Rupan Sansei: Kutabare! Nostradamus

Title:Rupan Sansei: Kutabare! Nostradamus
Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus
Lupin III: To Hell with Nostradamus!
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: INOUE Makio
KOBAYASHI Kiyoshi
KURITA Kanichi
MASUYAMA Eiko
NAYA Goro
Original Concept - Monkey Punch
R1 License - FUNimation

A strange cult has formed around the prophecies of Nostrodamus. The leader of the cult holds a book of prophecies that are seemingly coming true. Meanwhile, Lupin and Jigen steal a diamond in Brazil during the height of Carnival. He hides the diamond in a doll and flys off to his next adventure. Aboard the plane, a little girl named Julia thinks Lupin is a pervert (lolicon) to be playing with a doll and takes the doll for herself. Lupin tries to get the doll back but is stopped by Julia's nanny... Fujiko?!

Events happen and young Julia is kidnapped by some mysterious men while Fujiko reveals that her true mission is to steal the book containing the prophecies of Nostrodamus from the vault of Douglas, a rich American and father of Julia. The mystery men must be after the same book, but the Nostrodamus cult has prophesied that Douglas' skyscraper will fail in a few days. Can Lupin rescue Julia, find a way into the vault, and discover the connection between the cult and the kidnapping? And what about his diamond?! (taken in part from The Lupin III Encyclopedia).


[1 100-minute movie. Licensed by FUNimation. This movie marked the debut of KURITA Kanichi, who replaced YAMADA Yasuo as the voice of Lupin after Yamada-san passed away.]


[edit] The ↗Lupin III franchise:
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 8 8 7 7 7 Ggultra2764 [series:1019#1552]
Another fun movie from the Lupin franchise, Farewell to Nostradamus features Lupin and his gang crossing paths with a cult of Nostradamus followers who abduct the daughter of a businessman eyeing a career opportunity as a politician. The mentioned daughter, Julia, is quite the fun little character as she seemed to have fun to a great extent in the troubles she gets caught up in and causing some mischief for Lupin in early scenes of the movie by accusing him of being a lolicon. The motives of the Nostradamus cult are unclear at first, but slowly build up and make more sense as more details are revealed about the cult and what they desire from Julia's father. The anime also sports a nice number of comedic scenes from Lupin and Jigen's ridiculous plummet from the Douglas building to Julia's mentioned antics. It's also nicely animated for a mid 90s movie sporting nice looking designs of the differing locales visited by Lupin and pals, as well as some engaging action sequences. The anime does somewhat suffer in that Jigen and Goemon don't get much to do in this movie outside of serving as Lupin's backup and the movie doesn't really do much to be different from other films and TV specials in the Lupin franchise. Still if you're a Lupin III fan, this is a fun and solid film to check out.

Last updated Sunday, May 05 2013. Created Sunday, May 05 2013.
Rent 10 10 8 8 6 AstroNerdBoy [series:1019#436]

Lupin titles are usually hit or miss as to their quality. Some are really good (Castle of Cagliostro) or really bad (Legend of the Gold of Babylon). This one straddles the fence.

The story is simple, but the plot is rather weak. As such things just happen with little to no explaination. The Nostrodamus cult is laughable as a villian. Their whole purpose is never clear until much later and even then, it seems odd, or rather made the organization odd. Goemon and Jigen are on an investigation at one point, but there's not much to explain how they got on the case or why they got to where they got. In fact, they are mainly wasted as characters. Fujiko has a better role (her chest has expanded) but even she seems weak.

The good was Julia. As a precocious young girl, her first scenes coming down the first class stairwell on a 747 started it and it was cemented with her first encounter with Lupin. A quick inspection of him holding a doll (with a hidden diamond worth $1.5 million) convinced her that he is a lolicon, then proceeds to take the doll from him. I have to say that I loved her as a character. I think they actually used a child seiyuu for the voice. Regardless, it worked. She stole the scene whenever she appeared.

Also, there were some funny Lupin moments, expecially in the ostentatious Douglas building early on. The art/animation are very good as one might expect from an anime movie.

Bottom line: the plot is weak, the animation/art rock, and Julia is great. As such, it is worth a rent for Lupin fans, but not much beyond that.

Last updated Wednesday, August 24 2005. Created Wednesday, August 24 2005.


Other Sites
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The Lupin III Encyclopedia http://www.lupinencyclopedia.com

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