Lupin The Third and Detective Conan Crossovers

I've now seen both of them.

The 2009 TV Special is structured like the annual Lupin III TV Specials while the 2013 Theatrical Film is structured like the annual Detective Conan movies, and that overall makes it better.  Lupin III's cast are inherently travelers and pretty fundamentally flexible in the kinds of stories you can tell with them and so I feel any Crossover with Lupin III will always work better if it's more throwing them into the other franchise's world.

In fact some fans think the biggest problem with most Lupin movies and TV specials is how they kinda follow the same formula, chiefly the Castle of Cagilostro formula.

Meanwhile Detective Conan is a surprisingly rigid franchise for something that has gone on this long and most content produced is technically filler.  So even in the movie the Detective Conan characters feel off sometimes.  For me personally the movie served as a fun introduction to Detective Conan going into it as a Lupin fan, but once I re-watched it as a seasoned Conan fan how the characters were off became more noticeable.

The Special is still sometimes enjoyable however, but it certainly feels off to watch a Crossover story and find the most compelling part to be the completely original characters.  Christina Vee does a great job as Ran's Princess Doppelganger.

Basically Detective Conan is not a franchise that lends itself well to crossovers, even it's connections to other franchises from the same creator are often questionable to the few actually versed in both lores.

Lupin The Third however is tailor made for Crossover potential and it's a shame it doesn't happen more often.  In the late 2010s DC Animation gave us a Batman meets Scooby Doo movie and a Batman meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.  I got the impression these kinds of crossover movies for Batman with not even DC stuff would become a regular thing, but it wound up being just those two.  I already commented on the Lupin III influence in Catwoman: Hunted, so since people at DC see the relation why not try and actually make a Lupin III meets Batman movie?

Scooby Doo seems to do crossover stuff more regularly, and given how many of their bad guys plans are kind of heists it too could suit a Lupin The Third Crossover well.

But chances are doing it with another Japan based franchise will always be easier to arrange.  What other Anime franchises are basically in the contemporary real world and are reasonably Episodic with pulp inspired elements?  That's actually a rarer combination then you'd at first expect.  Maybe Sailor Moon could work?

The Detective Conan Crossovers happened because they're both TMS, there really doesn't seem to be a third TMS franchise on their level.  But TMS is under the TOHO umbrella which opens the possibility of Godzilla.

Update: So the Lupin III project for 2023 is going to be Lupin III vs Cat's Eye an Anime about Classy Cat Burglars from the early 80s, which is a natural crossover choice.  But the image we have implies it'll be a return of Pink Jacket Lupin which is interesting.

That makes me think again about the prospect of Lupin III crossing over with Batman, as both Lupin and Batman have had different tones over the years.  

The Pink Jacket Incarnation of Lupin The Third is who I'd have show up in Batman The Brave and The Bold the same animated version of Batman used for the Scooby Doo crossover I mentioned above.  

I'd have Red Jacket Crossover with the DCAU/Timmverse Batman voiced by Kevin Conroy and other still working BTAS veterans.  

Green Jacket I'd have crossover with the Batman of The New Frontier Animated film as a late 60s/early70s period piece, preferably written and directed and drawn by the same staff as The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.

And Blue Jacket (Parts 4 and 5) with the up coming Caped Crusader show or the Tomorrow verse films being the most modern incarnations.

Anime censored in America

I myself on this very blog in the past have fallen into the trap of saying the reason many Anime that were kids shows in Japan were censored for American Televisions is because Japan has different standards regarding what was and wasn't appropriate for children.

And yes Japan is a different culture and so their standards and values on things like this are different in some cases.  But I've come to realize that there is a huge problem in thinking that's truly the main reason so much Anime was subject to so much localization censorship.

Because think about Batman The Animated Series.  That show was a Saturday Morning show, it was deemed by American network censors as appropriate for children, but it and other Comic Book like shows got away with realistic Guns and sometimes fairly sexually risqué stuff.  And then even many Nickelodeon shows got pretty weird.  I've come to realize American Cartoons were filled with things that would have been censored on American TV if it was an Anime.

Hazel did a video about a short controversy over an Anime that almsot got an American release in 1991.  This Anime wasn't for kids, but the controversy involved those who had trouble accepting that any Animation could be for adults only.  And something I consider important in that story is how that whole fiasco caused Anime to be put on the radar of Focus on the Family, an Evangelical Christian "Family Values" moral guardians watchdog group.  They are also important players in the history of attempts to Censor Music and Video Games in the 90s and early 2000s.

Xenophobia and fears of "Degeneracy" frequently go together, the conservatives of every culture insist the things they find deviant and repulsive are never innate to their own culture but the product of foreign contamination.  The United States is a demographically predominantly Protestant Christian nation, and Japan is the last nation on Earth where true Ancient Paganism is still practiced as it was in Antiquity.

