WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.560 Imagine tuning into your favorite television 00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:06.120 channel on a Friday night Settling in on the 00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:08.880 couch and watching a brand new like feature -length 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:10.900 movie quality animation sounds like a pretty 00:00:10.900 --> 00:00:14.179 good Friday rates But now imagine doing that 00:00:14.179 --> 00:00:18.239 every single year for 24 years straight Yeah, 00:00:18.339 --> 00:00:20.019 that is I mean, that's just an insane amount 00:00:20.019 --> 00:00:22.920 of content It really is. That is the kind of 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:25.359 decades -long storytelling magic we are unpacking 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:28.620 today. We're doing a deep dive into the absolute 00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:31.699 phenomenon of the Lupin the Third television 00:00:31.699 --> 00:00:34.280 specials. Such a fascinating topic. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:36.520 We've got a massive stack of sources today centered 00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:39.340 around a really comprehensive Wikipedia compilation 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:44.439 that details the the production, the plots, and 00:00:44.439 --> 00:00:45.880 the behind -the -scenes history of all these 00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:47.399 specials. And there was a lot of history there. 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:49.479 So much. Our mission today for you listening 00:00:49.479 --> 00:00:52.460 is to figure out how a single anime franchise 00:00:52.460 --> 00:00:55.659 managed to pump out 27 90 -minute television 00:00:55.659 --> 00:00:57.600 movies. I mean, these were airing almost annually 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:01.340 from 1989 all the way to 2013 and then irregularly 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:03.640 after that. Right, which is just wild to think 00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:06.469 about. Okay. Let's unpack this cause. Delivering 00:01:06.469 --> 00:01:09.230 a movie quality special every Friday night at 00:01:09.230 --> 00:01:13.030 9 .03 p .m. on Nippon Television for nearly a 00:01:13.030 --> 00:01:15.989 quarter of a century is a staggering feat in 00:01:15.989 --> 00:01:18.189 broadcast history. It's unprecedented, really. 00:01:18.489 --> 00:01:20.769 Yeah. How does a production team keep an audience 00:01:20.769 --> 00:01:23.250 hooked for that long? It's like a decades long 00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:25.870 magic show, you know? How does the magician keep 00:01:25.870 --> 00:01:28.209 you amazed when you already know the basic trick? 00:01:28.670 --> 00:01:31.069 How do you avoid total creative bankruptcy when 00:01:31.069 --> 00:01:33.569 you have to escalate the stakes, bend genres, 00:01:33.709 --> 00:01:36.019 and evolve? characters year after year. Or it 00:01:36.019 --> 00:01:37.939 requires a very delicate balancing act between 00:01:37.939 --> 00:01:40.659 comfort and chaos. Comfort and chaos, I like 00:01:40.659 --> 00:01:42.540 that. Yeah, I mean the longevity of the loop 00:01:42.540 --> 00:01:45.359 in the third specials really serves as a master 00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:48.700 class in establishing a rock -solid, almost mythic 00:01:48.700 --> 00:01:50.859 foundation and then deliberately stressing that 00:01:50.859 --> 00:01:52.760 foundation until it nearly breaks. Interesting. 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:54.640 Because to understand how they break the rules 00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:57.079 of television so effectively, we first have to 00:01:57.079 --> 00:01:59.060 look at the rules they set up right. The baseline. 00:01:59.599 --> 00:02:02.459 Exactly. The formula relies on an ecosystem of 00:02:02.459 --> 00:02:05.299 highly specialized character archetypes. At the 00:02:05.299 --> 00:02:09.180 center, you have Lupin III, the brilliant but 00:02:09.180 --> 00:02:11.979 kind of goofy gentleman thief. The mastermind. 