Arséne in the Membrane

Coincidence? The very same year that Americans were being introduced to a certain black private dick who's a sex machine to all the ladies, Japanese TV introduced an animated series featuring a white private thief who's a sex machine to all the ladies: Arséne Lupin III! There must have been something in the air in 1971.

Early this muggy Tokyo morning nearly four decades later, NHK wrapped up a three-day Lupin III marathon aired in glorious HD (for whatever good high-def does for scratchy, thirty-year-old film stock). Episodes were interspersed with goodies like interviews with key staff and roundtable discussions with Lupin-loving stars. One of the highlights: snippets from a ten-minute test film whipped up in the late Sixties as part of a campaign to convince creator Monkey Punch to allow an animated version of his Mad Magazine-influenced manga about a sex-crazed international jewel thief.

The Lupin III series is widely regarded as a masterpiece of the Japanese anime pantheon, so the story of its troubled origins was news to me. When the animated series debuted in October of 1971, the same edgy tone that won over Monkey Punch managed to flip out a viewing public that still largely regarded cartoons as kids' stuff. Parents actually forbade their children from watching, and ratings were so record-breakingly low after the first few episodes that the sponsor demanded the series be sanitized for a younger audience. Director Masaaki Osumi stormed off the project in protest, only to be replaced by two up-and-comers by the names of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. Perhaps you've heard of them. Their family-friendlier versions of Monkey Punch's risqué anti-heroes succeeded in capturing more a mainstream demographic (they managed to more than quintuple the show's ratings by the end of the season), but it would be five years before a pair of films and a new television series finally cemented the series' reputation.

In an interview filmed for the marathon, Osumi spoke candidly about the pressure he was under from executives and explained the production team's approach for creating the distinct atmosphere of the Lupin series. In an sea of stiff animated characters who struck dramatic poses before launching into canned monologues, Osumi insisted on bestowing his heroes with kentaikan -- slack. But any mechanical object Lupin and his pals came into contact with had to be rendered in obsessive detail, particularly vehicles and weaponry. No matter how absurd the plot, the "mecha" -- cars, planes, boats, guns, even wristwatches -- were always based on actual existing luxury products. Lupin's favorite model of pistol even gets a shout-out in the theme song, making an obscure German firearm called the "Walther P-38" as instantly recognizable as a Sony Walkman or a Honda Cub to a generation of kids raised on the show.

You can't downplay the international feel of the series, either. Its hero is loosely based on a French character, his right-hand man is a sharpshooting bohemian who looks like he walked out of a jazz club, and the show incorporates abundant foreign imagery (many episodes take place in exotic locales, and actual photos of Western art are frequently included in backgrounds.) Even the musical score has a distinctive folk/jazz bent. It's a gumbo of domestic and foreign cultural references "remixed" for easy consumption by Japanese audiences.

When you think about it, this obsession with fine detail and foreign locales isn't limited to the Lupin series. Almost every classic Showa-era animated series features some form of this wishful thinking. Even shows set in totally imaginary worlds, like Mobile Suit Gundam, take great pains to describe tiny features such as the calibers of the weapons used by the various characters. Many classic anime shows are dreamlike pastiches of places the creators want to go, filled with things they wish they had. You could call it an "ambition" of sorts -- the very thing that critics like Toshio Okada (who was in fact on hand for a panel discussion between episodes) allege is missing from the lives of modern, inward-looking Japanese otaku. But is it really any surprise that the dreams of modern otaku have fallen down to earth in comparison to their Icacrus-like brethren from the Bubble Era? Or that a generation of kids raised on highly interactive videogames might actually demand a little LESS from their television than their predecessors? Whatever the case, one thing is for sure. The anime industry would have been a very different place without Lupin III.

Comments

[W. David Marx]

Even with the "cleaned up" content, the treatment of Fujiko is often massively misogynistic. The often "punish" her by ripping off all her clothes etc.

[MattAlt]

There's definite "naughtiness" there, but I'm not sure that's the right read on the character. She's generally portrayed as Lupin's equal, and the show was a huge crossover hit -- it's massively popular with women in Japan.

[Steve Harrison]

With all due respect, there are many things you can call the Walther P-38, but Obscure is not one of them.

It was quite the familiar firearm, second to the Colt 1911 .45 semi-automatic handgun (and, likely not a coincidence, the choice weapon of Zenigata) in terms of 'play' on TV action shows. All during the '60s it was quite usual that the 'good guys' ( be it a detective show, or a war show, or a spy show, or a Sci fi show) would be armed with .45s, and any 'enemies' would have P-38s.

This was because in the post WW II world, P-38s were cheap and plentiful, they could fire cut down .38 blanks if 9mm wasn't available, they were stone cold reliable and just looked cool.

Which is why when the producers of the Man from UNCLE show discovered that their original choice for their (designed to be merchandised) UNCLE Special pistol was a worthless piece of crap, the prop master grabbed a Walther P-38, sawed off most of the barrel, chopped off most of the hammer, made new grips from machined aluminum and a star was born, creating one of the most famous weapons in the world.

(look thru anime back in the early '70s, you'll see riffs on the UNCLE Special all over the place. Mach Go Go Go being the most obvious, right in the opening credits. And then there's Megatron....)

sorry...put me in Sonoda's camp, kinda gun otaku crazy there... :)

[Aceface]

You should also add the legendary voice actor of Lupin,Yamada Yasuo(died 1995)had dubbed Clint Eastwood and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

[MattAlt]

And don't forget Megatron the Transformer, perhaps the most famous Walther P-38 of all for my generation.

