This review is spoiler free. 600https://i.ur.com/JFc2nA4.png 600https://i.ur.com/YDCQfog.png The 80s was a very interesting decade for Lupin III. Just before the start of the decade you had its first two theatrical films The Mystery of Mamo in 1978 and The Castle of Cagliostro in 1979. In 1980 audiences said their goodbyes to the red jacket era which also turned out to be a farewell to Hayao Miyazakis involvement in the franchise. He felt at that stage he ran out of ideas for the character and his ambitions were more focused on the big screen than anything else. In 1985 TMS decided to make a third film which was originally going to be directed by Mamoru Oshii with design work by Yoshitaka Amano until creative differences led to them leaving the project and fans receiving Legend of the Gold of Babylon instead. And by the time the decade came to a close fans would receive the first TV special Osamu Dezakis ByeBye Liberty in 1989. This would lead to a semi yearly tradition of TV specials that goes as recently as 2019s Prison of the Past. More than all of that the event that would define Lupin III in the 80s would be Lupin III: Part III nicknamed the pink jacket series by fans. It ran from 1984 to 1985 with a total of 50 episodes making it the second longest series to date in the franchise. Out of all of the TV series for Lupin this is the one that is the most polarizing especially in the west. Some people truly despise it and encourage skipping it completely while others are willing to defend it as a worthwhile entry. To put it in Gundam terms this is our ZZ. Except while I found ZZ so difficult to sit through that Ive left it incomplete in my dropped list I did complete pink jacket. Where I stand on it is actually quite complicated. Like with the red jacket series I had dropped it once and then returned to it. My experience when picking it back up was very different from the one I had with its predecessor. I came away happy I finished it but not feeling like my expectations had been exceeded. This isnt to say the anime has no value but I would be lying if I said its as good as the other installments. But why isnt it as good as those are? Thats the question Im here to answer. 600https://i.ur.com/xtpLWY5.png The first and most obvious thing to discuss when it comes to pink jacket is how it looks. The color palette is rather garish. I know it was the 80s and these loud colors were all the rage but I cant shake how much the colors in Lupins outfit clash. I think a dark colored shirt would have gone a long way. Or they could have done what Lupin III: Part V did in its tribute episode to pink and desaturate the colors so theres less competition between his shirt tie and jacket. The color palettes for the other characters I like its just the issue of having so many different colors going on in the same scene. More than the color palette the main thing people will notice and discuss are the aesthetics. Yes aesthetics as in plural. The director for the anime was a man named Yuzo Aoki and the designer was Shingo Araki who did designs for popular anime like Saint Seiya Rose of Versailles and Galaxy Express 999. Aoki had a very interesting vision for this anime. He didnt want to feel derivative of the styles that were done before so his initial inspiration was Monkey Punchs manga. This is why in earlier episodes Lupin and Goemon have cleft chins why Jigens face is longer and why Fujiko looks daintier. I wouldnt say its as loyal to Monkey Punchs art as it could have been after all in the manga Goemon has the same face as Fujiko just with bushy eyebrows and Zenigata sometimes looked indistinguishable from Lupin. Now at some point in developing the anime Aoki got the idea to not be tied down by one visual style. This is why we also have episodes where the characters are more stretched out and cartoonish. And then he decided to take that aesthetic and make it even more exaggerated creating a third style. The end result is an anime with three different looks sometimes depending on the scene youll get one design and switch to the next in another. And it was all intentional as Aoki felt it would achieve a simple yet satisfying result and encourage creativity among the team. 600https://i.ur.com/rdkaWvw.png 600https://i.ur.com/ALAlxGh.png 600https://i.ur.com/G5QnJdo.png Now I can appreciate the intentions behind all of this. I can give credit to the fact that it does make for a very unique visual experience. Considering how often the Lupin franchise is criticized for not taking enough chances it does feel good seeing TMS allow this in the first place. My issue is that I found it all too distracting. I do think there are