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Howdy folks, and welcome back to "Blizzard yells into a void"! On today's episode I establish the standard that's been used for this franchise's CRTs, why it should be classified officially as a composite, while also providing a general history lesson on the franchise as a whole. If you want to skip all the history jargon then there's a TLDR and bullet points at the bottom which get my main points across, with the most relevant sections being the sections involving Part 5 and Green vs Red since those are the most continuity dense parts of an otherwise highly episodic franchise. And to those who want to learn a bit about the franchise..... well strap in because things are going to be surprising to many not in the know.
First on up, what is the actual history of the franchise.
Manga History: Lupin III was a manga created by an artist who went by the name Monkey Punch back in 1967. From there he continued writing manga until 1981 with the conclusion of New Lupin III, the sequel story with a short return in 1984 with Sexy Lupin III with only 5 chapters. The franchise would get more manga later on however these releases do not include the original author at all and instead follow.....
TV History: From there an eventual pilot film would be created which would turn into the Part 1 series spanning 1971 to 1972. While these took inspiration from the manga, they were noticeably different as it did not follow the manga and had some wonky characterization due to the first half being directed by Masaaki Ōsumi with the second half being directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata which made Lupin go from (bit of a content warning: people get hanged by the neck) actual sociopath who would kill men by the dozen on the drop of a dime to the type of guy who would prefers to troll people when stealing and commit comedic jewelry heists. The series would eventually be cancelled due to poor ratings (that's what you get when you're credited as the first ever Japanese animated series intended for adults) however due to rapid popularity found in reruns it would be greenlit a sequel.
Part 2 follows the cast as they go on far more episodic adventures thanks to the series following Miyazaki's approach rather than Osumi who wanted to create some mystery surrounding Fujiko's character (she didn't really have one back then lol). From this point onward the franchise will have various different writers, directors, producers, ect as Miyazaki and Takahata create peak. So there won't be mentions of individual creators as that'd take all day. Throughout this part things take..... a very weird turn from what would've been expected from the series prior, Lupin has officially lost all of his edge and became a perv with a heart of gold, Fujiko has taken a more active role in the story, and the stories in question have gotten far more absurd than just the typical crime. Lupin gets possessed and cursed by a pharaoh, steals the entire Christ the Redeemer statue, faces against the sister of Jesus Christ who is a 2,000 year old vampire?!!??!?! This entire part is littered with more supernatural elements, gags, and consists of some of the weirdest and out there sections of the franchise's 50 years worth of content in terms of premise. Plus this is where the start of a long line of Goemon backstory alterations begin, where he sees his master die a second time.
Part 3 is were things get really weird...... assuming the part of Jesus' sister wasn't weird enough. In this part Lupin takes a bit of a more suave and cool role at the beginning however as it goes on and on it eventually turns into actual Scooby Doo where it mostly sticks to absurd gags and tricks in terms of characterization and presentation. This is often seen as the 'black sheep' of the franchise due to the later half and is the only TV Part to not have an English release. However due to it's status and importance, it's still regarded as a major part of his history that can't be skipped under any circumstances.
The franchise then detoured into The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, a far more adult series which sought to bring back the adult edge the characters had lost over the decades (Almost 40 years, golly!). This part played a vital role for the franchise as it returned to it's roots to being for adults and had shaken off much of the rust that the more Saturday morning parts of the franchise had created. It also retconned some character backstories for the 30th time however it does stay somewhat consistent with other's like how Jigen's mostly stayed the same. (Unironically Jigen has easily the most comprehensible history when you take everything into account, everyone else has contradictions left and right where he just has some slight room for disbelief)
Part 4 is where things take an interesting turn, as it acts as a combination of everything that had come before it with a new twist! An overarching story that spanned over the entire season! While this did introduce the concept of a 'plot' to the franchise, it should still be noted that it treats itself as a bit of a composite and still disregarded any prior continuity as there are seldom any accounts of prior media with the ones even remotely hinting towards it amounting nothing more than incredibly minor references (reusing some old character designs for background NPCs, Lupin wearing similar glasses to a very old episode, ect). The entirety of this part is still self contained and while it does contain aspects of everything before it, it's still very different to it all because it's simultaneously everything that came before but fused together.