Sure, it's well-known to gun aficionados. But you have to admit it's a little odd that in a nation where handgun ownership is totally illegal, nearly every thirty-to-forty year old Japanese man or woman knows a particular WWII-era Wehrmacht pistol by brand and model name.

[Steve Harrison]

Well, it's Iconic. Like the Colt .45 semi-auto, like the Thompson submachine gun, like the Schmissier MP-40, even the P-08 Luger.

British Webley revolver, the Sten gun, I could go on and on and on...

If nothing else, all those viewing of Combat (starring Vic Morrow) would have cemented those names and images into that generation.

Connections, Matt. Everything has a context and connection.

Nobody ever asks these anime people what non-anime they watched like it was a religion. I bet Combat and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea would come up quiet a bit.

I digress :)

[MattAlt]

"You should also add the legendary voice actor of Lupin,Yamada Yasuo(died 1995)had dubbed Clint Eastwood "

Yes. I've heard it suggested that Eastwood's popularity here is due in large part to Yamada's dubs. Coming from a country where the majority of voice actors toil in obscurity it's interesting to consider that such an American icon might owe his success here to a voice other than his own.

[Aceface]

"it's interesting to consider that such an American icon might owe his success here to a voice other than his own."

Yamada has been Eastwood's voice actor since the days of "Rawhide",which was a cultural phenomenon back in the early 60's when TV had started in Japan.Back then,all the film company refused to provide contents including both facility and actors,so J-TV stations look to the U.S and imported dramas like "I Love Lucy" and "Rawhide"which made Yamada,a household name,but not Eastwood.

And Walther P-38...
One of the reason is the ending theme with lyric like ”ワルサーＰ－３８、この手の中に、抱かれたものはすべて消えゆく～”
And this is one of the most favourite Anime Karaoke song of said generation.

Another reason is this,
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%8A%80%E7%8E%89%E9%89%84%E7%A0%B2

It's a toy gun like BB guns,with plastic bullets.All of us 30 somethings had played with plastic Walther P-38 in our youth.

[Sprocket]

I don't know why I never caught onto that 'slacker' spirit that was so pervasive in Lupin, but I'm glad to finally place what made Lupin so unique, and even influenced later shows like Cowboy Bebop, which according to a Newtype interview I looked up, the Osumi-directed episodes were Watanabe's sole anime influence in creating the show.

Despite the role Miyazaki and Takahata had in making the character popular, I'm glad that Osumi's contribution to the character hasn't been forgotten.

[Steve Harrison]

There ya go, Aceface throws context into the game. Rawhide.

I have a hunch that if one were to dig around and find listings for American TV shows running on Japanese TV during the '50s, '60s, you'd find all kinds of connections with anime.

I think it would make for a fascinating subject, how American TV helped shape the anime industry. Because I get the idea from Aceface's comment that it wasn't a case of a show here, a show there ala Space Giants and Ultraman here in the US, but this was mainstream primetime content.

Did the need for actors to dub American TV shows for Japanese broadcast lead to a pool of talent that was readily accessible and tapped as more animation studios came into being? Were actors picked for roles more based on which American actors they 'stood in' for than anything else?

There's a book in this...

[Aceface]

Steve.

Monkey Punch himself said he was influenced by MAD magazine,so there are definitely all kinds of American influence.
Currently we are seeing the second "boom" of American TV in Japan like "24","LOST","PRISON BREAKS" etc.Due to the fact Japanese TV drama sucks.So I'd imagine there will be lots of products under strong American influence from now on.

I think there is a definite connection between good voice actor and dubbed imported films/dramas being shown on Japanese TV.
There's a voice actor legend named Koike Asao who died in 1985,and he was regular in dubbing Columbo.When I first went to the U.S in early 80's and saw the rerun of the show,my first impression was "Koike-san is far more better than Peter Falk!".Koike did almost all of Peter Falk along with all of Gene Hackman dubbing.
Another famous voice actor named Nozawa Yasutomo did all of the Alain Delon,Bruce Willis,Robert Redford,Al Pacino,David McCallum and most of James Woods,

[Steve Harrison]

That's fascinating, Aceface. Here in the US the concept of watching an American TV show dubbed into Japanese is considered to be only of humor value, good for the occasional 30 second clip. I suspect that there would be some astonishing information to be discovered, learning about Japanese voice actors and the Americans they dubbed over.

I recall watching the Laser Disc of 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' with the alternate (included because it was deemed funny, as in 'HAW HAW CHIN GO CHAN CHAN listen to the monkey talk" thinking) Japanese language track and being astonished to hear the cast of Lupin III being the Pythons! The voice of Zenigata was surprisingly effective for John Cleese....

[M-Bone]

If you want some insight into American influences on anime / manga - read Fujiko Fujio`s autobiographical stuff - Stagecoach was a biggie for all of those guys at the Tokiwa Apartment and Tezuka. Combat was also huge on Japanese TV and Mochizuki Michiya (Wild 7) and Matsumoto Reiji have both admitted influences.

Oshii Mamoru got his start as a film fan with `This Island Earth` which was the film that they did for the MST3K movie....

Didn`t the same guy do the voice for Obi-Wan in Star Wars and later Yupa in Nausicaa? And Okia-kancho in Yamato? Badass.

[Tim Eldred]

I'm pretty sure Goro Naya supplied the voice of both Zenigatta and Captain Okita. There's your six degrees right there!