Anime

Following up on my video review, I've written down my thoughts on Green VS Red. Enjoy!

According to Hot Shot News, the upcoming Green VS Red OVA is getting a marketing boost through "Lupin the Night!", three days worth of events.

Monkey Punch will be attending a March 8 event at the Toho Cinemas in Roppongi Hills. He will also be signing 500 autographs at the Tokyo Anime Fair on March 29.

The March 8 appearance will also feature a pre-screening of the new OVA along with a number of films and specials. Other Toho theaters will screen the OVA and a smaller selection of titles on the 15th.

Via DannyChoo.com, an article in the Mainichi Shimbun has revealed the release date for the OVA, some plot and cast information, and a few pictures. The OVA will be released on April 2 and will revolve around the green and red jacket Lupins vying for the "Ice Cube" treasure held by the military organization "Nighthawks".

Additionally, Hirano Aya will be voicing a character. Once I learned a release date was set, I checked the usual online stores to see if there were any pre-orders available. This turned up even more interesting news.

The OVA will be released in two flavors; the first is a typical DVD+BGM CD combo (pre-order at DiscStation or Amazon JP. The second flavor is a two disc set that come with a figure (pre-order at DiscStation or Amazon JP). On the second DVD will be interviews, making of information, etc.

No pictures yet of the figure included, but I imagine it will mimic the green/red jacket Lupin combination pictures we've already seen.

A very brief teaser trailer for the upcoming OVA Green Vs Red is up at Lupin-3rd.net. If you want to save a copy to your hard drive, you can access the movie directly.

Wizard recently posted their "Top 50 Fictional Weapons"; Goemon's Zantetsuken place a respectable 31. The franchise may be running on fumes in the US, but it is good to see it getting some love on a small level.

Via Hot Shot News, the recent Akiba chat revealed that the new OVA will be titled Green vs. Red. Not many details beyond that at the moment, but the image in the news piece looks very intriguing.

Hot Shot News (official Japanese site) has two new reports up. Haven't fully translated them, but here is the general gist.

Not much information available, but they have the story summary, cast/staff, and overall summary available.

Babelfish translations give a decent idea of the special's concept. They are dipping back into the first TV series and basing this story off of the 13th episode "Beware of the Time Machine!".

They are being coy about the overall plot and villain, but it appears that Kyosuke Mamo or own of his descendants is after Lupin once again. The time machine is mentioned along with a "special guest". They are not revealing the voice actor for this special guest and/or villain either.

They are hyping up the 40th anniversary (manga) angle also. Hope this turns out better than the 30th anniversary (anime) Pycal story they did.

A LTT forum member posted that Japanese blogs have revealed the title and date of this year's special. Airing on July 27, the title appears to be "Elusiveness of the Fog". Telecom, the studio that animated Cagliostro, will be animating the special. NTV has yet to post their information about the special, but they should be posting something within the next week or two.

Geneon keeps pushing Lupin into new distribution channels; Anime News Network reports that the Akimbo video-on-demand service is the latest player to be peddling Lupin. The service requires Windows XP or Vista, Roxio Venue, and Windows Media Player 10 or higher for computers. Specific settop boxs for televisions can also deliver the service.