Part 5 is the 50th anniversary for the franchise, and because of it they decided to cram in a bunch of references to older media to an (almost) unheard of and absurd degree. It showcased the characters throughout the years confirming past events like various TV Specials, Movies, and OVAs (more on that later).... The problem that they confirm so much media that they directly showcase 2 completely different 'continuities' and origin stories for the cast confirming both events to have occurred just with a single scene (elaborated on in Movie section). And while it still had overarching stories like part 4, it was instead split up between 4 different mini-arcs with there being 7 episodic episodes throughout it having the franchise slowly revert back to it's episodic origin. So while it is the most continuity heavy part.... it's also only that way because they composited the entire franchise into one.
Finally we have Part 6, which has 2 stories placed into it however they have now taken a much harder backseat in favor of going back to the episodic formula once again, so much so that the 2nd story is just combining all the episodic episodes and saying that they are loosely connected! With the episodic episodes reaching new heights of absurdity not seen since Part 2, so much so we are involving ACTUAL BIBICAL HEAVEN AND HELL INTO THINGS AS THE OBJECTIVE IS TO STEAL LUCIFER'S CORPSE!!!
All of this to say, the franchise has been wildly inconsistent with both continuity, characterization, and tone throughout the decades. And that only becomes more apparent with....
TV Specials, Movies, and OVA History: This will be shorter than the prior part, as to not take 50 years to explain. To put it simply, the franchise has had amounted a very large amount of these throughout the decades. It's to the point that they actually almost released one every single year for the entirety of it, with only a small gap where this didn't happen. These movies range rapidly from character personalities and tone from Mystery of Mamo's insanity, Castle of Cagliostro's remorseful but upbeat man, to The First's more classic characterization, Lupin is still portrayed wildly different as the decades have gone with each one giving additional different continuities. Examples of this include Is Lupin Still Burning? which follow's the thief's original Part 1 story or First Contact which completely changes it from the story, characters, all the way down to the very location (both of which were explicitly in the Part 5). With Lupin Zero throwing it's own entire wrench into both stories despite being the most recent part of it all.
All of that however doesn't hold a candle to the other time the franchise decided to composite itself, Green vs Red. This acted as the 40th anniversary of the franchise and as such housed an absurdly high number of references..... so much so that it became the plot! Countless different Lupin exist in this OVA, some so equally valid that not even the gang themselves can tell which is real or not. The entire point of the movie is Lupin is less of an individual, but a concept with there always being another one to take up the title and be another carbon copy. The mere existence of this movie would make every single other movie, special, ova, and even individual episodes unquantifiable due to how many Lupin have committed crimes over the in-universe decades. With them being so similar that they'd just scale to each other anyway and result in every single profile for em being the exact same except this one comes in red.... how unique!
So in both the TV Parts and the Movies, they either treat previous continuity as non-existent or decide to just composite it all instead of favoring one side or the other. However there is still additional parts of the multi-media franchise like....
Pachinko History: I'm not going to waste your time on this so I'll make it nice and quick. 25 years of history, 30 games, various of which include their own stories made an animated by TMS. Runs on similar logic to the previously mentioned with various TMS exclusive characters popping up and even some sequels to the movies
The reason why this is included, alongside everything else above it is for one simple reason, TMS. The only thing tying all of this together is the fact that it's owned and approved by TMS Entertainment, they are the singular consistent line connecting all of these contradicting points together to make one massive whole. Without this line we'd be left with characters with a dozen different personalities, at least 3 different contradictory backstories, and a timeline that can best be described as a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff. Community and company alike view the franchise as having no 'true canon' to it, so there's little reason to do so here.
What does this change? AKA TLDR: Well uh...... nothing really! The only thing this changes is put a little composite category on the entire cast, prevent future arguments on every single revision on if something does or doesn't count, aaaand that's about it. The main criteria that was being used before was just "Made or approved by TMS" with the only real reason that we didn't composite them being the fact that we wanted to favor some consistency throughout the verse due to how..... random and absurd it can get at times. However as revisions have been made for it me and other knowledgeable members have come to see that a composite rating is just the most accurate one and leads to the most accurate versions of the characters from a public and company sense of view. This is just to make it official.
And for people who want the bullet points
Basically, everything above would be considered primary and secondary regardless of interpretations.
First on up, what is the actual history of the franchise.
Manga History: Lupin III was a manga created by an artist who went by the name Monkey Punch back in 1967. From there he continued writing manga until 1981 with the conclusion of New Lupin III, the sequel story with a short return in 1984 with Sexy Lupin III with only 5 chapters. The franchise would get more manga later on however these releases do not include the original author at all and instead follow.....