00:02:12.060 --> 00:02:14.360 Right. Then you have his inner circle. There's 00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:17.479 Daisuke Jigen, the stoic, crack shot marksman 00:02:17.479 --> 00:02:19.199 who serves as his right hand. The cool guy with 00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:21.599 the hat. Always with the hat, yeah. Then Gomon 00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:24.819 Ishikawa, the third thief. a master swordsman 00:02:24.819 --> 00:02:27.319 wielding a blade called the Zantetsuken, which 00:02:27.319 --> 00:02:29.599 can cut through practically anything. I'm basically 00:02:29.599 --> 00:02:31.800 magic at that point. Pretty much. And then you 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:35.740 throw in Fujiko Mine, the ultimate femme fatale 00:02:35.740 --> 00:02:39.259 who, well, she will betray Lupin for a treasure 00:02:39.259 --> 00:02:41.340 just as often as she helps him. That total wild 00:02:41.340 --> 00:02:43.800 card. Oh, completely. And chasing them all... 00:02:43.870 --> 00:02:46.889 is Inspector Koichi Zenegata, the ICPO. Oh, just 00:02:46.889 --> 00:02:48.789 to clarify real quick for anyone listening who 00:02:48.789 --> 00:02:51.870 might not know the acronym, the ICPO is Interpol, 00:02:51.930 --> 00:02:53.789 the International Criminal Police Organization. 00:02:53.909 --> 00:02:57.009 Good catch, yeah. Zenegata is the ultimate doggie 00:02:57.009 --> 00:02:59.789 detective. His entire life's purpose is putting 00:02:59.789 --> 00:03:02.669 Lupin behind bars. He's like the wild e -coyote 00:03:02.669 --> 00:03:04.930 to Lupin's Road Runner. That is a perfect way 00:03:04.930 --> 00:03:08.129 to put it. And that dynamic, the unstoppable 00:03:08.129 --> 00:03:10.909 thieves and the immovable detective, is the engine 00:03:10.909 --> 00:03:13.539 of the entire franchise. In the early television 00:03:13.539 --> 00:03:16.479 specials, the writers used that perfectly balanced 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:19.479 ecosystem to execute heists that completely ignored 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:21.479 the boundaries of common sense. Like totally 00:03:21.479 --> 00:03:24.300 over the top. Oh yeah. The very first special 00:03:24.300 --> 00:03:29.060 in 1989, Bye Bye Liberty, close call, it sets 00:03:29.060 --> 00:03:31.340 the baseline immediately. Yeah, the plot for 00:03:31.340 --> 00:03:34.610 this one is wild. It kicks off because world 00:03:34.610 --> 00:03:36.949 police computers have become advanced enough 00:03:36.949 --> 00:03:40.310 to flawlessly predict Lupin's physical movements. 00:03:40.490 --> 00:03:42.469 So his standard playbook just doesn't work anymore. 00:03:42.770 --> 00:03:45.229 Exactly. He actually considers retiring until 00:03:45.229 --> 00:03:47.270 Jiggen discovers the location of this massive 00:03:47.270 --> 00:03:49.490 diamond known as the super egg. And according 00:03:49.490 --> 00:03:52.469 to the sources, the sheer audacity of this heist 00:03:52.469 --> 00:03:55.069 is just it's unbelievable. The diamond is hidden 00:03:55.069 --> 00:03:57.689 inside the Statue of Liberty. Right. But Lupin 00:03:57.689 --> 00:03:59.789 doesn't just rappel down into the statue like 00:03:59.789 --> 00:04:01.770 a standard jewel thief. No, of course not. He 00:04:01.770 --> 00:04:04.719 literally steals the entire. He steals the actual 00:04:04.719 --> 00:04:06.219 Statue of Liberty. He takes the whole thing. 00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:08.680 Yeah. And the mechanics of how the writers justify 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:11.439 this are fascinating. They essentially decided 00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:13.840 that if a computer algorithm can predict any 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:16.660 logical heist, the only way to beat the system 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:19.620 is to do something so logistically absurd that 00:04:19.620 --> 00:04:21.980 a computer would calculate the probability at 00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:24.439 zero. Which is brilliant logic for a cartoon. 00:04:24.829 --> 00:04:27.769 The writers were sending a very clear message 00:04:27.769 --> 00:04:29.550 to the audience right out of the gate They were 00:04:29.550 --> 00:04:32.449 saying this isn't your standard weekly episodic 00:04:32.449 --> 00:04:34.529 crime show, right? We were operating on a scale 00:04:34.529 --> 00:04:37.829 of pure spectacle They turned a heist into a 00:04:37.829 --> 00:04:40.870 massive geopolitical event But that scale escalates 00:04:40.870 --> 00:04:43.069 incredibly fast, right? Like by the time we get 00:04:43.069 --> 00:04:45.209 to special number three Napoleon's dictionary 00:04:45.209 --> 00:04:48.629 in 1991 Lupin enters a classic car race to win 00:04:48.629 --> 00:04:51.089 a dictionary belonging to Napoleon as you do 00:04:51.209 --> 00:04:54.449 Naturally. And this dictionary supposedly contains 00:04:54.449 --> 00:04:56.970 directions to a family treasure worth trillions 00:04:56.970 --> 00:04:59.670 of dollars. Not millions. Trillions. Trillions. 