Rupan Sansei vs Meitantei Conan THE MOVIE

Title:Rupan Sansei vs Meitantei Conan THE MOVIE
Lupin III vs. Detective Conan The Movie
Lupin Sansei vs Meitantei Conan THE MOVIE
ルパン三世 vs 名探偵コナン THE MOVIE
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , ,
Notables: HAYASHIBARA Megumi
IRINO Miyu
KOBAYASHI Kiyoshi
KURITA Kanichi
NAMIKAWA Daisuke
OGATA Kenichi
OOTANI Ikue
R1 License - Discotek
R1 License - Subtitled Only
SAWASHIRO Miyuki
TAKAYAMA Minami
YAMAGUCHI Kappei
YAMAZAKI Wakana
YUYA Atsuko
Lupin III disguises himself as Kaito Kid to steal a diamond as a test for a man named Allen Smithy, who wants Lupin to procure another legendary gem in order to free the captive Fujiko. Conan gets involved to chase Kid, but when he discovers it is Lupin III and his gang, he attaches himself to Jigen, who's been hired as a bodyguard for the famous, Italian male teen pop singer Emilio Baretti. Conan's involvement, as well as that of his friends from the Detective Boys group causes Lupin problems which need to be resolved so that Lupin can achieve his ultimate objective, with or without Conan.

[edit] The ↗Lupin III franchise:
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 7 7 7 6 6 Ggultra2764 [series:3014#1552]
Serving as sequel to the 2009 TV Special, this second Conan and Lupin crossover feature the two characters crossing paths again as both get entangled in the theft of a jewel for a mysterious crime syndicate and dealing with a popular singer being targeted for assassination. Much like the TV special, this film mostly exists to get both comedy and adventure from the interactions between characters of both franchises. The comedy does have its fun moments for fans of both franchises where outside of Jigen and Conan having fun chemistry again, Ai Haibara puts up with Fujiko and a couple references to magician thief Kaito Kid from Detective Conan getting mentioned. Otherwise, the movie's attempt to tie in plot elements from the TV special regarding the jewel theft are poorly implemented due to lack of foreshadowing and not getting discussed until late in the movie's second half, a typical issue carried over from Detective Conan. Only Lupin III and Detective Conan fans should bother to sample this movie as you would otherwise get lost over the passing mention of characters, especially with how large Conan's cast is.

Last updated Saturday, December 26 2015. Created Saturday, December 26 2015.
Buy 9 9 9 9 0 8 AstroNerdBoy [series:3014#436]
When I watched Rupan Sansei vs Meitantei Conan Special, I found it to be just OK, but nothing special. However, being a big fan of the Lupin III franchise, I had to give this a try. Thankfully, the production team seem to have learned from their mistakes in the TV special, but fall short when they try too hard to link the movie to the special.

The first challenge the production team encountered is introducing Lupin III audiences to Detective Conan and Detective Conan audiences to Lupin III (and introducing both franchises to people unaware of either). However, I felt that they accomplished this beautifully by having Lupin introduce Conan and his situation and Conan introduce Lupin and his gang, following the intro scene where Lupin is disguised as Conan villain Kid, thus insuring Conan gets involved in Lupin's affairs.

Further, as the series progresses, I learned quite a bit about the Detective Conan franchise from different moments, especially from when Conan friend and ally Ai has to spend time with Lupin comrade Fujiko. I liked these touches as it made me more interested in the Detective Conan series.

The production team goes through a checklist of things that are expected from a Lupin III title, whether it be Lupin Physics, Jigen shooting things, Goemon cutting things, and Fujiko betraying things. I had the strong impression that the production team did the same thing for the Detective Conan side of the movie. So I appreciate that effort.

That being said, just going through a checklist can be quite boring. Lupin III titles all go through the checklist, and many of them stink. The production avoids problems by remembering to have fun. In fact, this movie is just a barrel of fun. I found myself laughing many times, whether it was the antics from Conan's crew, antics from Lupin's crew, or the times when the two crews interact. Indeed, there's a completely pointless scene where the young Detective Boys club have a pun quiz about Lupin which is quite stupid, yet both times I watched the movie, it made me laugh rather than roll my eyes.

The plot, for what it is, simply serves as a mechanism to allow the characters to have fun while going through the checklist of things the characters MUST do. It isn't deep or special, but it is serviceable.

Where it falls apart is when the movie attempts a deeper link with the TV special, which happens during the third act of the movie. Up until then, the nods the movie makes to the TV special are small, such as Sonoko calling Ran "princess" in Japanese when they enter the luxury hotel that they were at in the TV special. The third act ties in to the mysterious metal of the TV special, which I'd forgotten about. As such, the writers have to spend a lot of time in exposition to educate/remind the audience of the events from the TV special. While things are bogged down, because the first two acts had been so much fun, the slog through becomes bearable.

There'd been complaints that the TV special didn't actually have Lupin in opposition to Conan, thus revealing that the Japanese don't know what "vs" means. Here, there's more of a conflict between Conan and Lupin as Conan doesn't trust Lupin and is going to bring him to justice. However, you really can't have the heroes of two franchises be completely opposed to each other as that would make one the villain. As such, I had no problem with the fact that Lupin and Conan end up teaming up again.

Visually, this is quite nice with the art and animation quite good. The music is good, as is the character design. Some people may be jarred by the two distinct character designs of the two franchises, but for me, it wasn't a problem.

In the end, I loved this movie, enough to watch it twice and to want to watch it a third time. The reason this movie succeeds where the TV special failed is that the writers remembered to just have fun and allow the characters to have fun. As a result, I had a lot of fun watching this and would not hesitate to buy this.

Last updated Thursday, January 22 2015. Created Thursday, January 22 2015.

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