, like I already hinted at, it's not exactly a good dub, but then again, I've also heard far worse dubs that came out during that time, so it's something that you have to take for what it's worth. The acting itself ranges on being very hammy and kinda over the top. I feel as though, at times, that the actors, when they were recording their lines for this movie, might've gotten a little too close to the mic. Because you can hear how loud the muffles come out whenever someone is yelling out their lines, such as the case with Zenigata/Scott's voice actor. He kinda has a bit of a bad habit of yelling his lines a lot. Which, to be fair, he also did that in "The Fuma Conspiracy", but I feel like it's a little bit worse here, audio wise. So, guys, to make it simple for some of you, the acting here is far from good, but it's definitely really funny, especially when it's unintentional. Which is what this movie ended up aiming for.
So, now that I've gotten the acting out of the way, let's talk about the writing for this movie. And the writing for this movie is definitely strong, at least for a first feature length Lupin movie. Now I'm not gonna say that the writing here is amazing or great, but as a first effort, it definitely does have some substance here. And, in a way, feels like something of an origin story for Lupin. Which, given that this is the first movie in a long line-up of Lupin movies, does make some sense. That aside, there are some things here that feel unexplained, even it's minor stuff, such as the mention that Zenigata/Scott has a daughter. That comes right out of nowhere and is never brought up ever again. Now, it's possible that she could be in any of the other Lupin films in the future, but still, it does brings a whole new layer of potential to his character, had that been more explored here. But as is, it just seems like a random thing to drop here.
While I'm kinda already talking about characters, I will go ahead and state that our villain, Mamo, is probably one of the better written villains I've seen in quite a while in the Lupin series. At least, when compared to most of the other villains I've seen in this marathon up till this point. He essentially has the immortal powers of Vandal Savage from DC Comics while also trying to obtain the true power of immortality, since the way he's been working on it hasn't exactly reached perfection yet. And he also wants to give it to Margo to give her true beauty forever. And in Margo's case, similar to what I mentioned earlier, it almost seems like an origin story for her, too. Though obviously, that's not really the case, since she and Lupin do still know each other at this point.
And while I'm sorta on the subject, there is one thing I noticed that seemed a little bit odd to me. Mainly, Goemon (I'm not calling him "the samurai". Fuck that) sounds rather misogynistic towards Margo. Which, I don't know if he ever acted like that towards her in any of the older series, but to me, it just comes off as really weird and off-putting. Especially when you consider that he almost ends up getting married in "The Fuma Conspiracy". The only reason I can think of as to why he might act like this is because he feels that she's untrustworthy and that she might end up stabbing Lupin in the back. Which, even then, it's still really strange for Goemon to be even acting like this at all. Now, I don't know, *maybe* he acted like that in one of the older series, but again, it just doesn't seem right to me that he would ever act like that towards Margo.
So, as a whole, the writing here, while not exactly great, is still strong enough to where it's able to stand on it's own merits. And speaking of which, the animation here is really good, especially for the standards of 1978. And considering that this was TMS's first outing in the Lupin franchise, it definitely leaves a great first impression. The color palettes here are used very well, and the animation here is really solid. They didn't really cut any corners here when it comes to the animation in this movie. And I'm glad to see TMS didn't cheap out here.
Sound-mix here honestly could've been a little better. And again, it sorta ties into what I talked about earlier when I was discussing this English dub. In which, some of the actors sounded like they were speaking too close to the microphone when giving out their lines. It kinda hurts the audio quality a little bit here. Also, there's a couple of scenes in this movie, mainly any scene with Lupin and Margo, where there's a loud noise going on, and the audio will overlap any dialogue given out from either one of the two characters. Now, it could be possible that this only affects this certain dub. I don't know. When I eventually get around to watching this again on my own time, I'm gonna see if the other dubs have this sort of issue or not. But as is, in the case with this dub, it could've fine-tuned a little better.
Music, though, I will say is rather good. Similar to this being TMS's first Lupin film, this was also the first film that Yuji Ohno composed the music here. And while, of course, I've heard ton better from Ohno, it's still really good, especially for a first outing from this composer.
So, with all that said, can I recommend "Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo"? Yes, I most certainly can. Now, I have to stress that I'm certainly recommending the film to you guys. I'm not totally sure about the dub itself, though. Like I said earlier, the name changes are definitely gonna be jarring to a lot of fans, plus the acting has definitely aged a bit. Mind you, like I said earlier, it's not the worst dub I've ever heard, but it's still not exactly good either. Thankfully, there are other options for the English dub you could check out, if you're curious, or if you're not a dub fan at all, you could always watch it with the Japanese audio with English subtitles, too. As for myself, I definitely really enjoyed this one. While it's certainly flawed in some areas, it's certainly not enough to bring it down either. Especially since there are 3 other English dubs on here for me to experiment with. So, I'll be watching this one again very soon. In the meantime, though, I'm gonna find something else to watch. And you know, I still think back to that awesome little reference where Lupin was hanging out with the Justice League. So, I'm gonna go and watch and the sequel film to "Justice League War" and check out "Justice League: Throne of Atlantis". That one, too, is a really awesome movie, so I'm gonna go do that next once I get done with this review.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.