00:04:59.870 --> 00:05:02.069 And it isn't just Interpol after him anymore. 00:05:02.509 --> 00:05:05.810 The G7 nations are hunting this treasure to literally 00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:08.209 rebuild the global economy following the Gulf 00:05:08.209 --> 00:05:10.509 War. The stakes are just astronomically high. 00:05:10.790 --> 00:05:13.790 Yeah. And wait, I don't get this. If you save 00:05:13.790 --> 00:05:17.170 the post -Golf War global economy by episode 00:05:17.170 --> 00:05:21.490 three, how do you keep audiences tuning in for 00:05:21.490 --> 00:05:24.430 24 more years? That is the big question. Like, 00:05:24.569 --> 00:05:26.430 don't they just get bored of the inflation of 00:05:26.430 --> 00:05:29.170 stakes? Doesn't a franchise risk jumping the 00:05:29.170 --> 00:05:31.509 shark immediately when you start at that level? 00:05:31.610 --> 00:05:34.110 That is the exact trap most long -running action 00:05:34.110 --> 00:05:36.170 franchises fall into. Yeah, they just keep going 00:05:36.170 --> 00:05:39.509 bigger until it's meaningless. Exactly. But the 00:05:39.509 --> 00:05:42.110 writers room clearly recognized that you can 00:05:42.110 --> 00:05:45.250 only escalate external threats so much before 00:05:45.250 --> 00:05:47.750 it turns into meaningless noise I mean if you 00:05:47.750 --> 00:05:49.610 steal the Statue of Liberty in year one, what 00:05:49.610 --> 00:05:51.649 do you steal in year ten? The moon right the 00:05:51.649 --> 00:05:53.410 moon. Yeah, just keep inflating the balloon. 00:05:53.410 --> 00:05:55.550 Yeah, so when the external heists couldn't get 00:05:55.550 --> 00:05:58.300 any bigger The creators pivoted. Okay, what did 00:05:58.300 --> 00:06:00.259 they do? Well, what's fascinating here is that 00:06:00.259 --> 00:06:02.300 they decided to go deeper into the characters 00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:06.160 themselves by deliberately handicapping these 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:08.920 seemingly invincible archetypes. Oh, wow. It's 00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:10.899 a brilliant structural shift. It's not like taking 00:06:10.899 --> 00:06:12.879 a superhero's cape away. It's more like taking 00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:14.920 a load -bearing wall out of a house just to see 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:16.959 if the roof collapses. That's a great analogy. 00:06:17.100 --> 00:06:18.879 You remove the one thing holding the character 00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:22.120 up. Let's look at how they dismantled Gigan in 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:24.500 Special 10 Tokyo Crisis, which was released in 00:06:24.500 --> 00:06:27.500 1998. The team is going after a valuable set 00:06:27.500 --> 00:06:30.899 of Japanese photographic plates. But Jigen, the 00:06:30.899 --> 00:06:34.040 legendary marksman whose entire identity revolves 00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:38.079 around his unparalleled accuracy, is completely 00:06:38.079 --> 00:06:41.100 derailed by a toothache. A toothache. A simple 00:06:41.100 --> 00:06:43.439 cavity. Of all the things to take down a master 00:06:43.439 --> 00:06:45.839 assassin, it's a cavity. But the mundane nature 00:06:45.839 --> 00:06:48.579 of it is what makes the writing so sharp. It 00:06:48.579 --> 00:06:51.639 grounds a god -tier character in annoying everyday 00:06:51.639 --> 00:06:54.680 human frailty. His aim is completely thrown off. 00:06:55.220 --> 00:06:57.899 And in that same special Goaman, the stoic warrior 00:06:57.899 --> 00:07:01.279 has his legendary unbreakable sword stolen by 00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:03.720 a woman. Oh man, the shame. Yeah, and it ends 00:07:03.720 --> 00:07:05.600 up sitting on display in a millionaire's art 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:08.259 collection. They are stripped of the very tools 00:07:08.259 --> 00:07:10.610 that define their usefulness to the team. If 00:07:10.610 --> 00:07:12.569 you think about it from the audience's perspective, 00:07:12.990 --> 00:07:15.189 imagine watching your favorite hyper -competent 00:07:15.189 --> 00:07:18.470 hero suddenly become utterly useless. It really 00:07:18.470 --> 00:07:21.269 is. And they do this to Fujiko as well, right? 