Monkey News - The Cup Ramen of Koichi Zenigata
Welcome to Monkey News, your weekly news update for everything Lupin III.
Yû Kiyozono and Kōji Nozaki chat the future of Lupin III!
Following on from our update on Friday, series producers Yû Kiyozono (Lupin the IIIRD, Part IV, Green VS Red) and Kōji Nozaki (Part 5, Goodbye Partner, The First) joined fans online via Anime Expo Lite for a thirty minute interview!
Attendees could submit their questions to the pair via the Anime Expo Lite website, and alongside revealing what they thought the gang had been doing during COVID-19 lockdown, they also teased a couple of things to come.
Yû Kiyozono mentioned that fans can expect further entries into the line of Lupin the IIIRD spin-off films, and expressed a desire to help create ones centering around both Lupin and Inspector Zenigata.
Kōji Nozaki went onto say the team are hard at work on 50th anniversary celebration for the Lupin anime, however could not elaborate more on it at this time. The first episode of the Green jacket TV series aired on television October 24th, 1971 - so the exact date for the anniversary would be October 24th, 2021.
Inspector Zenigata as seen in The Bloodspray of Ishikawa Goemon XIII.
The updates, although light on details, are reasons for fans to get excited. More entries into the Lupin the IIIRD spin-off series would no doubt be welcome, as both The Woman Called Fujiko Mine and the Koike film trilogy are much loved entries in the franchise.
More screen-time of the more serious, calm and cool Inspector Zenigata in this darker style of storytelling would be a treat - as he absolutely shone in The Bloodspray of Ishikawa Goemon XIII (although rather criminally, didn’t feature very much in other films). Maybe we will finally see The Cup Ramen of Koichi Zenigata as the fourth film in the series?
We could speculate for weeks about the 50th anniversary celebration - however, the lack of details does not give us much to work off. Could this be a one-off OVA, a film, Part 6 or a brand new, entirely different TV series such as Fujiko Mine? Hopefully we don’t have too much longer to wait to find out!
Voyage to Danger could have featured a yellow jacket Lupin!
Hisashi Eguchi, a member of the production team across various different Lupin works and character designer on the 1993 TV special Voyage to Danger / Orders to Assassinate Lupin, has recently spoken on Twitter about his desire to feature Lupin in a yellow jacket.
Eguchi penned the above image of Lupin back in 1993 and approached the producer of the film (who we assume was Hidehiko Takei), expressing his desire to alter the iconic red jacket colour.
While the request was ultimately ignored, it’s a fun piece of trivia and a cool thing to look back on. Voyage to Danger would have certainly been a lot more memorable had Lupin the colour scheme pictured above, however it was just never meant to be.
Lupin and Jigen as seen in Voyage to Danger / Orders to Assassinate Lupin.
The film was directed by Masaaki Ōsumi, the original director from the first few episodes of the 1971 green jacket television series, Part I.
During the first TV series, Ōsumi was replaced with Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. He didn’t leave on the best terms.
The offer he received to direct Voyage to Danger was sort of an apology, or a mark of respect, to help recognise what he did for the franchise. It remains a relatively mid-tier Lupin special, that while is worth a watch, may not be your favourite.