ways for an anime to change its art though. One of my favorite anime of all time Space Dandy did this constantly. The difference there however is Dandy would change its look for an episode and stick to it for the deration. Because pink jacket is changing styles within the same episode it can just feel random and inconsistent. Perhaps if they used certain styles for episodes following a certain tone or to enhance the emotional impact of a scene it could have worked. I could see that stretchy cartoonish look suiting moments of high comedy in contrast with perhaps an edgier manga influenced style for action heavy scenes. This isnt what they did though the visual changes arent connected to a specific mood. Perhaps my idea would have undermined the creative freedom these choices represent either way I dont think it came together. Lupin looks strange in many scenes and when he does look good it feels fleeting same for Goemon I actually like how Jigen looks but I suspect thats because his general design is so brilliant that its hard to mess up Zenigata I think also comes away looking good but still not his best design Fujiko is just painful. I like how she looks in the earlier episodes that attempted to be more like the manga art this wasnt the best shes looked but it was appealing. There was a cuteness in her face that I wish was maintained but in the most cartoonish style its genuinely one of the worst designs shes had. Worse than that hideous blonde hair she had in Walther P38 worse than the eerie porcelain face she had in The Pilot Film the only one thats worse is her design in that weird pilot to a show that never happened where Lupin was a space detective. To do this to one of the most beautiful women in anime history is just inexcusable. 600https://i.ur.com/czw7gKT.png 600https://i.ur.com/8VuWKxc.png 600https://i.ur.com/QjGDF7Y.png This was also the style that was used for Babylon and it was just as flawed in execution there as it was on TV. The characters move well but the way theyre drawn is certainly an acquired taste. 600https://64.media.tumblr.com/1380829478a283154a37b0154a4f1e79/af6b7a960d604be677/s540x810/ac86aa8c4a712fcb296bea8260ccee84ed9e21a2.png 600https://64.media.tumblr.com/27db225d32f178e329bf84e3ef6e2e99/af6b7a960d604be630/s540x810/0ef4fe89e7679258820354a27235687b35898897.png 600https://64.media.tumblr.com/74ca1247af9ca05eb1db38fef3b9a6ce/af6b7a960d604be66a/s540x810/517b5dc3d435c8fb4fd5eea17580d3eb40f06863.png In terms of story like all other Lupin anime this is an episodic series that doesnt try to connect itself to the previous shows. That is how the franchise has always been and will most likely always remain to be. That said the content of this anime is a mixed bag. One common complaint that I see lobbied towards the pink era is that its too ridiculous. Honestly while I can see where these complains are coming from I also dont completely agree. Lupin has always been ridiculous we surpassed that way before the 80s rolled around. Remember when he became a vampire in the manga? Remember when red jacket built a popcorn fueled rocket ship? What about the episode with the penguins? Do I need to talk about Mystery of Mamo? Pink jacket is a pretty absurd anime but absurdity has always been part of Lupins brand. This is probably the most cartoonish seinen anime series youll find. Im not entirely sure why some fans seem hesitant to acknowledge this western cartoons inspired Monkey Punch and they continued to show their influence on it regularly. However if this animes take on the bizarre just isnt your thing like it was in other installments I do understand you. I know I found the other shows to be more consistent and enjoyable. I felt like most of the episodes were merely okay some were great like Were No Angels and The Name of the Cocktail is Revenge but generally speaking I found a lot of this anime to be simply alright. I have a high opinion of the franchise at large so I want it to be more than passable. This anime also had some fanservice scenes that felt a bit much. The 80s especially was an era where fanservice ran rampant and while Lupin has always been a sexual franchise it doesnt mean I enjoy every attempt it makes at being sexy. As early as the first episode we have a nude scene with Fujiko I found to be in poor taste and some restraint would have been nice. Not all of the fanservice was bad and it isnt the franchises worst offender in this category but it goes back to the anime being hit and miss. And given the anime is 50 episodes long I would have hoped for more hits than what I got. Sometimes I wondered if a different direction for this anime could have helped. Ive pondered the