00:07:21.689 --> 00:07:24.990 In Special 11, The Columbus Files, she gets chiced 00:07:24.990 --> 00:07:28.329 off a cliff during an ambush, falls into the 00:07:28.329 --> 00:07:31.410 woods, and wakes up with total amnesia. Complete 00:07:31.410 --> 00:07:34.040 blank slate. Yeah, she forgets her name, her 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:36.959 alliances, her past. The ultimate master manipulator 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:39.639 suddenly has no identity to manipulate people 00:07:39.639 --> 00:07:42.339 with. Which fundamentally changes the viewer's 00:07:42.339 --> 00:07:44.740 relationship with the cast. If they keep failing 00:07:44.740 --> 00:07:47.839 or losing their signature skills, they stop looking 00:07:47.839 --> 00:07:50.879 like an untouchable crew of master thieves and 00:07:50.879 --> 00:07:53.060 start looking like a highly dysfunctional family. 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:54.920 Yeah, you start rooting for them just to get 00:07:54.920 --> 00:07:57.379 through the day. Exactly. The vulnerability makes 00:07:57.379 --> 00:07:59.420 us care about them on a human level rather than 00:07:59.420 --> 00:08:01.740 just waiting for their next cool trick. Fighters 00:08:01.740 --> 00:08:03.779 didn't restrict this deconstruction to Lupin's 00:08:03.779 --> 00:08:06.459 crew either. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:08:06.620 --> 00:08:09.019 They applied it to the antagonists too. In Special 00:08:09.019 --> 00:08:12.259 5 Voyage to Danger, Inspector Zenegata is formally 00:08:12.259 --> 00:08:15.279 taken off the Lupin case. Oh wow. His superiors 00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:17.839 at Interpol review his track record, deem him 00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:20.100 completely ineffective after years of failing 00:08:20.100 --> 00:08:22.579 to secure an arrest, and they just fire him from 00:08:22.579 --> 00:08:25.110 the investigation. Which, to be fair to his bosses, 00:08:25.430 --> 00:08:27.949 is an objectively true performance review. I 00:08:27.949 --> 00:08:30.009 mean, he hasn't caught the guy in decades. Yeah. 00:08:30.170 --> 00:08:33.350 From a purely bureaucratic standpoint, his dismissal 00:08:33.350 --> 00:08:35.649 makes perfect sense. They replace him with a 00:08:35.649 --> 00:08:38.389 ruthless private contractor named Keith, whose 00:08:38.389 --> 00:08:40.970 mandate isn't to arrest Lupin but to assassinate 00:08:40.970 --> 00:08:44.289 him. A much darker tone. Very dark. But we have 00:08:44.289 --> 00:08:46.149 to look at the cultural context of when this 00:08:46.149 --> 00:08:49.350 aired in 1993, right after the Japanese asset 00:08:49.350 --> 00:08:51.690 price bubble burst. Oh, interesting. Zenegata 00:08:51.690 --> 00:08:54.009 represents the ultimate devoted company man, 00:08:54.250 --> 00:08:56.440 the classic. Japanese cellar man. Right, right. 00:08:56.639 --> 00:08:59.440 He gave his entire life, his youth and his endless 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:02.399 loyalty to his organization only to be tossed 00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:04.919 aside by his superiors during a restructuring 00:09:04.919 --> 00:09:08.059 phase in favor of a cold results driven contractor. 00:09:08.179 --> 00:09:11.440 Oh, man, that adds such a rich layer to his reaction. 00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:14.419 Zenegata is so profoundly offended by this corporate 00:09:14.419 --> 00:09:17.580 betrayal and just the total lack of respect shown 00:09:17.580 --> 00:09:20.080 to his eternal rival that he actually goes against 00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:22.360 his own orders. He is the unthinkable. Yeah. 00:09:22.379 --> 00:09:24.799 The detective tips the master's eef off. the 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:27.580 cat warns the mouse that a dog is coming. And 00:09:27.580 --> 00:09:30.820 that moment is incredibly cathartic for an audience 00:09:30.820 --> 00:09:33.220 dealing with their own real -world corporate 00:09:33.220 --> 00:09:37.080 anxieties. It proves that the bond between Lupin 00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:40.320 and Zenegata is thicker than the law. It's a 00:09:40.320 --> 00:09:42.799 relationship based on mutual respect. Absolutely. 