Aug 13

Aug 13 Review: Lupin III: Part IV Special Edition

The United Kingdom, like many other areas of Europe, has had slim pickings when it has come to Lupin III content and releases.

Unlike North America, which has seen superb continuous support from Discotek Media, and Italy who have had home video releases of every major TV series, special and film, the UK has been left with a limited selection. The gallery below includes images of almost every Lupin release in the UK, each taken from the Lupin Central vault. These range from the Manga UK dub of The Castle of Cagliostro, which sees David Hayter play the role of Lupin, to a more recent release of The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, one that showed up in local HMV stores around 2013 / 2014.

This is where AllTheAnime comes in, the UK’s current saviour for Lupin content in the West. This Glaswegian based company has been a huge distributor for anime in the UK, and has recently picked up the rights to both Lupin III: Part IV and Part 5.

Product Information

AllTheAnime’s first Lupin release in the UK, the special edition Blu-ray box of Part IV released on June 11th 2018. The release features four discs, limited edition packaging, an art booklet and Japanese audio with subtitles. It currently retails for the price of £55.99 and our review copy was picked up from local entertainment store Fopp at time of release.

Much like the situation in the US, a separate release of the English language version of Part IV has hit shelves in the UK. This is also distributed by AllTheAnime, and features all of the same content and features as the Discotek Media set. You can spot it in the last photo of the above image gallery, and we will be covering it in a separate review later!

The Special Edition box for Part IV is of very high quality, and is full of little Lupin-related art and motifs! — The Special Edition box for *Part IV* is of very high quality, and is full of little Lupin-related art and motifs!

Packaging

AllTheAnime’s first Lupin release gets off to a tremendous head start in the looks department, and it definitely does justification to the price tag.

The set features a nice slipcase featuring artwork from the show, and the contents are included within a sturdy cardboard inlet, of which sports some of the original key artwork from Part IV. The disc artwork is themed with Lupin’s caricature / signature from Part IV and behind each disc hides concept character art of the main cast.

The packaging feels to a very high standard. The discs sit securely inside the casing, and everything is easy to get out and put back in. There is some weight to it all when packed away, mostly thanks to the addition of a small book of concept artwork, and it looks very colourful and eye catching when sitting on the shelf. Out of all the Lupin home video releases I own, this is by far the nicest in terms of its packaging.

Features

The set features all of Part IV - which includes the two straight-to-DVD episodes from the Japanese release.

One inclusion that may appeal strongly to fans across the pond is that it also features full French subtitles. This along with the PAL region B encoding of the Blu-rays makes this a desirable purchase to the many Lupin fans in France!

The footage included is the spruced-up version from the Japanese broadcast, and not the slightly different Italian one. As is often the case for Japanese animated releases, the DVD / Blu-ray versions recieve a few touch ups and tweaks, especially to any shots with slightly off model characters. As this show originally aired in Italy, it was the Japanese broadcast that recieved these updates, likely as the animation team had more time to spend polishing things up between the Italian and Japanese air dates.

The only aspect that is missing is the 2016 TV special, Italian Game. Including this with the set would have completed the package - but seeing as though Italian Game hasn’t even made it state-side yet, we would hazard a guess that there are some licensing complications.

Despite the missing Italian Game, this is the ideal set for anybody that wants to check out the show in the original Japanese language.

Extras

Special features are lacking, as most were instead included on the previously mentioned English language release (again, as per the Discotek Media set). While it would have been nice to see some extras on the disc, the accompanying hard cover concept art booklet helps make up for it.

Speaking of the concept art booklet - this small addition is a huge part of the set for me, as it includes a lot of very early Part IV artwork from Studio Telecom and TMS. While there are only a handful of these pieces, they show Lupin sporting a red jacket and feature scenarios that didn’t make it into the final cut. If you are a Lupin nerd like me, you will likely gain a lot of joy looking at these, thinking about bits of the Part IV that never was!

Check the video below for a short flip-through of the booklet, and the pictures at the bottom of this article to see more of the concept artwork.

Conclusion

AllTheAnime have gotten off to a flying start with the release of this set in the West. The packaging is striking and of good quality. The concept artwork booklet is surely to appeal to existing fans too.

If I was to pick one negative, it would be that the Blu-ray menu does not feature the name of each episode. Instead, the set lists them as “Episode 01”, “Episode 02” etc. This can make it tricky when searching for a particular episode. It is a small gripe, but a gripe none the less and as a fan returning to the show, it does mean I have to pick up my phone and open the Wikipedia episode list to remind myself what is what.

The lack of English dub could also be persieved as a negative. I am fairly certain however, this is out of AllTheAnime’s hands. Considering license complications between TMS and distributors in the West meant the Discotek Media release met the same fate, having seperate box sets for Japanese and English dubs, I cannot really fault AllTheAnime for this. Personally, I would stick to the Japanese set, as it has the original soundtrack by Yuji Ohno, the touched up visuals and the nice collectors box.

Since Part IV is a great entry point to the franchise, I would easily recommend picking up this set if you are interested in jumping into one of the Lupin TV series. If you already saw Part IV and want to own it on Blu-ray, this is your only option if living in the UK. Thankfully, it’s a very good one!