Lupin the Third: The Mystery of Mamo

Lupin has been executed. The body is identified and the file closed. But Zenigata does not believe it and is proved right: Lupin is alive. Fujiko asks him for a job; he is to steal a stone from a tomb in Egypt. The stone is taken and the job does not end. Behind it is a man called Mamo; he is after immortality and has been working at it for centuries. He produces copies of himself. Lupin, Jigen and Goemon get into it. The narrative begins as a heist and goes somewhere else. Soji Yoshikawa directs. Yasuo Yamada voices Lupin. The source is Monkey Punch's comic series. It is the first theatrical feature of the Lupin series. Its register differs from the television series; the violence is more explicit, the humour darker and the subject moves toward science fiction. Historical and religious reference is dense; an argument is built about cloning, immortality and creation. The animation belongs to the seventies and the use of colour differs from later work in the series. It was distributed outside Japan with different dubbing and different cuts; in some versions the ending was changed. The narrative puts Fujiko at its centre and leaves her motive open. Its limit is structure; the narrative comes apart in the second half and the argument is stated too plainly. Who it is for: viewers who like the Lupin series and Japanese animation of the seventies. Who it is not for: the register is uneven, the plot tangled, and the ending strange.