00:09:43.049 --> 00:09:45.669 But as powerful as these character deconstructions 00:09:45.669 --> 00:09:48.250 were, the franchise still had to fill an annual 00:09:48.250 --> 00:09:51.029 90 -minute broadcast slot for another decade. 00:09:51.149 --> 00:09:52.970 Right. You can only take away their power so 00:09:52.970 --> 00:09:55.970 many times. Exactly. Once you've broken the scale 00:09:55.970 --> 00:09:57.950 of the heists and you've broken the archetypes 00:09:57.950 --> 00:10:00.929 of the characters, the only frontier left to 00:10:00.929 --> 00:10:04.429 break is reality itself. Which explains the massive 00:10:04.429 --> 00:10:07.110 pivot into the Bazaar. Because looking through 00:10:07.110 --> 00:10:09.470 these summaries, the genre shifts become wild. 00:10:09.570 --> 00:10:11.470 Oh yeah, they go completely off the rails. They 00:10:11.470 --> 00:10:13.909 start weaving in massive franchise crossovers 00:10:13.909 --> 00:10:16.970 like Special 20 in 2009 where they teamed up 00:10:16.970 --> 00:10:19.429 with Detective Conan. Which is such a weird mix. 00:10:19.570 --> 00:10:21.370 Yeah, you have two totally different narrative 00:10:21.370 --> 00:10:24.389 engines, a heist crew and a child detective colliding 00:10:24.389 --> 00:10:26.470 in the fictional country of España to solve a 00:10:26.470 --> 00:10:29.090 royal assassination. But then you have specials 00:10:29.090 --> 00:10:30.750 that completely abandon the laws of physics. 00:10:31.049 --> 00:10:34.649 Special 19. The elusiveness of the fog from 2007 00:10:34.649 --> 00:10:37.830 is a prime example of just shattering the traditional 00:10:37.830 --> 00:10:39.909 framework. What happens in that one? Well, it 00:10:39.909 --> 00:10:41.950 was designed as a 40th anniversary tribute to 00:10:41.950 --> 00:10:45.009 the original manga, and the writers decided a 00:10:45.009 --> 00:10:47.889 standard vault wasn't enough. The gang is searching 00:10:47.889 --> 00:10:50.669 for an undersea treasure in Japan when they encounter 00:10:50.669 --> 00:10:53.549 a mysterious figure named Mamo who uses some 00:10:53.549 --> 00:10:56.350 kind of temporal light phenomenon to send Lupin, 00:10:56.409 --> 00:10:59.710 Guman, Jigen and Zenigata 500 years into the 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:02.700 past. What? They land in the middle of an ancient 00:11:02.700 --> 00:11:05.419 tribal war. Yes. We've gone from stealing diamonds 00:11:05.419 --> 00:11:08.460 to literal time travel. It's quite a leap. And 00:11:08.460 --> 00:11:11.139 the stakes are entirely existential, right? Mamu 00:11:11.139 --> 00:11:13.580 threatens to erase Fujiko from history by eliminating 00:11:13.580 --> 00:11:16.100 her ancestor. And the escalation tracks with 00:11:16.100 --> 00:11:18.620 the shifting anxieties of the modern world. In 00:11:18.620 --> 00:11:21.840 1989, the threat was physical, a computer predicting 00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:24.690 where you would walk. By the late 2000s, the 00:11:24.690 --> 00:11:27.330 threats in storytelling become much more abstract 00:11:27.330 --> 00:11:29.549 and existential. That makes a lot of sense. Look 00:11:29.549 --> 00:11:32.850 at Special 21 The Last Job from 2010. They are 00:11:32.850 --> 00:11:35.309 chasing a Buddha statue, which feels like a classic 00:11:35.309 --> 00:11:37.789 Lupin setup, an ancient artifact harboring a 00:11:37.789 --> 00:11:40.690 secret. Sure, classic Indiana Jones style. Right. 00:11:40.850 --> 00:11:43.549 But the secret inside the statue is a device 00:11:43.549 --> 00:11:46.549 called the Fujin, which turns out to be a literal 00:11:46.549 --> 00:11:49.490 black hole generator wielded by a villain named 00:11:49.490 --> 00:11:53.029 Morgana. A black hole generator. And it culminates 00:11:53.029 --> 00:11:55.750 in plots like Special 26 Goodbye Partner, released 00:11:55.750 --> 00:11:59.389 in 2019. The narrative revolves around a Chopin 00:11:59.389 --> 00:12:02.610 piano competition in London, a diamond known 00:12:02.610 --> 00:12:05.669 as a time crystal, and an artificial intelligence 00:12:05.669 --> 00:12:08.570 living inside a quantum supercomputer that goes 00:12:08.570 --> 00:12:10.950 rogue and starts waging war on the United States 00:12:10.950 --> 00:12:12.909 government. Just a casual Friday night heist. 00:12:13.470 --> 00:12:15.470 Right. Lupin and Jigen are trying to blow up 00:12:15.470 --> 00:12:17.970 a server farm from the outside while Fujiko plays 00:12:17.970 --> 00:12:20.570 Chopin to distract the AI's internal sensors. 