Pink Jacket Lupin 6

This post covers Episodes 39-42.

Episode 39 was done by the Oh Production studio. It has a lot of nice solid animation, although it's generally on the tamer side for this series. It also features the return of the guy who loves adding extra limbs during big movements, as well as the guy who does the great flailing/running scenes. Which may be the same animator, although so far I don't think I've seen any extra arms during the running sequences.

Episode 39 also has a scene remarkably similar to one in the Mamo movie, where Lupin, Jigen and Goemon are getting chased through a city by a helicopter.

Then we come to Episode 40. This one is amazing. It's got more Tatsuo Ryuno animation than any other episode so far. He seems to have done almost the whole thing himself.

 There's a long sequence where Lupin is trying to sneak into a heavily-guarded area and then joined by Zenigata in a chase through the subway, that's entirely animated by Ryuno, full of the weird posing and timing I've come to love about his style. The drawings become deliciously simple and distorted, as if Ryuno was just taking a few seconds to scribble out a loose gesture, practically animating the scene in real time. You can tell that he was animating straight ahead, completely focused on capturing the intensity and desperation as Lupin struggles to avoid being killed by the security system. In certain shots, the sense of proportion and construction completely break down, giving way to purely expressive drawings that vary wildly in shape. Combined with Yasuo Yamada's manic vocal performance as Lupin, the scene is one of the highlights of the entire series.

Goemon has three arms in this drawing. As I've mentioned above, somebody at Oh Pro really likes drawing three arms on people. But Lupin and Fujiko give away that this shot was drawn by Tatsuo Ryuno, and the drawing is held throughout the scene. There's no particular reason for him to have three arms. But he most definitely has three arms. Animator's mistake, or subtle act of rebellion against an oppressive society that demands two arms per person? ...We'll never know.

This is what American currency looks like to the Japanese.

 Apparently somebody on staff really liked Linda Ronstadt... And "Pe-", whatever that is.

Unfortunately since we got a really good episode, we have to pay for it with some boring ones. Episodes 41 and 42 have very little of interest in the animation.

 

Episode 42 is the first episode in the series that hasn't yielded any funny drawings to share. But things will pick up for the conclusion to the series. There are some Yuzo Aoki/ Tatsuo Ryuno episodes coming up.