Lupin VIII General information Release date

1982 (Produced) March 28, 2012 (DVD/Blu-ray) Japanese title ルパン8世 (Rupan Hassei) Other titles Arsène et Cie (France) Runtime 22 minutes (pilot)

8 minutes (selected scenes from other episodes) Jacket Color Red Credits Written by Yutaka Kaneko (pilot) Directed by Rintaro Production company Tokyo Movie Shinsha / DiC / Araki Production / Unknown Outsourced Studios Film chronology ← Previous Next → "Lupin the Third Part II" "Lupin the Third Part III" Lupin VIII is a cancelled animated series that was produced in 1982. The remains of the project were released in 2012 with a voiceless pilot, and selected animated scenes with 5 scripts.

The 6 scripts were adapted into a manga series by Monkey Punch and collected in a volume in 1982.

Production and Release

DiC decided to do a co-production with TMS and bring the Lupin the 3rd series to a Western audience. Some changes were made such as Lupin was no longer became a thief but a detective, Jigen was no longer a smoker and it was set in the future. It was decided that the series was going to be called Arsène et Cie in France while it was called Lupin VIII internationally. Rintaro (Shigeyuki Hayashi) who worked on Captain Harlock and Galaxy Express 999 was the director and Shingo Araki was brought in as a character designer along with Michi Himeno.

There was a problem during production and that was with the Maurice Leblanc estate. While the Lupin name was used in Japan and Italy at this point without issues, the Maurice Leblanc estate demanded money for the use of the Lupin name while TMS and DiC refused to pay what they were asking. This was also the same issue that had problems releasing the series outside of Japan with France adopting the Edgar de la Cambriole name, Lupin was renamed to Wolf or Cliff in the US while Spain and Italy that kept the Lupin name had to distance from Arsène Lupin affecting later dubbed episodes of Lupin the Third Part II.

Due to the cancellation, Lupin the Third Part III was instead created and aired in Japan in 1984. Shingo Araki also worked on the first episode of the series.

While the pilot received private airings, it was released as part of the "Lupin III Master File" collection on March 28, 2012 along with Lupin Family Line-up and the Lupin III 3DCG short. It also features scenes from the unfinished episodes with commentary.

Episodes

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The commentary video (for episodes 2-6) or the manga may have episode titles, this needs investigating.

No. Title Notes 1 Pilot Episode Fully animated, sound effects, no voices 2 Episode 2 Selected scenes were animated 3 Episode 3 Selected scenes were animated 4 Episode 4 Selected scenes were animated 5 Episode 5 Selected scenes were animated 6 Episode 6 Selected scenes were animated

Notes