Lupin III: Lupin vs. Fukusei-ningen

Mamo, a very old, and extremely rich man calling himself “God” is searching for the secret to eternal life.

The secret may lie within the Philosopher Stone (or as the Americans call it: The Sorcerer's Stone).
Which he gets Fujiko to manipulating Lupin into stealing. And in exchange she, aswell as Lupin, will be granted eternal life in this new world.

But immortality is a curse, not a gift. And Lupin has no interest in living forever. After all he does what he does for the thrill. If there were no risks what would be the motivation.

And if Fujiko thinks that she’d be free and spend her ... life with Lupin in this new world she’s wrong. Because Mamo will need a queen by his side. And the beautiful Fujiko would make a great trophy.

Despite it taking a while to actually get to the main plot the movie is paced pretty well. There is actual build up. The title “The Secret of Mamo “ is a better overall title for the movie than “Lupin vs The Human Clone“

The villain looks ridiculous but is genuinely interesting.
The movie has a great atmosphere to it. And some great aesthetics and visuals. An anime form the late 70s that aged like fine wine.

This movie is longer than your typical Lupin special. At a length of 1H42.
Its also the first Lupin movie. Effort really went into it.

A plot very similar to this gets used in a story arc in Lupin the 3rd Part 4 Italian Game (2015). Where Leonardo da Vinci is cloned in modern times and wants to create a world with only the humans he sees as worthy enough.

[THIS WAS WRITTEN RIGHT AFTER WATCHING IT AND ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACC. KEEPING THIS HERE FOR AN ARCHIVE]
Finished Mystery of Mamo and hooooly shit. This is definitely one of my new favorite lupin movies ever if not my number one favorite. The plot is actually really interesting for once, the characters r so much fucking fun to watch, the animation is amazing, and the art itself is unbelievably good. This was the first lupin movie ever made and yet somehow doesn’t even feel like it, it’s just that spot on. Every little piece of this film feels just so creative and inspired like I’ve ... never seen any kind of animated movie like this before. A little hyperbolic I’ll admit but it’s really something else. It amazes me in retrospect how mamo was made in 1978 and holds up as if it hasn’t even been a year.
One of my favorite aspects of the art direction specifically is the scratchy lines and color choices throughout the whole movie. The contrasting whites and thin pencil-y lines during certain moments always impressed me. The framing and shot composition were also extremely impressive. U could say Artistically mystery of mamo is definitely my favorite lupin movie by far just on that fact itself.
Irdk what more I could say abt this movie that won’t turn into me repeating myself for 3 more paragraphs but yeah I really really fucking enjoyed mamo.
Dub-wise I saw the geneon dub, and unsurprisingly it was really funny and really great. All cast members were as charming and fun to listen to as ever. I wanna see the streamline dub sometime soon to see how they handled it, just out of curiosity. I wanna see how Bob Bergen handles a more lupin-y lupin, compared to his work on cagliostro.
Anyways 10/10 lupin flick. I honestly can’t think of a single gripe I have with this movie apart from maybe stupid tiny nitpicks that don’t hurt the actual movie at all. Oh and the movie gets an extra bonus point for not having a stupid one-off magical movie specific girl that lupin has to save somehow.

Hey, the first Lupin movie. And, it was weird...

Directed by Soji Yoshikawa who has only directed some of Ashita no Joe beforehand really went to left field on this one. The story follows Lupin and the gang, of course, stealing something, but it begins with Lupin’s death?

First off, the art is really different compared to the show. For example, Fujiko looks like the main female character from Samurai Champloo (if you have seen it), and for some odd reason Goemon the samurai is either Arab or got a really good tan. These are just some of the odd changes in art style the viewer will ... notice right away with any previous Lupin experience.

Music and character development is your typical Lupin with catchy Lupin themes to Lupin being his annoyed quirky self. The story however, gets really sci-fi-ish really quick. It starts out with a heist in Egypt and then goes from place to place around the world with little reason. The overall goal though is to find out who is trying to kill Lupin and the gang. Then we meet the main bad-guy who is a strange shortly drawn blue James Bond villain who wants to destroy/take over the world.

Then, there are the awesome yet weird things to notice throughout the film. Pay attention to funny things like the American lighting his cigarette by his Statue of Liberty figure flame. These will crack you up and keep you going through this weird Lupin adventure. There is even a scene where Lupin and the gang are in a car being chased by a massive blue truck (Optimus Prime anyone?).

This is a wild ride of pure nonsense if I have ever seen one, even for Lupin. But hey, give it a try. It is guaranteed for a few good laughs.