A friend of mine hasn't seen ANY of the Hayao Miyazaki films. Yeah, I know, right? I haven't watched any of them in several years, so this gives me a good excuse to go back and view them again with fresh eyes. These will be the English dubs for anybody curious, in chronological order. First up is of course...
Castle of Cagliostro
I can't help worry about how my friend might take to the later installments of the Miyazaki overue; their decisive Japanese culture tounchstones, convoluted stories, or rapidly changing themes. But for now, there's nothing to worry about. CoC may be Miyazaki's most accessible, commercial film, which makes sense that he was working within a licensed property instead of his own creation. Even then, Miyazaki's storytelling prowess is on display, even if it lacks his fanciful creatures or economic themes.
The characters in this film are all one-dimensional and archtypical. Lupin is a thief with a heart of gold, Jigen is laidback cool partner-in-crime, Goemon is serious-face badass swordsman, etc. The Count of Cagilistro, the main antagonist, is evil with a captial EVIL, with no grey morality whatsoever. The Princess is...well, she's the princess, she has the depth of Princess Peach from the SMB series. And that's fine, as this is a big adventure film and you don't need complex character arcs or development to make it work.
The problem for me(and some other Lupin fans) is the established characterizations of certain Lupin the III cast members, namely the lead himself. I have rarely, if ever, seen Lupin THIS good-natured, trying so hard to charm and rescue the damsel-in-distress, the treasure of this quest becomes secondary. Same goes for Fujiko, who has transformed into what seems to be a completely different character from pretty much any other incarnation. Much the art style, the Lupin cast has been softened, rounded out for a more generic hero alignment, which I think loses some of the charm of these great characters.
But, if you have never seen Lupin before in your life(like my friend hasn't), none of that means a damn thing, and honestly, I really don't care that much. How can you when the film is so relentlessly charming, exciting, and flat-out fun? The action sequences in this thing are amazing; all wonderfully animated and incredibly clever. There's not a lot of tension to them(Lupin does a Looney Tunes esque leap across the castle rooftops when the plot demanded it), but again, it just doesn't matter. The movie's excellent sense of pacing and awesome set pieces mean you'll be smiling too much to come down on it's basic plotting or simplistic static characters. Even the scenes of comic relief or exposition have a sense of fun to them that is largely missing from contemporary action blockbusters. One of the best adventure films ever, no question.
So yeah, I don't know if this really prepared my friend for the ecological and really-Japanese future Miyazaki films, but this was a damn entertaining start.
