The Lobster Dance

I had the TV on during dinner, and as the news gave way to the evening Golden Hour of variety shows, I heard some familiar music.

One of the variety shows on the prefectural network was showing a Lupin III (ルパン三世) retrospective with clips from the 15 highest-rated episodes, films, and TV specials. As it turns out, there’s going to be a new Lupin TV special airing Friday, 12 February from 9-11 pm on NTV–Lupin III: The Last Job (ルパン三世:THE LAST JOB). (Unfortunately, I have a festival to attend that evening, but I’m hoping to see it soon.)

For those of you not in the know, Lupin III is a manga from the 1960s that became an anime in the 1970s that spawned several films (1970s-80s) AND 20 years of TV specials (1990-2010). The series follows the exploits of Lupin (pronounced “Rupahn”), a half-Japanese half-French thief; his two best friends Goeman, the stoic (descendant of) samurai, and Jigen, his sardonic chain-smoking sidekick; Fujiko, a fellow thief and Lupin’s constant object of lust; and Inspector Zenigata, the Interpol detective who pursues Lupin with the obsession of Chauvelin chasing after the Pimpernel or Javier after Valjean–and with the comic interplay of Tom going after Jerry.

Monkey Punch, the author of the manga that started the Lupin canon, based his work on French author Maurice LeBlanc’s tales of the dashing thief Arsene Lupin, a kind of anti-Sherlock Holmes.* Arsene Lupin III is supposed to be the half-Japanese grandson of the original Lupin. I’ve read some of the original LeBlanc stories, which are sadly out of print in English, and I was really impressed by their cleverness.

Monkey Punch’s Lupin III is generally portrayed as a brilliant and dashing thief who can’t say no to a nice pair of breasts (which often works out to Fujiko’s advantage, considering). Sexist as the last statement sounds, the series has some interesting gender play. Lupin’s worse than James Bond when it comes to women, but Mine Fujiko, his curvy sometimes-rival sometimes-ally is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She has a great line in the film The Castle of Cagliostro in which she tells the young heroine Clarisse that she and Lupin have been friends, rivals, and sometimes even lovers. Clarisse asks if Lupin left her. “Of course not,” she replies. “I left him.”

Fujiko doesn’t work for Lupin, she works with or against him. In the TV show, she plays him as many times as he plays her to get whatever treasure they’re both trying to steal. The two are ruthless about getting the target and well matched in terms of plotting, thieving, and using disguises, to boot. Lupin is a womanizer in the sense that he’ll go after anything on heels, but he does respect Fujiko as a thief to the same extent that he openly lusts after her. In fact, that may be the reason that his desires always include her–other attractive women will come and go, but Fujiko’s the only woman who can really match him. Furthermore, she doesn’t entertain fantasies of tying him down and marrying him–she’s got her own jobs and her own agenda, even if the two of them do occasionally hook up. I always got the sense that they really did care about each other as something more than friends, but that they both weren’t interested in a stereotypical romantic relationship with each other. Perhaps that in itself isn’t notable, but the fact that Fujiko remains an important character while neither marrying Lupin nor getting killed is quite a refreshing change from the stream of interchangeable Bond girls in similar franchises.

Some of that Lupin/Fujiko 曖昧な relationship appears in my very favorite incarnation of Lupin, The Castle of Cagliostro. This film was, incidentally, Miyazaki Hayao’s 1979 directorial debut. In the film, Lupin and company head to the duchy of Cagliostro (the smallest fictional member of the UN) to steal some currency-printing equipment. In the process, he ends up rescuing, of all people, a princess (duchess) trapped in a tower.

Lady Clarisse de Cagliostro holds part of the key to the treasure Lupin’s seeking. However, because Miyazaki really softened the edges about the characterization of Lupin as a horrible womanizer, Lupin’s feelings toward the young duchess are surprisingly tender and pure-hearted. A reason is given later in the film, but suffice it to say that Miyazaki chalks it up to Clarisse’s youth and innocence and Lupin’s nostalgia for a time when he could have been the kind of person Clarisse deserves (see Helen McCarthy’s 2000 Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation).

Given the rest of Miyazaki’s canon, it’s not surprising that he tweaked Lupin to make him more in line with his ideal of a leading man. Ladykillers are a rare species in Miyazaki’s films, although Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle was rather similarly dashing and tender (and hilariously vain). Then again, neither of these characters is a Miyazaki original. Miyazaki’s (adult) lead man typically doesn’t realize how appealing he is, and, if he knows, doesn’t really care. All the women in Tataraba wish they had a partner like Ashitaka, but he is adorably oblivious of this as he pursues San. Marco Pagott continues to carry a torch for Gina for years, although he’s obviously quite popular with the other patrons at the Hotel Adriano. Despite this, Miyazaki perfectly captured Diana Wynne Jones’s gentleman ladykiller (heart-eater?) Howl Pendragon; however, he definitely turned Lupin into something quite his own. That’s fine with me–I like both Lupins. Miyazaki!Lupin for being a (mostly) noble gentleman thief, and anime!Lupin for being a double-crossing genius rake. Given the popularity of the series–the manga was first published in 1967 and the yearly TV specials have continued into this new decade– I must not be the only one.

Left behind by the thief:
The moon
In the window.
-Ryokan

Happy 43rd Birthday, Lupin.

*A contemporary of Arthur Conan Doyle, LeBlanc poked fun at Sherlock Holmes in his stories via the bumbling detective Herlock Sholmes, on whom Inspector Zenigata is based.