In other words, these "Chinese Cartoons" were held to greater scrutiny by Censors because they were foreign, because Japan was already being stereotyped as a land of weirdness and perverts.

Now the Anime and other related Japanese media that is definitely not appropriate for children is mostly the product of a Sub Culture, even in Japan they are not mainstream.  The truth is Shintoism is a perfect case study for debunking the way modern Christians think Paganism and Sexual promiscuity go hand in hand.  Kids shows in Japan are made with more mainstream sensibilities in mind and are thus actually pretty conservative.  Sailor Moon happened to be worked on by a few people who wanted to push boundaries but even their hands were often tied.

And yet because so many American Anime Fans have tied our love of Anime to a perception that Japanimation does what American't, we keep using the mere existence of all that censorship as proof that Japan must be a lot less squeamish about sex and gender nonconformity.  And I think a perfect case study for me to deconstruct the popular perception of and make my point with can be identified with one word.

"Cousins"

HaruMi is hyped by western LGBTQ Anime Fans as some shining example of Lesbian representation that even today Yuri Anime rarely lives up to.  But a lot of this is an informed reputation that comes from the infamy of how Homophobic North American television censors had to censor them into being "Cousins".

Allow me to reveal a dirty little open secret.  The Cloverway localization of Sailor Moon S didn't actually censor anything, it is by far the least censored of the four seasons of Sailor Moon that got Dubbed back then, for the one episode that was temporarily skipped over, why didn't have anything to do with HaruMi.  This change was accomplished not by removing anything but entirely in what they added, they added to almsot every episode a reference to them being Cousins so that their closeness had an alternate explanation.

But that exposes something doesn't it?  If they didn't need to cut anything to do that, then that exposes how HaruMi in the 90s Anime operated under the exact same plausible deniability most Yuri operated under.  There was never any onscreen Kiss or clear statement of "we're dating" or "she's my girlfriend".  Yet many Nostalgia blinded Yuri Critics think they achieved something many far more explicitly Yuri characters in more modern Anime have not.

Now in fairness the 90s Anime never featured an onscreen Kiss between Usagi and Mamoru either, because it was a kids show and so held to similar rules as 00s and early 2010s Disney Channel sitcoms.  In the Manga they do Kiss, and the Manga also had Girl on Girl Kisses, the Sailor Moon Manga was much more YA while the 90s Anime was toned down and dumbed down for the smallest of kids.

HaruMi on the 90s Anime in Sailor Moon S at most gave us Hand Holding, and that being in an Anime was enough to make Cartoon Network censors force the "Cousins" declarations on us while the Harley and Ivy episodes of BTAS didn't raise an eyebrow, proves that this stuff was being scrutinized differently because of where it came from.

Secret Targaryens and Blackfyres

I feel like I'm the only person who isn't a big fan of the Jon Snow is actually the son of Rheagar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark idea and is still hoping there is a chance it's not true in the books.

I'm not one of those people who confuses their fan theory preferences with the definition of good writing and so claims a series is pulling stuff out of it's @$$ when that's not what happens, in the books R+L=J is a plausible explanation of the clues we have so far, probably the most probable, whether one likes it or not.  I am less critical of how the TV show ended then most people in general, and the criticisms I do make have little to do with it going this route, and where it is relevant is more that they didn't do more with it.

The rising through the ranks real hero of the real battle most of the world is ignoring being the secret true heir to the throne all along is frankly way too conventional for what a Song of Fire and Ice's whole mission statement is supposed to be, it just turns Jon into Strider instead of the Bastard who overcomes all that anti-Bastard bigotry.

And then there's how his existence is supposed to be the proof that even Ned Stark is imperfect, peoples perceptions of Ned are originally the main reason so many felt there had to be more to it.  But the thing is we know that Ned and Cat were not in love at the start of their marriage, it was Brandon Stark who Cat had been in love with.  I don't think it's at all out of Ned's character that he may have loved someone else back then.

But perhaps my biggest problem over all those is the implications it has for Lyanna Stark's character.  The books even more then the show compare her to Arya Stark, and to me that comparison makes her being another woman who's crowning achievement is to die giving birth to a more important male character pretty unfortunate.  So I definitely do believe she should be the Laughing Tree Knight and that her relationship with Rheagar was consensual, but most importantly she really just didn't want to be forced to marry Robert.  Ned was keeping a secret about her from Robert, but what if it's that she didn't even really die?  What if Arya is going to meet her in Bravos, or Dany in Mareem?

The other main character somewhat popularly speculated to be a secret Targaryen is Tyrion, Alt Shift X has a video on that theory that covers the reasoning behind why it exists but also why it thematically doesn't fit.

