Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo

Mystery of Mamo
Directed by	Sōji Yoshikawa
Written by	Atsushi Yamatoya Sōji Yoshikawa
Produced by	Yutaka Fujioka
Starring	See Full Cast
Edited by	Yoshiaki Aihara
Music by	Yuji Ohno
Production company	TMS Entertainment
Distributed by	Toho
Release date	December 16, 1978 (1978-12-16)
Running time	102 min.
Language	Japanese

The Mystery of Mamo was the first animated movie of the Lupin III franchise created by manga author Monkey Punch. The movie was originally released in Japanese theatres on December 16, 1978 as Lupin III (ルパン三世, Rupan Sansei) but was later retitled to Lupin III: Lupin vs. the Clones (ルパン三世 ルパンVS複製人間(クローン), Rupan Sansei: Rupan tai Kurōn) to differentiate it from other elements of the franchise. The movie was produced by TMS Entertainment, directed by Sōji Yoshikawa and written by Yoshikawa and cult pink film screenwriter Atsushi Yamatoya.

The movie has been criticised for it's story, particularly towards the end. Several companies have released the movie in North America and Europe, and four different english dubs have been produced. In 2013, North American publisher Discotek Media released the movie on a DVD containing all four english dubs as well as extensive liner notes and essays about the film.

Plot

Inspector Zenigata travels to Castle Dracula where he attempts to satisfy his belief in the death of his rival Arsene Lupin III.However the body is a decoy and the real Lupin escapes from the castle. Zenigata then travels to Egypt under the belief Lupin will attempt to raid the Pyramids. His sixth sense proves accurate but Lupin and his friends Daisuke Jigen and Goemon Ishikawa XIIIescape from the pyramids with the Philosopher's Stone. The stone was requested by Lupin's associate, and object of his affections Fujiko Mine. Fujiko has agreed to obtain the stone for a mysterious benefactor, and she steals the stone from Lupin. Upon delivery of the stone to her benefactor, he reveals his name to Fujiko as Mamo, however the Stone is a fake made by Lupin.

In response to the deception, Lupin and his gang are attacked several times by Mamo's henchman Flinchy before they arrive at their hideout to find it destroyed. They travel toward the ocean until the group finds a house stocked with food and water before a wounded Fujiko comes for Lupin. Jigen and Goemon argue with Lupin about Fujiko's influence on him and set off without him. Fujiko drugs Lupin before Mamo's henchman Flinchy arrives to take them away in his plane. Jigen and Goemon are later apprehended and interviewed by an American government official about Mamo, however they are released when they are unable to answer any questions.

On a Caribbean island, Mamo tells Lupin that he arranged for him to steal the stone as a test and that he is considering granting Lupin eternal life in admiration of Lupin's skill. Lupin is more interested in the stone and begins to search Mamo's headquarters for it. After Lupin is able to retrieve the stone, he is reunited with Fujiko and the pair are chased by Mamo's henchmen until they accidentally arrive in Mamo's lair. Mamo deems Lupin unworthy of eternal life and attempts to show Fujiko the real Lupin by using a device to visualise Lupin's secrets, however Fujiko refuses to abandon him. Meanwhile the US Airforce attacks the base, having planted a bug on Jigen and Goemon to track them as they attempt to infiltrate the base. Jigen rescues Lupin and Fujiko before Goemon deafest Flinchy in a duel. The altercation damages Goemon's sword Zantetsuken in the process, causing Goemon to leave for training purposes.

Meanwhile, Lupin, Fuijiko and Jigen are thrust into a vision by Mamo. When Mamo shows up to reclaim Fujiko, Lupin challenges him over his use of "parlour tricks". Mamo responds by setting off an earthquake, which alerts the Americans to his new location. Lupin figures out what was behind that earthquake and sets off for the source, where he believes Mamo to be hiding. As Mamo convinces Fujiko to push a button to launch missiles, Lupin arrives and reveals he rigged the missiles to blow up before they could launch. Frustrated, Mamo takes Fujiko with him to a rocket launching pad and tries fending Lupin off with lasers. Lupin uses the tip of Goemon's Zantetsuken that was given to him by Jigen to deflect the lasers onto Mamo and incinerate him. Lupin is sure that was the real Mamo until he discovers a chip hidden among the ashes.