idea of it going for a more City Hunter tone where its got an edge but still goofy when it wants to be. Ive even wondered what it would have been like if TMS embraced the hardboiled grit the manga had. However I also think that could have felt too jarring considering what the franchise was throughout the 70s and even could have risked feeling like trend chasing given the amount of dark seinen anime being produced at the time. Eventually we did get those extreme Lupin anime but if we had those in the 80s I dont think it would have gone as well as it did in the 2010s because the expectation back then was to have Lupin be lighthearted. So the conclusion Ive come to is this upbeat silly tone is what made the most sense for pink jacket. That aspect of the anime is not the problem its the stories within the anime that needed work. 600https://i.ur.com/D8VaGJR.png An area where this anime shakes things up is through the music. This is still Yuji Ohno at work but the OST leans in the direction of 80s new wave and pop. We dont even have the classic theme instead we have a new song Ohno wrote called Sexy Adventure. And I love it. I do enjoy 80s music a lot perhaps that has something to do with my fondness towards the song but Sexy Adventure is great. I dont think anything can surpass the main series theme but this song has such a wonderful energy to it and suits the tone of the anime perfectly. And this show could have easily brought back the main theme it was established as Lupins song by this point as it appeared in Mamo and Cagliostro. So deciding to go with something new was unexpected but a welcome choice because what replaced it is delightful. We had two different openings for this show using Sexy Adventure and I enjoy both enough to consider them among my favorite Lupin intros. Even with the visual styles of this anime I think they succeed in making me excited and interested in what Im about to watch while displaying that creativity Aoki advocated for. And the singer for this track Yosuke Nakamura just sells it. https://ve.media.tumblr.com/tumblrpti5hxYI2D1vb0dqu.mp4 Our ending for this series is a song called Fairy Night which is also a wonderful addition to Lupins musical catalogue and quite underrated. Theres a lightness and elegance to the track that I feel puts it up there with other endings like Love Theme and Love is Everything. I know that peoples musical tastes arent going to be the same as mine I have seen people criticize the music but this is one element of the anime I thoroughly loved. 600https://i.ur.com/hwLQM8n.png Ultimately I dont hate this anime far from it. While I dont think its the best the franchise can be I also think there was enough to keep me going the second time around. The music and seiyuu cast are great and while I am not a fan of the art styles I do think this anime is animated quite well. This is one of those situations where the animation is not done justice in still images it needs to be seen in motion to fully appreciate what Aoki and his team were doing. It isnt the best animation Lupin would receive but this is definitely not badly animated. And there are some very noteworthy episodes that Id be willing to rewatch when the mood strikes. This isnt a worthless anime like some western fans make it out to be. Contrary to popular belief this series was a big hit in Japan. It was supposed to only be 26 episodes but was so well received that we ended up with 50. I know TMS doesnt pay homage to pink jacket nearly as much as they do towards green and red but that doesnt mean this was a flop that killed Lupin until he was revived in the 2010s. I dont think any single anime could sink Lupin. For all of pink jackets flaws I am happy it exists. Even if it was mostly okay I still felt like I gained something from it. I got to see the franchise take a chance and try out new art and music whether all of those decisions appealed to me in the end doesnt change the fact that I liked seeing them try something new. I can say with total sincerity that Aoki accomplished his goal of making something distinct from green and red. The 80s felt like a specific era in Lupins history thanks in part to what this anime did. As far as if Id recommend it to other people I would say give it a shot if youre curious. I would recommend other entries before this one to a newcomer but if you are someone who wanted to try it and wasnt sure Id still say go ahead. By returning to pink jacket I was able to make peace with it and realize that even when Lupin isnt perfect I still want to keep engaging with the franchise. Its rough around the edges but even if for a short while I still get to see the Lupin I love.