One of the numerous TV specials, Pursuit of Harimao’s Treasure gives a distinctly western air to it with the inclusion of the Lord Archer character.
What They Say
Harimao’s treasure. It’s worth over 8 billion dollars, and it seems like everyone is looking for it! But nothing’s going to keep Lupin from the treasure this time!
With his faithful companions Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko – Lupin travels the globe, dodging bullets and Inspector Zenigata, to find the three statues that make up the key to the treasure!
But soon enough, a greater threat emerges… The Neo-Himmel! And Lupin must join forces with his chief adversary, aging Secret Agent Sir Archer. Along with Archer’s beautiful granddaughter, these unlikely partners set forth on an adventure that is dangerous, funny, and filled with surprises!
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese in stereo at 192kbps while the English dub gets a 5.1 design at 448kbps. The included stereo mix for the show is pretty decent but it’s still fairly standard for what we’ve seen with past Lupin releases that haven’t dipped into the mono area. There is a decent bit of forward directionality to it throughout the show but not too many really standout moments. We also listened to a good portion of the project in its 5.1 English language adaptation and that has a few additional sounds thrown to the rear during the big action sequences but the overall difference between the two comes down to a volume level difference. We had no problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback on either language track.
Video:
Originally airing on TV back in 1995, the transfer for this show is presented in its original full-frame aspect ratio. Unlike a number of the recent movies which have been older than this, the materials here look really good and have one of the best looking transfers I’ve seen for the movies yet outside of Cagliostro I think. The show is fairly murky in general but it maintains a good solid feel, colors are nicely saturated and it avoids most of the usual problems such as cross coloration or heavy aliasing. Backgrounds maintain a solid feel and with hardly any real grain to it, this just looks really sharp and a pleasure to watch.
Packaging:
Similar to the menu layout, the cover is broken up into a widescreen lookalike, with white stripes along the top and bottom and all the artwork in the center. This actually works very well with this cover, drawing your eyes to the center of the image where Lupin is and then letting you gaze at what’s around him. The back cover provides a few animation shots and a good summary of what to expect. The discs features are very minimal and don’t match up to other studios. The listing of dual language doesn’t exactly indicate what two languages are there for the casual viewer. The insert provides another shot of the cover while the reverse side is just boxart advertisements. The discs features and technical information is easy to find, though a touch small on the font.
Menu:
The menus are nicely done up in an almost widescreen way, with animation playing through a center strip while there are white bars at the top and bottom. The top has the features name while the bottom has all the selections you can make. Going to submenus has the center strip slide back and forth to new pieces of animation. There only thing that still bugs me just a bit is the language selection menu, but that’s just because it’s so non-standard to what every other company does.
Extras:
The only extras included in this release are the character profiles, which nicely lets you alternate between the character and the English voice actor for pictures and credits. I still wish this could be done with the Japanese actors as well.
The seventh special in the ongoing run of specials for this property, this one came out back in the summer of 1995 in Japan with Osamu Dezaki directing it. Dezaki worked on the first four of these before coming back for this, which would be the last of the specials he directed. The story of Harimao’s Treasure is a rather enjoyable romp, one we certainly enjoyed much more than the Secret of Twilight Gemini. While both do have quite a number of sequences that have been done time and time again, Harimao’s Treasure manages to add enough twists and tweaks to it to make it far more enjoyable.
The story is pretty straightforward. Lupin acquires a small prized statue at the beginning of the film and we watch him perform a fun and exciting escape sequence with the help of Jigen. This is just the beginning of things though, as apparently there are three statutes required. Once all these statues are together at a certain location, they’ll lead to the treasure left behind by a long-dead south Asian warrior named Harimao. Lupin is of course ahead of the game, and has set things in motion to get more.
This is where Fujiko comes in, as she’s now an assistant to the Englishman named Lord Archer. Archer, a graying man in his 70’s, is apparently the former British spy upon whom James Bond was based (within the Lupin worlds continuity). As he shows her around the mansion, we see all sorts of things that are similar to what shows up in the Bond movies, and Archer himself is easily seen as being the basis for the character. Archer’s also had some dealings with Harimao in the far past, which is what brings Fujiko here.
What sets the search in motion for him is the destruction of a section of the Eurotunnel between France and England, where Archer is the sole insurance name holder. That means that even after liquidating all his goods, he’s still $7 billion in the hole. But he knows of Harimao’s treasure, and convinces the slimy and obviously evil and corrupt lawyer at Lloyds that he can pay him the $7 billion and still come away with a profit. So with the help of Fujiko and his granddaughter Diana, they all head off to find more of the statues, all while Lupin and gang go their own way to get more of them as well.
The villain for the movie, a rather cold looking woman in Nazi clothing, isn’t all that directly tied to events until the final third of the movie where she and her band of evildoers start to interfere directly with those getting the statues. Their goal is pretty obvious (get treasure), but the need to make them nazi’s is boggling at times. It’s true they’re the classic villain at this point, but for some reason, I just can’t imagine that they could get that many “good’ ones that easily. And by good, I mean the kind that actually obeys orders, wears the gear properly, and does what’s required of them. I can’t help but think there’d be more punk types than anything else.
The style for this particular Lupin adventure (the red-jacketed version no less), is quite good. As mentioned before, the animation is very good, keeping the same character designs but making them a bit more stickish in nature as well as some hints of the western Batman animated series with the triangle-shaped bodies and the widespread apart legs at their joints and all. There’s also a very good framerate during the action sequences, giving this a really fluid feel at times. The visual aspect of the show, which takes place in more traditional places rather than exotic locales for the most part, also works well.
In Summary:
When it comes to revisiting Lupin’s adventures over the years, Pursuit of Harimao’s Treasure is one I can easily see myself queuing up again and again. The Bond references are great, the light-hearted nature of Lupin works well and the villains aren’t “ew, creepy” scary, just evil.
Features
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Character Profiles
Content Grade: B+
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: C
Released By: Funimation
Release Date: September 24th, 2002
MSRP: $29.98
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
