Name(s): The Castle of Cagliostro / Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro / Rupan Sansei / ルパン三世 カリオストロの城 / Lupin III: Das Schloss des Cagliostro / Lupin III: El Castillo de Cagliostro / Lupin III: Le château de Cagliostro
Format: Movie (99 minutes)
Studio(s): Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Related: N/A

The Castle of Cagliostro is good enough that I can accept its position as a classic. It’s charming, the theme music is great, and it’s genuinely consistently funny. A great adventure movie to be sure, but there’s nothing about it to make me consider it as anything further.

Since Lupin III has little to no continuity, there’s nothing in this movie that comes as a surprise. The villains are simple, stock, and evil even when there’s no reason for them to be (why’s he have to trap the girl, marry her, and be cruel to her? Just take the damn ring off), and the animation is average and gets a little choppy during any action sequences.

There’s little to no emotional weight here, though in every scene where Lupin tries to charm the girl, he’s likely to charm the audience just as much. It’s also amusing to see a Miyazaki movie with such a helpless female lead, antithetical to a trait he would become known for. An impossible-to-deny good time, but it doesn’t touch me on any deeper level.

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Criticker review:

The Castle of Cagliostro is a fun adventure with charming characters that’s impossible to disagree with, but due to Lupin III’s lack of continuity is free of consequence and doesn’t resonate on any deep emotional level. Animation quality often falls short of a theatrical feature, and antagonists are simple and stockly villainous. I can accept its position as a classic and safely recommend it to anyone, but there’s no aspect of it that stands among a peak quality of animated movies.