Monkey News - Woo-oo!
Welcome to Monkey News, your weekly news update for everything Lupin III.
Discotek Media announce three new releases for North America!
Three new Lupin III releases are coming to Blu-ray in North America later this year!
All three films are to be licensed and distributed by Discotek Media, no doubt a now familiar name to many fans of classic anime in the U.S. The news came as part of Anime Lockdown 2020’s virtual convention with an industry panel by Discotek on Sunday the 3rd of May.
Discotek announced a whole heap of titles not just limited to Lupin III, which included (but was not limited to) S-CRY-ED, Case Closed: Detective Conan, Galaxy Express 999 and City Hunter. They also stated that in terms of format, going forwards, they will be mostly sticking to Blu-ray for both standard definition and high definition releases (so long, DVD)!
Let's take a look at all three Lupin III announcements and read up on a bit of information on each!
Lupin III: Goodbye Partner originally aired on TV in Japan during January 2019.
The North American release, which is due to hit on the 30th of June 2020, includes an English language dub starring Tony Oliver, Richard Epcar and the rest of the usual Lupin dubbing crew. The original Japanese language version has also been included.
Rather comically, the box artwork features a quote from Edward Snowden on the back, who is included in the film as a cameo / parody.
You can pre-order a copy of Goodbye Partner over on RightStuf for $20~ by clicking here.
Lupin III: Dragon of Doom (also known as Burn, Zantetsuken!) will be hacking and slashing its way onto 1080p Blu-ray later this year. This is the sixth Lupin TV special which originally aired on TV in Japan during July 1994.
The releases also includes the 2003 FUNimation dub, which stars Sonny Strait as “Loo-pin the Third”! An exact release date is yet to be determined.
Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro is back once again, but this time in 4K UHD format!
The release will feature remastered visuals and HDR support. All of the special features and English language dubbing tracks from Discotek Media’s previous Cagliostro Blu-ray release will be included, which makes this the essential version of the film if you are living in North America.
A release date has yet to be determined, however expect it later this year.
Lupin cameos in the latest season of Disney's Ducktales!
Disney’s latest season of the Ducktales reboot, which began in 2017, features a cameo from a familiar thief!
A green jacket wearing Lupin shows up as the Ducktales gang take a trip to Japan in search of their latest treasure. They’re soon to be met by female Inspector Zenigata, who has her feathers rustled while searching for the shifty canine looking character. A Sailor Moon cosplayer also makes an appearance, and can be seen checking her cellphone outside an ice cream parlor.
This wouldn’t be the first time Lupin and the gang made an appearance in the show, with the Fiat 500 and accompanying Jigen Daisuke spotted speeding down the motorway during the pilot episode, titled Woo-oo!
The artists working on the show are no doubt Lupin fans, and it’s great to see the gang make more cameo appearances. Artwork featured at the top of this post in the header image is by Dario Calabria, who not only is himself is a Lupin III super-fan, but he also worked on the Ducktales comic book series for Disney.
The show itself is well worth checking out, but good luck getting the catchy theme tune out of your head any time soon!
