Lupin III (2015): Italian Game

We can say that "Italian Game" is probably one of the most disappointing Lupin TV Special ever made. It was a nice choice setting the story in continuity with the last serie (the blue jacket one) with the same animation style and re-proposing the new characters we met, a countinuity that sounded like a warm "don't worry, there's still some of it". So, what went wrong? The challenge to find the heritage of the Count of Cagliostro (open reference to Miyazaki's film) is covered only by the last 20 minutes of the special, before that we have to see again a lot of material from the serie. Yes, they took three entire episodes and they sewed them together to make a huge introduction that takes three quarters of the time. The problem is that many of the scenes make sense only in the context of a standalone episode and they're completely useless for the development of the plot. They could have just condensed the major events in 5 minutes while keeping a good connection to the serie. The original part suffers for the lack of time, even looking at it simply as an extra episode, we get undeveloped new characters (the Masked Count was ok, but it needed more space) and a rushed resolution, if not forced. I can save only the majestic opening made by Koji Morimoto, maybe the only part which was worth watching. In the end, if you really enjoyed the blue jacket serie and you desperately need to see more of it, maybe you can appreciate it. But if you're looking for a fresh tv special I don't recommand it.

I can say I've developed a standard for my Lupin content, and this failed on the character development. One thing I can take away from this is after seeing the character development go so wrong I have a better understanding of what right looks like. The opening is way to long with clips that happen in the movie, with no context. It even some shows very dramatic scenes, but I have that "why should I care" when they scenes are around the girl I don't know yet. And, the opening is too long. Speaking of the character development girl, I don't feel like she actually learned anything because her development was rushed and it felt empty. The plot and storytelling are rushed and feels empty. This is also one of the ones where Fujiko is useless. I don't suggest this to fans or new comers to Lupin or anime, in general.

This is a complicated special to review. Despite giving it a 5 this film is more like a 7 or 8 however it is completely dragged down by one crucial thing. 70mins of the film's 90 minute runtime is comprised of 3 "Lupin III (2015)" episodes played entirely in their full. This means that only 20 minutes are actually comprised of new story and animation. And of what is new, most of it is not particularly good and mostly functions to loosely tie the plot of the three episodes together. So the only purpose this film serves is if you haven't already seen the 2015 series and can't be bothered to watch it, which is an incredibly small number of people. If you have already seen the 2015 series, don't bother with this special. And if you haven't, just watch the 2015 series.

What even is this special? Over 70% of the run time is abridged version of the first half of Part 4 aka "Lupin III (2015)" Thus the actual original content lack any time to develop and is rushed near the end. And I have to say, by this point when you say "Count Cagliostro" in a Lupin III story, nobody is gonna realize you are referencing the original Arsene Lupin story, everyone's gonna assume you are talking about the one from "Castle of Cagliostro", it's already a bad choice and the special also didn't do a job stating that case. With so little actual run time, how are there even any mystery to the supposed mysterious villain, since this Special is supposed to happen in between Part 4? There's really not much watching value to this, even though there are some good parts, for one, the train chase scene is pretty good, so much so I'd rather it's its own 20 min or so episode. Also the Opening is really awesome though, sadly it's attached to this excuse of a clip show.