00:12:20.879 --> 00:12:23.399 I mean, we've gone from dodging Interpol agents 00:12:23.399 --> 00:12:25.860 to fighting time travelers, black hole generators 00:12:25.860 --> 00:12:28.100 and rogue quantum networks. At what point does 00:12:28.100 --> 00:12:30.080 it stop being a story about a thief and just 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:32.820 become a pure science fiction fever dream? It's 00:12:32.820 --> 00:12:35.139 a fair question. But the genius of the writer's 00:12:35.139 --> 00:12:36.919 room is that they recognize the setting can be 00:12:36.919 --> 00:12:39.200 anything as long as the engine remains a heist. 00:12:39.659 --> 00:12:42.360 A heist story requires an impenetrable vault. 00:12:43.220 --> 00:12:45.940 In the 1980s, an impenetrable vault was made 00:12:45.940 --> 00:12:48.700 of steel and physical locks. Yeah, lasers and 00:12:48.700 --> 00:12:51.600 guards. Right. By 2019, the most impenetrable 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:54.700 vault in the world is a quantum supercomputer 00:12:54.700 --> 00:12:59.320 holding digital secrets. The vault evolved, so 00:12:59.320 --> 00:13:01.620 the thieves had to evolve with it. That's a really 00:13:01.620 --> 00:13:03.879 great way to look at it. The motivation stealing 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:06.120 something heavily guarded or uncovering a secret 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:08.840 someone else wants hidden always remains intact, 00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:11.179 even if the getaway car is flying through a time 00:13:11.179 --> 00:13:13.710 portal. You know, there is a profound almost 00:13:13.710 --> 00:13:16.509 heartbreaking irony in all of this. Also. Well, 00:13:16.549 --> 00:13:18.549 the writers spent decades making these animated 00:13:18.549 --> 00:13:21.730 characters completely immortal, right? Surviving 00:13:21.730 --> 00:13:24.470 black holes, temporal displacement falling off 00:13:24.470 --> 00:13:26.889 cliffs. But behind the microphone, the studio 00:13:26.889 --> 00:13:29.370 had to grapple with the very harsh, grounded 00:13:29.370 --> 00:13:31.990 reality of human mortality. Yeah, it's very true. 00:13:32.649 --> 00:13:34.529 The production notes detailed in the Wikipedia 00:13:34.529 --> 00:13:37.190 records reveal a deeply poignant layer to this 00:13:37.190 --> 00:13:39.409 legacy. Yeah, it's really sad, actually. The 00:13:39.409 --> 00:13:42.190 voice is the soul of an animated character. For 00:13:42.190 --> 00:13:44.669 Lupin III, that soul belonged to Yasuo Yamada, 00:13:44.850 --> 00:13:47.169 who had voiced the character since the 1970s. 00:13:47.610 --> 00:13:49.909 A total legend. But during the recording sessions 00:13:49.909 --> 00:13:54.370 for Special 5 Voyage to Danger in 1993, Yamada 00:13:54.370 --> 00:13:58.629 became suddenly severely ill. His condition deteriorated 00:13:58.629 --> 00:14:00.629 to the point where his standing became unstable 00:14:00.629 --> 00:14:02.789 and the crew had to bring a chair into the booth 00:14:02.789 --> 00:14:04.970 so he could record the final parts of his dialogue 00:14:04.970 --> 00:14:08.179 sitting down. The dedication to finish that performance 00:14:08.179 --> 00:14:11.139 knowing his body was failing is just remarkable. 00:14:11.559 --> 00:14:13.500 And listeners who go back and watch the 1994 00:14:13.500 --> 00:14:16.759 special Dragon of Doom, which was his final performance, 00:14:17.340 --> 00:14:19.440 often note the audio quality. Well, you can hear 00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:21.500 it. If you listen closely, there is a subtle 00:14:21.500 --> 00:14:24.259 fatigue in his voice, a slight rasp that wasn't 00:14:24.259 --> 00:14:27.139 there before. Yet Yamada pushed through it using 00:14:27.139 --> 00:14:29.899 the manic high -energy persona of Lupin as a 00:14:29.899 --> 00:14:32.690 mask for his own declining health. It completely 00:14:32.690 --> 00:14:34.750 changes how you view those scenes. It really 00:14:34.750 --> 00:14:36.929 does. It adds an immense emotional weight to 00:14:36.929 --> 00:14:40.049 the viewing experience. Yasuo Yamada passed away 00:14:40.049 --> 00:14:42.690 from a brain hemorrhage in 1995 at the age of 00:14:42.690 --> 00:14:45.590 62. Such a huge loss. The loss sent shockwaves 00:14:45.590 --> 00:14:47.590 through the production. They brought in Kenichi 00:14:47.590 --> 00:14:49.529 Kurita, an impressionist who had actually been 00:14:49.529 --> 00:14:51.490 endorsed by Yamada to take over the role that 00:14:51.490 --> 00:14:54.090 same year. Wow, no pressure, right? Exactly. 