TV History: From there an eventual pilot film would be created which would turn into the Part 1 series spanning 1971 to 1972. While these took inspiration from the manga, they were noticeably different as it did not follow the manga and had some wonky characterization due to the first half being directed by Masaaki Ōsumi with the second half being directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata which made Lupin go from (bit of a content warning: people get hanged by the neck) actual sociopath who would kill men by the dozen on the drop of a dime to the type of guy who would prefers to troll people when stealing and commit comedic jewelry heists. The series would eventually be cancelled due to poor ratings (that's what you get when you're credited as the first ever Japanese animated series intended for adults) however due to rapid popularity found in reruns it would be greenlit a sequel.
Part 2 follows the cast as they go on far more episodic adventures thanks to the series following Miyazaki's approach rather than Osumi who wanted to create some mystery surrounding Fujiko's character (she didn't really have one back then lol). From this point onward the franchise will have various different writers, directors, producers, ect as Miyazaki and Takahata create peak. So there won't be mentions of individual creators as that'd take all day. Throughout this part things take..... a very weird turn from what would've been expected from the series prior, Lupin has officially lost all of his edge and became a perv with a heart of gold, Fujiko has taken a more active role in the story, and the stories in question have gotten far more absurd than just the typical crime. Lupin gets possessed and cursed by a pharaoh, steals the entire Christ the Redeemer statue, faces against the sister of Jesus Christ who is a 2,000 year old vampire?!!??!?! This entire part is littered with more supernatural elements, gags, and consists of some of the weirdest and out there sections of the franchise's 50 years worth of content in terms of premise. Plus this is where the start of a long line of Goemon backstory alterations begin, where he sees his master die a second time.
Part 3 is were things get really weird...... assuming the part of Jesus' sister wasn't weird enough. In this part Lupin takes a bit of a more suave and cool role at the beginning however as it goes on and on it eventually turns into actual Scooby Doo where it mostly sticks to absurd gags and tricks in terms of characterization and presentation. This is often seen as the 'black sheep' of the franchise due to the later half and is the only TV Part to not have an English release. However due to it's status and importance, it's still regarded as a major part of his history that can't be skipped under any circumstances.
The franchise then detoured into The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, a far more adult series which sought to bring back the adult edge the characters had lost over the decades (Almost 40 years, golly!). This part played a vital role for the franchise as it returned to it's roots to being for adults and had shaken off much of the rust that the more Saturday morning parts of the franchise had created. It also retconned some character backstories for the 30th time however it does stay somewhat consistent with other's like how Jigen's mostly stayed the same. (Unironically Jigen has easily the most comprehensible history when you take everything into account, everyone else has contradictions left and right where he just has some slight room for disbelief)
Part 4 is where things take an interesting turn, as it acts as a combination of everything that had come before it with a new twist! An overarching story that spanned over the entire season! While this did introduce the concept of a 'plot' to the franchise, it should still be noted that it treats itself as a bit of a composite and still disregarded any prior continuity as there are seldom any accounts of prior media with the ones even remotely hinting towards it amounting nothing more than incredibly minor references (reusing some old character designs for background NPCs, Lupin wearing similar glasses to a very old episode, ect). The entirety of this part is still self contained and while it does contain aspects of everything before it, it's still very different to it all because it's simultaneously everything that came before but fused together.
Part 5 is the 50th anniversary for the franchise, and because of it they decided to cram in a bunch of references to older media to an (almost) unheard of and absurd degree. It showcased the characters throughout the years confirming past events like various TV Specials, Movies, and OVAs (more on that later).... The problem that they confirm so much media that they directly showcase 2 completely different 'continuities' and origin stories for the cast confirming both events to have occurred just with a single scene (elaborated on in Movie section). And while it still had overarching stories like part 4, it was instead split up between 4 different mini-arcs with there being 7 episodic episodes throughout it having the franchise slowly revert back to it's episodic origin. So while it is the most continuity heavy part.... it's also only that way because they composited the entire franchise into one.
- Some characters have also been flanderized in this part of the story, for example Goemon was made so comedically bad with technology that he didn't even know how to use a standard camera, having it upside down AND pointed at him. This is the same man who could get a high score on a video game in the goofier Part 3 version and co-pilot a rocket ship.
Finally we have Part 6, which has 2 stories placed into it however they have now taken a much harder backseat in favor of going back to the episodic formula once again, so much so that the 2nd story is just combining all the episodic episodes and saying that they are loosely connected! With the episodic episodes reaching new heights of absurdity not seen since Part 2, so much so we are involving ACTUAL BIBICAL HEAVEN AND HELL INTO THINGS AS THE OBJECTIVE IS TO STEAL LUCIFER'S CORPSE!!!
