Lupin the 3rd vs Cat's Eye

Although co-directors Hiroyuki Seshita and Kobun Shizuno's Lupin the 3rd vs Cat's Eye isn't the first time that the storied cat burglar has been recreated using computer generated animation, it's truly a bizarre experience to see Monkey Punch's inky, elasticated thief rendered here as such a stiff, immovable marionette. Whereas a comparable feature like Lupin III: The First trapped its expressive, polygonal models in beautifully lit dioramas, this crossover instead attempts to ape the flatness inherent to traditional animation but without any of the stylistic flourishes that bleed in when somebody has to draw then re-draw a moving figure over and over again. These figures are baked and manipulated; subject to only the lightest of stresses and never smearing. As a result then, this streaming special ends up registering as a cheap example of previs that has somehow made it off Amazon's internal servers. Really all Lupin the 3rd vs Cat's Eye can offer is a kind of unblemished, trundling uniformity; a commitment to dangling playsets and basic replication that might appeal to avid collectors of articulated action figures. Little more than an unusually stern guest star in this piece, Kanichi Kurita's Lupin brushes up against the ongoing adventures of Tsukasa Hojo's Cat's Eye art thieves, a trio of sisters who (when not appearing in 80s issues of Weekly Shonen Jump) are attempting to secure the lost masterpieces of their dearly departed Dad.