00:14:54.730 --> 00:14:56.669 Stepping into those shoes for an audience that 00:14:56.669 --> 00:14:59.250 had... only ever known one voice for a cultural 00:14:59.250 --> 00:15:03.210 icon was a monumental task. If you've ever watched 00:15:03.210 --> 00:15:05.649 a long -running show where the network recasts 00:15:05.649 --> 00:15:08.309 your favorite character mid -season, you know 00:15:08.309 --> 00:15:11.289 how incredibly jarring that is. Your brain initially 00:15:11.289 --> 00:15:13.570 rejects it. You just know it's wrong. Right. 00:15:13.990 --> 00:15:16.429 Now imagine that happening after 16 straight 00:15:16.429 --> 00:15:19.009 years of annual specials. And it wasn't just 00:15:19.009 --> 00:15:22.269 Lupin. Over a 30 -year span time catches up with 00:15:22.269 --> 00:15:25.029 everyone. It inevitably does. In 2011, during 00:15:25.029 --> 00:15:27.549 the production of Special 22, Blood Seal of the 00:15:27.549 --> 00:15:30.129 Eternal Mermaid, the franchise had to execute 00:15:30.129 --> 00:15:32.759 a massive changing of the guard. They brought 00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:36.320 in entirely new voice actors for Fujiko, Zenegata, 00:15:36.519 --> 00:15:38.620 and Gomon all at once. Which is practically the 00:15:38.620 --> 00:15:41.399 whole cast. Yeah. Miyuki Sawashiro, Kichi Yamadera, 00:15:41.620 --> 00:15:44.019 and Daisuke Namikawa had to step up and carry 00:15:44.019 --> 00:15:46.720 the legacy forward. And that kind of wholesale 00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:49.120 cast turnover could have easily killed a lesser 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:52.259 franchise. But the resilience of the loop in 00:15:52.259 --> 00:15:54.600 the third specials is tied to the strength of 00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:56.559 those core archetypes we discussed at the beginning. 00:15:56.659 --> 00:15:58.299 The foundation was strong enough to hold them. 00:15:58.659 --> 00:16:01.440 Exactly. The critical reception proved that the 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:03.779 new actors didn't just mimic the old performances. 00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:06.039 They channeled the essence of the characters. 00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:08.919 Yeah. We see this early on with Kenichi Kurita 00:16:08.919 --> 00:16:11.759 in Special Nine Island of Assassins from 1997. 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:15.860 The plot is incredibly dark. Zenegata is actually 00:16:15.860 --> 00:16:18.879 shot and critically injured by a silver Walther 00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:22.840 P38, which is Lupin's signature weapon. Talk 00:16:22.840 --> 00:16:25.620 about high stakes. The emotional stakes are incredibly 00:16:25.620 --> 00:16:28.200 high, and Corita's performance was lauded by 00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:30.580 critics who hailed it as one of the best Lupin 00:16:30.580 --> 00:16:33.659 experiences ever produced, placing it right alongside 00:16:33.659 --> 00:16:36.879 theatrical masterpieces like The Castle of Caliostro. 00:16:37.419 --> 00:16:39.740 It raises a fascinating philosophical question 00:16:39.740 --> 00:16:41.860 about animation. What do you mean? Well, when 00:16:41.860 --> 00:16:43.940 a live -action actor like Sean Connery or Daniel 00:16:43.940 --> 00:16:47.529 Craig leaves James Bond, the face changes. The 00:16:47.529 --> 00:16:49.830 audience physically sees a new person, but in 00:16:49.830 --> 00:16:51.809 animation the character's face stays exactly 00:16:51.809 --> 00:16:54.610 the same frame by frame, year after year, while 00:16:54.610 --> 00:16:56.629 the human giving them their soul changes behind 00:16:56.629 --> 00:16:58.730 the scenes. That's a really beautiful way to 00:16:58.730 --> 00:17:01.750 put it. The storyteller changes, but the legend 00:17:01.750 --> 00:17:04.990 remains untouched. It turns Lupin from a television 00:17:04.990 --> 00:17:07.369 character into something closer to a modern folk 00:17:07.369 --> 00:17:10.450 hero. That is exactly how a franchise achieves 00:17:10.450 --> 00:17:13.319 immortality. The visual language of the characters 00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:16.099 is so universally understood that they can survive 00:17:16.099 --> 00:17:18.579 a changing of the guard. The new actors bring 00:17:18.579 --> 00:17:20.980 their own nuances, allowing the characters to 00:17:20.980 --> 00:17:23.359 breathe and evolve for a new generation without 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:26.000 losing the historical weight built up over decades. 