The rocket emerges, containing a large brain that reveals itself to be the original Mamo. Lupin realises that Mamo had controlled his clones resembling his old body right before the rocket launches into space. Lupin and Fujiko escape the rocket's trajectory, but not before Lupin puts an explosive onto the rocket. The glass shatters, and Mamo's brain drifts toward the sun. Lupin finds Fujiko in the rubble where he is captured by Zenigata. Fujiko offers to help Lupin after they kiss, but the Americans launch missiles on Mamo's Colombian base. Fujiko is rescued by Jigen, but Lupin and Zenigata must escape on foot while handcuffed together.

Production

The movie was produced while the second Lupin III series was broadcast. Due to an increased popularity of the first series, staff who worked on that series were assembled to work on the movie. Yasuo Otsuka, who was animation director and character designer on that series Supervised the movie. Soji Yoshikawa, who storyboarded the first and last episode of the first series was director. Tsutomu Shibayama, who had worked on the pilot film was responsible for layout. The music was composed by Yuji Ohno, who was the composer for the second series. The movie was given a budget of 500 million yen, comparable to major Live Action movies at the time. Production lasted for 15 months and involved 1,315 members of staff. The storyboard was 575 pages. 62,000 cel sheets were used in the animation, compared to 5,000 cels used in an average 30minute TV animation. Oversized cels were used in a process known as "Anime Vision" which allowed for a brighter and sharper picture for projection in theaters compared to TV orientated production. 18,000 reference images were used for background and mechanical research and 196 character drawings were created.

Mamo's name is taken from the villain Kyousuke Mamoh who had appeared in the manga and first tv series. Mamo's physical design was inspired by Paul Williams character in the 1974 Musical horror film Phantom of the Paradise and represents a monster who is both a boy and an old man at the same time.

Release

The movie was originally released in Japan on December 16, 1978 as Lupin III. An English dubbed version of the film, commissioned by Toho, was produced by Frontier Enterprises around the same time. This dub, also titled Lupin III, was shown on JAL flights. It was also available from the Los Angeles branch of Toho for booking to play at local theatres. Notably, University of California, Berkeley was host to several showings. This dub has no credits for the voice cast and as such, the full cast is unknown. Many of the character's names were changed in the process. Anime Historian Carl Horn provided Yasuo Otsuka with a VHS copy of the dub in 1987 because Otsuka was previously unaware of it.

In the mid 1980s, TMS re-titled the film in Japan to Lupin III: Lupin vs. the Clones. By this time, English-speaking fans had been referring to the film as The Mystery of Mamo, to distinguish it from the two TV series and The Castle of Cagliostro. When Streamline Pictures released the film on VHS in North America in 1995, they kept the title, despite discovering that the character's name was meant to be spelled Mamoux in English. The decision to keep the Mamo spelling was based on fan familiarity and a desire to avoid upsetting the fans by changing it.

In 1996, the film was released on VHS in Britain and Australia by Manga Video as Secret of Mamo. This release used a new dub adapted and directed by actor-director George Roubicek and based on the Toho dub. Manga later released a DVD of the movie with the same title on DVD on August 4, 2008.

On July 29, 2003, Geneon re-released the film on DVD in North America using a new Anamorphic print taken from the Japanese DVD. Another English dub was produced for this release by Phuuz Entertainment, using the cast that was dubbing second TV series. In 2012, TMS Entertainment began showing this dub on the Hulu video streaming service.

Discotek Media released a new edition of the film on DVD in America on February 26, 2013. The release includes all four English dubs in addition to the original Japanese audio, as well as several essays and liner notes on the film.

