The Castle of Cagliostro

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki

1979

***

The Castle of Cagliostro is Hayao Miyazaki's first full length animated feature and very much the beginnings of Studio Ghibli, even though it is based on a well established MANGA series and character. It's an action packed adventure, full of wonderful ideas, an animated delight but more importantly, it's Miyazaki blue print for Studio Ghibli. You can see so much of his later work here, the influence is quite evident. The characters Arsene Lupin III and Daisuke Jigen are a great double act, but this is a very different version of them. Some of the original comics are quite dark, indeed this is when MANGA became more focused on an adult market with quite explicit depictions of sex and violence and a questionably dark sense of humour. This is very much a Miyazaki family-friendly version, which although a huge disappointment for hard-core fans, something of a revelation to everyone else; feature cartoons can be just as good as live action films. I'd like to see a more authentic animated version of Lupin III but I'm not going to hold my breath. However, while I really enjoyed The Castle of Cagliostro it really isn't Miyazaki at his best, it is just an echo of what was about to come. The gates were now open and the possibilities endless. While it isn't a Sudio Ghibli film, it is an interesting beginning and a historically significant film in the world of feature animations. Interestingly, the English dubbed version has Bob Bergen of as the voice of Lupin. Bergen is the voice behind Wembley in Fraggle Rock, Luke Skywalker in the video games and Porky Pig and Tweety Bird, while Tasuo Yamada, the original voice of Lupin, was Clint Eastwood's voice in every film of his screen in Japan.