Rupan sansei: Pilot Film

TV Short
1969
Not Rated
13m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Anime Hand-Drawn Animation Action Animation Comedy Crime Short

The grandmaster thief Lupin III and his associates devise a plan to escape from the stubborn Inspector Zenigata and the mercenary samurai Goemon Ishikawa.The grandmaster thief Lupin III and his associates devise a plan to escape from the stubborn Inspector Zenigata and the mercenary samurai Goemon Ishikawa.The grandmaster thief Lupin III and his associates devise a plan to escape from the stubborn Inspector Zenigata and the mercenary samurai Goemon Ishikawa.

Directors
- Osamu Kobayashi
- Masaaki Ôsumi
Writers

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.6/10

279

YOUR RATING

Directors
- Osamu Kobayashi
- Masaaki Ôsumi
Writers

5User reviews

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos44

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
According to Monkey Punch, Daisuke Jigen was based on James Coburn, particularly Britt, Coburn's gunslinger role in The Magnificent Seven (1960), who himself was based on Kyuzo from Seven Samurai (1954). Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Jigen's voice actor, has dubbed many of Coburn's roles in Japanese, Britt included.

Quotes
[first lines]
[a police inspector sits at a desk, his hand on a top secret report of Lupin, when the phone rings]
Inspector Koichi Zenigata - Cinemascope version: [on the phone] Yes, this is Police Inspector Zenigata in the Investigation Department...
Arsene Lupin III - Cinemascope version: Hello, Inspector. You sound carefree to me. Are you playing shogi by yourself? How AWFUL are you?
Inspector Koichi Zenigata - Cinemascope version: Who is this?
Arsene Lupin III - Cinemascope version: Do you mind if I play shogi with you, by phone?
Inspector Koichi Zenigata - Cinemascope version: You can't be...!
Arsene Lupin III - Cinemascope version: Lupin III!

Crazy credits
The film is bookended by title cards in the form of dossier covers.

Alternate versions
There is a different CinemaScope version of the pilot with a different voice cast.

Connections
Featured in Rupan sansei: Chronicles (1997)

User reviews5

Review

Featured review

7/10

The earliest anime of Lupin the 3rd.

This was Lupin's first debut in animation. 2 years after being published in a comic by Monkey Punch.

This short film was just the beginning of a long history of one of the most popular series of Japan.

In this Pilot film, it introduces all 5 characters including Lupin, and gives you the basic idea of what the series is like.

Lupin plays Shouji with Zenigata on the phone, but only to discover that one of the pieces is fake with a bomb in it. Which makes Zenigata ferocious and wants to track down Lupin. While Goemon wants to kill Lupin for his own purposes.

It's a short story, the whole point of it was to show the profiles in animation form, and soon be promoted to TV and movie industries.

2 different versions were made of this short. On for TV and one for the movies. Course both have their differences, but same story to follow.

It's older than the 23 episode series, but it was the first tiny step for Lupin to become highly known throughout Japan.

It's only available to view by fan sub or the Secret Files R2 DVD.