I don't know if anybody here knows of Lupin III, but it's an anime and manga that's very Americanised, and has been around for 40 years. Lupin has inspired many other series, most noteable is Cowboy Bebop, and even my own Secret Agent 0069 cartoon.
There have been three television series, Green, Red, and Pink jacket series. Lupin is a master thief who is a decendent of the great French thief Arsen Lupin. His three partners are Jigen Daisuke, a quick draw gun shooter, Goemon Ishikawa a samurai who uses a Katana blade that can cut through anything. Fujiko Mine, his Lupins off and on girl. She usually uses Lupin to steal treasure and turns her back on him at the last second, either stealing the treasure setting him up with the cops. Inspector Zenigara, a dedicated cop who is always trying to arrest Lupin. He never stops, he's been chasing him for 40 years, always comes close, but fails. He actually arrested Lupin in Ep. 4 of the Green jacket series, but Lupin managed to break out of jail setting up possibly one of the greatest jail break moments in history.
Lupin the Third is created by comic artist Monkey Punch, who has done various other comics, his work is inspired by Western art, and Mad Magazine, mostly the Spy VS Spy. His drawings always consist of lanky skinny characters, small ankles(that always show because of pant length) and wrists, long skinny fingers, and kitty cat smiles for his characters. The women he draw as well are very skinny, probably more prortioned than a Barbie doll.
This year celebrates Lupins 40th anniversary and with that they are releasing a Master File in Japan, unfortunetly its over 200 dollars. But DiskoTec has confirmed a Spring 2012 release of the Green Jacket series, for the first time ever in America all 23 episodes will be hitting America shores, with fresh subtitles, and the original pilot of the series.
In the early 80's Lupin was a Laserdisc arcade game similar to Dragon's Lair, but was labeled as Cliff Hanger. The early 90's the anime dub company known as Streamline licensed two Lupin movies, Mystery of Mamo, and Castle of Cagliostro( directed by none other than Hiyao Miyazaki), and two episodes from the red jacket series that were also done by Miyazaki. There was also another company licensing Lupin in the 90's who released the series as Rupan the Third, Fuma Conspiracy, and the Golden Babylong.
In 2001-2005 Pioneer/Geneon had the rights to the Red Jacket series which even aired Adult Swim for a short time. Funimation as well had the rights to the telvision specials, but IMO their dubs were just awful. But unfortunetly the aged animation caused the series to fail as its from the 70's. Geneon stopped making Lupin after DVD Vol 15, then they went out of business and the series has been dead since(except of course the Green Jacket series coming out).
Now the big build up, after a long amount of waiting, it has been announced that a new Lupin series will be airing in Japan next April. This may give Lupin another shot in the states to be picked up, dubbed, and subbed properly. That was huge news to me as I am a huge fan of the series, and just absolutely love it.
Sorry for typing so much about the series I wanted to cramm the info I could about it.
