Lupin III (1971) 7
So two more Osumi episodes (9,12) after this. I don't think I quite appreciated how much violence was in this for its time either although reading up it's apparently one of the reasons Osumi was ultimately let go. I'm curious how Takahata/Miyazaki approached the show now as it feels like this was just getting into a groove. Interesting to see the animators realized how bullets work after episode 5 too. The highlight of the episode, without a doubt, was the bonding at the end between Lupin and Goemon which was just fantastic.
Also Lupin's dad is an asshole.
If I still ran a 4:3 monitor, this would probably be my background now.
There's always a great shot in every episode worthy of being framed, I'd say. Just wish that I could find cels to purchase.
Lupin III (1971) 8
Well, that was something. I heard the Takahata/Miyazaki stuff takes a bit to come into its own as well but there was some serious contrast between this and the Osumi stuff. Overall it was more cartoony (aside from Goemon cutting fools up), Zenigata seemed more inept, the usual macguffin actually became more of a focus of the story, the background characters were much more prominent in how they were used as well as the sheer number of them, and it seemed to give way to something more story than character oriented.
Poor Jigen.
One thing I've noticed about Osumi is how much focus he places on the regulars. It's just his thingwhen I attempted to watch some of his Moomin episodes in recent times, that choice of direction was easy enough to notice, even though I couldn't quite understand the plot at times. All about the regulars, secluded in generic, symbolized backgrounds that are more meant to add an expressionist context for the characters themselves. I think Osumi definitely had a fine career in running puppet shows, because he treats his episodes like puppet plays for distinctive characters.
You've pretty much nailed the contrast there. The Osumi episodes feel like a spy movie, while the Miyazaki/Takahata episodes feel like a Saturday morning cartoon heist show.
That's a fairly-accurate analysis. Miyazaki is usually more guilty of being the cartoony director, though. Takahata is more similar to Osumi in most ways, except that his influences from French new wave and Italian reo-realist films are more apparent. Osumi set up a framework resemblant of his puppet-show productions and let the series staff have more fun than usual with what kinds of experiments they wished to try. I wish Gisaburo Sugii got to work on Lupin, though Yasuo Otsuka is enough celebrity participation to give me a boner.