All of this to say, the franchise has been wildly inconsistent with both continuity, characterization, and tone throughout the decades. And that only becomes more apparent with....
TV Specials, Movies, and OVA History: This will be shorter than the prior part, as to not take 50 years to explain. To put it simply, the franchise has had amounted a very large amount of these throughout the decades. It's to the point that they actually almost released one every single year for the entirety of it, with only a small gap where this didn't happen. These movies range rapidly from character personalities and tone from Mystery of Mamo's insanity, Castle of Cagliostro's remorseful but upbeat man, to The First's more classic characterization, Lupin is still portrayed wildly different as the decades have gone with each one giving additional different continuities. Examples of this include Is Lupin Still Burning? which follow's the thief's original Part 1 story or First Contact which completely changes it from the story, characters, all the way down to the very location (both of which were explicitly in the Part 5). With Lupin Zero throwing it's own entire wrench into both stories despite being the most recent part of it all.
- This is also where a lot of Goemon backstories get altered, where he changes further as his sword has been retconned in First Contact, then being retconned again in The First.
All of that however doesn't hold a candle to the other time the franchise decided to composite itself, Green vs Red. This acted as the 40th anniversary of the franchise and as such housed an absurdly high number of references..... so much so that it became the plot! Countless different Lupin exist in this OVA, some so equally valid that not even the gang themselves can tell which is real or not. The entire point of the movie is Lupin is less of an individual, but a concept with there always being another one to take up the title and be another carbon copy. The mere existence of this movie would make every single other movie, special, ova, and even individual episodes unquantifiable due to how many Lupin have committed crimes over the in-universe decades. With them being so similar that they'd just scale to each other anyway and result in every single profile for em being the exact same except this one comes in red.... how unique!
So in both the TV Parts and the Movies, they either treat previous continuity as non-existent or decide to just composite it all instead of favoring one side or the other. However there is still additional parts of the multi-media franchise like....
Pachinko History: I'm not going to waste your time on this so I'll make it nice and quick. 25 years of history, 30 games, various of which include their own stories made an animated by TMS. Runs on similar logic to the previously mentioned with various TMS exclusive characters popping up and even some sequels to the movies
The reason why this is included, alongside everything else above it is for one simple reason, TMS. The only thing tying all of this together is the fact that it's owned and approved by TMS Entertainment, they are the singular consistent line connecting all of these contradicting points together to make one massive whole. Without this line we'd be left with characters with a dozen different personalities, at least 3 different contradictory backstories, and a timeline that can best be described as a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff. Community and company alike view the franchise as having no 'true canon' to it, so there's little reason to do so here.
What does this change? AKA TLDR: Well uh...... nothing really! The only thing this changes is put a little composite category on the entire cast, prevent future arguments on every single revision on if something does or doesn't count, aaaand that's about it. The main criteria that was being used before was just "Made or approved by TMS" with the only real reason that we didn't composite them being the fact that we wanted to favor some consistency throughout the verse due to how..... random and absurd it can get at times. However as revisions have been made for it me and other knowledgeable members have come to see that a composite rating is just the most accurate one and leads to the most accurate versions of the characters from a public and company sense of view. This is just to make it official.
And for people who want the bullet points
- 50 years worth of countless media, none of which give the cast a fundamental history to follow that isn't equally valid to another contradictory one.
- None of the media can properly be separated, aspects of them have bled into one another meaning there would be thousands of alternative character versions if done so and any arbitrary separation would just result in mixing various versions into one anyway
- The verse has already composited itself on several occasions before and current
- Going by Part 5 logic, everything happened to the same set of characters meaning that they'd get everything by default. And going by the Movie logic there are far too many Lupins to make separate profiles for, with there being not enough distinction between them that warrant different profiles as each is basically the exact same guy. So it's either we take a composited timeline or we take a timeline so fractured it's just better to composite.
- The profiles already use composited versions, as it takes feats from various of these examples like the pilot film, TV Parts, and many movies, OVAs, and TV Specials, with the exclusion of Pachinkos, which has a current revision being made which will add them
- It would be the most accurate depiction of them as a cast as both the company and fandom views them in such a manner, as there's not a real place to start the series due to how episodic it is.
- This only applies to TMS content, as that is the primary versions of the characters known from the public as opposed to the original versions who have wildly different traits and haven't seen the light of day since the 80s
Basically, everything above would be considered primary and secondary regardless of interpretations.
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