This Week in Anime

The Castle of Ghibliostro

Steve
Micchy, it's been great working with you and talking about a lot of utterly trash anime, but this will be my final TWIA column. I've finally learned how to make the real money, and all I've gotta do is become a cartoon thief.

Breaking the law is clearly where it's at, but lemme hit you with a truly unforgivable crime: it took me 30+ years of existence on this planet to sit down and watch Castle of Cagliostro.

Yeah we figured this would be as good a time as any to go back to the elder Miyazaki's roots. Ghibli's in the news again with their new CG film coming up, and while he seems to utilize every opportunity he can to dunk on his adult son, Papa Hayao can sure direct a movie! And gotta say, his debut film does not disappoint. It's actually interesting to watch both on its own merits and as an early glimpse into its director's style. For instance, I found it amusing that, after a fairly Lupin-esque caper for an intro, we almost instantly switch over to Miyazaki Pastoral Mode.

The man has his fixations, and they've apparently been there forever.

Now THAT'S a crime, but thankfully she makes up for her quantity of screentime with its quality. And by that I'm specifically referring to the quality of this camo ensemble.

But yeah, even as someone who's only watched a handful of Lupin entries, I definitely found it weird how...nice?...Lupin is in this one. Like sure, he's the hero of the franchise, but he's also usually a sleazebag. A sleazebag you love, of course, but a sleazebag nonetheless.

On the other hand, I can appreciate a longstanding franchise that's gone through a lot of different creative voices who have each put their own spin on the characters and premise. The first full Lupin thing I watched as The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and that's about as deliberately unlike Cagliostro as you can get lol.

Plus, it's not like Cagliostro Lupin doesn't still love waltzing into blatant danger with the smugness of that knife cat meme.

These are the same image, to me.

It's what he lives for. And similarly, what I live for are side stories where sworn nemeses agree to work together to take down a greater evil.

All the better when that greater evil is a Wife Guy.

Although I suppose the Count is more of an aspirational Wife Guy, which is probably even worse.

So many secondhand douche chills over the extravagance of this insufferable theme wedding. Miyazaki sure does make it look cool tho!

Not if you're Lupin!

To be fair, drugging your fiancée on the day of the ceremony doesn't exactly scream "happy nuptials" either. From the outside tho? Now that's a castle with cobblestones I wanna see up close and personal.

Generally speaking, the backgrounds throughout the film are ridiculously gorgeous. Not at all the vibes I was expecting from a Lupin film, but they work.

Yeah, the denouement with the submerged city actually took my breath away. What a powerful aesthetic note to end on. Miyazaki was flexing all the way back in '79.

Okay I actually thought I was losing my mind during the clock scene, because I while knew I hadn't seen this film before, I knew I'd seen that fight on the clock gears somewhere. And in fact it turns out the climax of the Disney classic (in my memory anyway) The Great Mouse Detective was done as an extremely deliberate homage to Castle of Cagliostro.


So it's cool to now realize that one of the cartoon scenes burned into my head as a child was in fact the result of anime. Anime has been my constant companion. There was never any hope for me.

I honestly think I would've loved this film if I'd caught it when I was a kid. On the most surface level it's just a solid, fun action romp with a lot of cool and occasionally creepy setpieces. That's a recipe for tiny Steve success right there! Watching it as an adult, however, I get even more out of it now that I can also appreciate the craftsmanship. Like, the personality infused into Lupin's movements on the castle rooftops is so delightful to watch.

Hey, don't forget to credit Zenigata's amazing thespian proficiency.

Whether it's acting on TV or catching Lupin, Zenigata tries his hardest at everything, even if he sucks at it, and that's why we love him. And even though most of these characters have their edges softened for the movie, they're still themselves. For instance, I really like that Fujiko's consistent immediate instinct is to get as far away from Lupin as possible.

And Jigen loves his guns.

And his giant plate of spaghetti.

That one might be unique to Cagliostro, actually, I'm not sure.

If I had to lob my main critique at the film, though, it would be that it goes a little too far molding Lupin into a more traditional hero, and, outside of an admittedly excellent introductory car chase, Clarisse doesn't get to do much of anything.

She's pretty much just there to be rescued by Lupin, and so Zenigata at the end can recite a line of dialogue so corny that he's forced to immediately leave the film in shame.

Truly moe by way of helplessness. All in all, I'm really glad I finally set aside time to watch this, and it certainly earns its place in the canon of animated films. I don't know about you, but I had a big dumb Lupin-esque grin on my face for most of it.

Miyazaki may consistently prove himself to be the most unchill grump in the universe, but he sure knows how to make a comfy film.