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May 1, 2008
Star Rating (out of four): ***
The Castle of Cagliostro has a peculiar opening. A master thief named Lupin III and his partner-in-crime, Daisuke Jigen, have successfully stolen millions of dollars from a grand casino. Or so it seems. It turns that the money was actually counterfeit, the work of a high-class crime lord name Cagliostro. Yet Lupin isn’t angry; quite the opposite. It’s fascinating how quickly he forgets the loss and gets pumped up for his next big steal. This is the ideal thief, a man not so much interested in robbing to get rich than in the act of robbing itself. And judging by
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his exuberant methods, it’s not hard to see why.
Lupin is one of the most memorable characters in anime history. He’s like a loony James Bond, always cool and cheerful even when things go wrong, which is always. He may seem prepared for anything, but then unexpected events occur, most caused by his own clumsiness, and things take a turn, not always for the worst though. But he’s not one to be underestimated. A master of deception, Lupin can convince security guards that the police detective that he is impersonating is the real Lupin in disguise. He’s so devilishly unpredictable that he can lead his enemies (and the audience) to believe one thing, but then suddenly reveal his true intentions to everyone’s astonishment.
What keeps us oriented and on our toes is Lupin with his high energy, something we need in a plot that doesn’t have its own. After a very surrealistic chase scene that uses cars and bombs in very unique ways, Lupin saves a girl in a wedding dress named Clarisse from her death. (Lupin immediately likes this girl, of course, and will spend the rest of the film trying to save her.) She runs away to avoid captivity from more bad guys, but accidentally leaves behind a special ring. What purpose does this ring have?
Well, it may help Lupin understand the legacy of the castle of Calgiostro. It is the base of a counterfeiting business carried down over centuries, but is there something more below its ruins? A treasure, perhaps?
But we don’t care much about all this. Part of that may be because we don’t particularly care much for the villain and the damsel-in-distress. They fill their roles, but with no personality or style. Clarisse, the princess, is especially boring, not getting much of her own say until the end of the movie. She is the fiance of Count Cagliostro, although he seems to care more about that ring she possesses than her.
Maybe the director, Hayao Miyazaki, realized that all this plot material was secondary anyway, because the majority of the film (thankfully) is spent watching Lupin wiggle his way out of every hole he makes for himself. The best scenes show him either getting into trouble or surprising us by appearing to be in trouble, but really having the upper hand. The detective impersonation and car chase are such sequences, but there is also an episode in the waterways, an interesting but spoiled attempt to reach the princess’ imprisonment tower, and a gloriously hilarious wedding disruption that will leave many flabbergasted.
But things aren’t all cartoon lunacy. There are a few scenes of grave seriousness that keep us informed of the great danger Lupin gets himself into. People can actually die in this film. But these scenes don’t make us scorn Lupin's silliness; we're just more amazed that he manages to escape alive and still have that stupid smile on his face.
The Castle of Cagliostro is always entertaining when Lupin is on-screen. It lags when it comes time for exposition and villain/damsel interactions, but I for one would sit through all the exposition in the world to see Lupin III struggle through another mission, and have great fun while he’s at it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 2, 2008
Star Rating (out of four): **
(This review is based on having read the first chapter.)
I think Ai Kora would really be worth reading if it didn’t feel so much like a Ken Akamatsu rip-off. Akamatsu, as you recall, created the famous Love Hina and infamous Negima!, two harem comedies that redefined the genre. Ai Kora does no more, it seems, than copy Akamatsu’s technique.
Two of the four girls in this manga look like descendants of Asuna and Nodoka from Negima! Identical appearances are fine by me - except that they also seem to share the same personalities. One, named Sakurako, has long orange hair and
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a feisty hatred of Hachibe, the protagonist, while the other, Yukari, has shorter hair and is so timid that she says nothing when the he is fondling her breast the first time they meet (don’t ask).
Then there are the usual Harem clichés: at the moment Hachibe commits to do good, he winds up walking in on Sakurako, who is in a state of undress. Skirts fly up frequently. Hachibe has to move into the girls’ dorm (Love Hina, anyone?).
Ai Kora’s one masterstroke is Hachibe, a character that belongs on that ever growing list of Characters that could Only Exist in Anime/Manga. This list is composed of characters who are so eccentric, if they were to spend a limited amount of time in the real world, they’d probably commit suicide.
Hachibo nears the top of this list. Essentially, he’s a pervert, but what he craves in the “ideal girl” is highly specific. What he wants, explained in a brilliant monologue that would make Quentin Tarantino proud, are four body parts: 1) transparent blue, cat eyes, 2) a husky voice, 3) breasts shaped like the tip of a bullet train, and 4) legs that are the same width from the thigh to the feet. This last desire is where the character would commit suicide, since having such legs is humanly impossible. (But I digress because, after all, this is a manga, so logic is not applied, nor is it wanted.)
Unfortunately, while this trait makes him interesting, it doesn’t place him high on likeability. We could connect with Keitaro of Love Hina because his needs, if not his actions, were more down to earth. This protagonist wants what no what can understand, and most likely wouldn’t want to. He is all alone.
The plotting of this manga scares me with its contrivances. The protagonist moves to Tokyo to go to school and find his “ideal girl.” However, upon reaching the boys’ dorm, he finds it has been burned to the ground. Why? So he can be moved into the girls’ dorm, of course, where, by astonishing coincidence, the four girls (well, three girls and the teacher) all happen to have one of the four traits he desires in a girl. Talk about fate.
Immediately we get drenched with stereotypes: the two girls I mentioned earlier, and another named Kirino who seems to be a ninja (anime rule 8: if a manga/anime casts more than two lead girls, chances are the third one is a ninja, samurai, or something of that nature). They start out hating him because they think (correctly) that he is perverted. Out of grief, and after seeing Sakurako nearly naked, he leaves.
And that’s where things go straight down to Hell.
A stranger assaults the girls because he wants revenge on the teacher. Why? Who knows. You see, it was he who burned down the boys’ dorm so he could show the teacher who’s boss. The three problems I had with this were: 1) if the intent was to get revenge on the female teacher, shouldn’t he have burned down the teacher’s living quarters in the girls’ dorm to make a stronger point?; 2) where are the other boys who would’ve been living in this dorm? Shouldn’t they have been with Hachibe in the girls’ dorm?; and 3) why wasn’t Hachibe immediately notified? Why is the teacher so calm when she explains to him what happened?
The answer to all these questions is that the author failed to find a plausible (there I go applying logic again) reason to have Hachibe have to live with the girls, and clumsily added the bit about a fire as the plot device. And none of the characters find this strange. Love Hina and Negima! at least had the decency to realize how ridiculous they were.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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