00:17:26.140 --> 00:17:28.539 So what does this all mean? We started out trying 00:17:28.539 --> 00:17:30.720 to understand how a television production team 00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:33.380 manages to keep a single magic trick captivating 00:17:33.380 --> 00:17:36.359 for nearly a quarter of a century. Looking at 00:17:36.359 --> 00:17:39.019 this massive 30 -year timeline, all of these 00:17:39.019 --> 00:17:42.059 production shifts and 27 feature -length specials, 00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:44.640 what is the ultimate takeaway for anyone trying 00:17:44.640 --> 00:17:47.119 to build a lasting story? I think the lesson 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:49.339 lies in the delicate art of balancing comfort 00:17:49.339 --> 00:17:52.150 with subversion. The loop in the third special 00:17:52.150 --> 00:17:54.829 survived and thrived because they gave the audience 00:17:54.829 --> 00:17:57.769 the comfort of highly recognizable beloved archetypes. 00:17:58.250 --> 00:18:00.349 The thief, the marksman, the swordsman, the femme 00:18:00.349 --> 00:18:02.369 fatale, and the detective. The classic crew. 00:18:02.630 --> 00:18:04.970 But instead of letting those archetypes stagnate, 00:18:05.390 --> 00:18:07.630 the writers threw them into the most unpredictable, 00:18:07.930 --> 00:18:10.130 punishing, and entirely subversive narrative 00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:11.869 blenders they could imagine. They really didn't 00:18:11.869 --> 00:18:14.579 hold back. No, they didn't. For anyone studying 00:18:14.579 --> 00:18:17.839 storytelling or even business adaptability, the 00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:20.740 takeaway is clear. If you maintain a fiercely 00:18:20.740 --> 00:18:23.680 strong core identity, you can experiment wildly 00:18:23.680 --> 00:18:26.740 with format, with stakes, and with genre without 00:18:26.740 --> 00:18:29.099 ever alienating your audience. They stripped 00:18:29.099 --> 00:18:31.200 away their legendary skills, they fired them 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:33.019 from their jobs, they threw them in the black 00:18:33.019 --> 00:18:35.220 holes, and they erased their memories. And yet 00:18:35.220 --> 00:18:37.500 beneath it all, they never stopped being the 00:18:37.500 --> 00:18:39.880 Lupin Gang. Exactly. It leaves you with such 00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:42.759 a fascinating trajectory to mull over. Just think 00:18:42.759 --> 00:18:44.880 about the timeline we mapped out today for you. 00:18:45.380 --> 00:18:48.480 In 1989, in that very first television special, 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:51.839 Lupin was stealing a physical object. He stole 00:18:51.839 --> 00:18:54.000 the Statue of Liberty because police computers 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:56.579 were predicting his physical movements on a physical 00:18:56.579 --> 00:18:59.779 map. Right. The good old days. Fast forward 30 00:18:59.779 --> 00:19:03.599 years to 2019's Goodbye Partner, and he is battling 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:06.400 a rogue artificial intelligence that is manipulating 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:08.720 the world's financial systems through a quantum 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:11.240 supercomputer. a very different world. It makes 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:13.599 you wonder, as our real world moves further and 00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:15.480 further away from physical wealth and deeper 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.119 into the realm of digital data and cloud networks, 00:19:18.900 --> 00:19:21.500 how long before a master thief's greatest tool 00:19:21.500 --> 00:19:24.720 isn't a getaway car or a grappling hook or a 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:27.299 silenced pistol, but a massive humming server 00:19:27.299 --> 00:19:29.619 farm? In a world where absolutely everything 00:19:29.619 --> 00:19:31.880 is digitized, what does the ultimate heist even 00:19:31.880 --> 00:19:32.619 look like anymore?