A TV broadcast of the movie on March 28, 2014 on NTV attained an audience share of 11.2% in the Kantō region of Japan. It was the second highest share for a movie broadcast during that week.

Full cast

The cast for the Toho dub is still largely unknown, due to a lack of localisation credits on any known prints. It has been confirmed that Goemon and Zenigata were voiced by William Ross and Greg Starr, respectively, however. A common misconception is that Peter Fernandez was involved with the Toho dub, however there is no evidence of this.

Character	Original Japanese	English (Streamline)	English (Manga UK)	English (Geneon)
Arsène Lupin III/Wolf III	Yasuo Yamada	Bob Bergen	Bill Dufris	Tony Oliver
Fujiko Mine/Margot	Eiko Masuyama	Edie Mirman	Toni Barry	Michelle Ruff
Howard Lockewood/Foward Fughes (Mamo/Mameaux)	Kō Nishimura	Robert Axelrod	Allan Wenger	Paul St. Peter
Daisuke Jigen/Dan Dunn	Kiyoshi Kobayashi	Steve Bulen	Eric Meyers	Richard Epcar
Goemon Ishikawa XIII/Samurai	Makio Inoue	Kirk Thornton	Garrick Hagon	Lex Lang
Inspector Koichi Zenigata/Detective Ed Scott	Gorō Naya	David Povall	Sean Barrett	Dan Martin
Heinrich "Starky/Stuckey" Gissinger	Tōru Ōhira	Steve Kramer	unknown	Osgood W. Glick
Special Agent Gordon	Hidekatsu Shibata	Michael Forest	unknown	Michael McConnohie
Police commissioner	Kōsei Tomita	Jeff Winkless	unknown	Richard Cansino
Flinch/Frenchy	Shōzō Iizuka	unknown	unknown	Bob Papenbrook
Scientist	Ichirō Murakoshi	unknown	unknown	Richard Cansino
Dietman/Premier	Shunsuke Shima	unknown	unknown	Richard Cansino
Officer	Yūji Mikimoto	unknown	unknown	unknown
Egyptian police chief	Haruo Minami (Special Guest Voice)	Steve Kramer	unknown	Richard Cansino
President	Fujio Akatsuka (Special Guest Voice)	Steve Kramer	unknown	Richard Cansino
Boris (Chief secretary)	Ikki Kajiwara (Special Guest Voice)	Jeff Winkless	unknown	Richard Cansino

Reception

In his review for Mania.com, Chris Beverdige enjoyed the movie despite having previously disliked it on a previous viewing several years before. He attributes this to being more familiar with the characters through other entries in the Lupin III franchise. However, he criticised the final third of the movie for it's science fiction development as opposed to the good action and character development of the first two thirds of the movie. This criticism was shared in another review for Mania.com by John Erini except he felt the movie became unwatchable due to the development of the Mamo character.

Rob Lineberger writing for DVD Verdict also agrees with the criticism of the final third and despite repeated viewings felt no closer to understanding the events. Additionally he criticised the "lack of cohesion" and "an unbroken string of jump cuts and deux ex machinas". Reflecting on the positives of the movie, Lineberger highlights the characters of Jigen, Goemon and Fujiko as being more interesting than either Lupin or Mamo. He also credits the movie for tackling interesting concepts such as cloning, personal identity, love and honour despite the way they are presented. In summary he suggests that Lupin fans will find a more ambitious story than the Television episodes if they can accept some flaws. He recommends people who are not Lupin fans watch Castle of Cagliostro instead.

Darius Washington of The Fandom Post reviews the Discotek edition of the movie. He called the story "haphazard" due to a shifting focus and labelled the film as "a bit hard to get into". He praises the collection of "educational" extras and different english dubs on the Discotek release of the film. In conclusion Washington feels the release is more suited for learning about anime history than the entertainment value of the film itself. He gave the movie content a B rating and the extras an A+ rating.

External links

• Lupin III: The Secret of Mamo at IMDb
• LEP Lupin European Page
• Lupin III Encyclopedia