But then there is the matter of Young Griff.  No one thinks he is actually a son of Rheagar and Elia as he is currently officially claiming, their kids were definitely all killed by The Mountain.  But the popular fan theory is that he's actually a Blackfyre, a rival branch of the Targyrens that is also assumed to be extinct now, think the Jacobite exiles during the 18th Century.

I find it such an odd theory, why would a legit Blackfyre claim to be something else?  The Blakcfyres already claim they were the real true royal line all along, and certainly have a better claim then the Baratheons.  It really is a much simpler explanation that Young Griff is just a fraud, like those who claimed to be a secretly survived Louis XVII, or who claim Bonnie Prince Charlie had a secret marriage, and there's even an example of this going back to the War of the Roses connection in Perkin Warbeck.

The main evidence for Young Griff having a Blackfyre connection is his having the support of the Golden Company, the argument is they were founded for the purpose of carrying on the Blackfyre cause and that their now supporting an alleged Heir to the Blackfyre's enemies therefore makes no sense.  But again in real life there have been similar quasi military organizations founded with a very specific purpose but who moved on to a new one when the original purpose became Obsolete, take all those Chivalrous Orders who's original purpose was dependent on the existence of the Outremer States, when those States ceased to exist they found new purposes.  

It could be that at this point the Golden Company just really wants to finally successfully conquer Westeros, or that they just became mercenaries and are doing it for the money Illyrio Mmopatis is paying them, or a combination of both.

Update December 2024: And I now know something I didn't when I first wrote this, the Golden Company was founded by Bittersteel, his vendetta was always the real motivation, the Blakcfyre claim to the throne was just an political smokescreen.  Bittersteel is also the last known holder of the sword Blackfyre, so of Illyrio does have it now it was probably passed down from him.

Unsullied Freedom

This can be considered a follow up of sorts to my last Game of Thrones post.

In my re-watch I'm early in season 3 now, they really are so brazenly telegraphing that Dany is ultimately a villain (but also already departing from the books in aspects of that).  But a lot of why that's so offensive to people is how much of the narrative had been about her Freeing Slaves and punishing Slave owners.

Here's the thing though, the claim that she Freed the Unsullied is absurd and we should never have bought it.

She says every one of them is free to go if they choose, and whether she meant that or not is irrelevant to the point I shall make.  Because where exactly would an Unsullied who choose to leave at that moment have to go?  With no family and no skills at anything other then being a mindless solider?

Because they aren't even normal Slaves, they are people mutilated and brainwashed from childhood to be functionally mindless drones.  It is absolutely an expression of Capitalist Liberalism to think simply legally declaring them Free is sufficient.  Truly freeing them required putting the work into building a new way of life for them, something Dany doesn't have the time to do while her real goal is building a army to conquer a continent that is foreign to her.

In a situation like what the Unsullied are presented as being, even allowing the option to continue being what they have been is functionally the same as not freeing them at all.  To a Neoliberal or Libertarian's simplistic understanding of "Freedom" that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but those of us on the True Left know it's the truth.

While the Unsullied are an over the top hyper specific Fantastical exaggeration, the basic lesson here can be compared to how real life Slavery Abolition has often been botched.  After the U.S. Civil War many of the newly freed slaves were trapped into situations like Sharecropping because they weren't provided for, they were "Freed" but left with nothing.  

Shockingly enough Tolkien understood this, at the end of LOTR when Aragorn Freed the Slaves in Mordor he also gave them that land, this fictional Medieval style Monarch did what Ulysses S Grant did not.

Ned Stark, deconstructing the deconstruction

I don't like the term "Deconstruction" as it's commonly used now, but people keep using that word for whatever they think the the early seasons of Game of Thrones did well.

One of the themes of stories like Game of Thrones is questioning narratives, and I think on some level it even wants us questioning it's own narrative.  And season 2 onwards has been repeating a narrative about Ned Stark that doesn't quite match what you see when you re-watch season 1.  That his downfall was because of his "Honor", that his compulsive Honesty and Mercy got in the way of his ablity to actually think logically or strategically.

Take the scene early in season 2 when Tyrion finds Varys talking to Shay and then when Varys leaves he accused him of threatening him and says "I'm not Ned Stark, I know how this game is played".  Was there any scene in season 1 where Ned is just flat out ignorant of a veiled threat?  No ,I'd argue it's Tyrion breaking the rules of the game here by breaking it's fourth wall.  But Tyrion wasn't there, he's making assumptions based on his personal attitude towards the concept of Honor.

Was Ned being overly Honest when he said Cat arrested Tyrion on his orders even though he actually told her not do anything yet?  Was he being overly honest when he deliberately changed the intended wording of Robert's will?  Was he overly Merciful when he executed that runaway for being scared?

Ned warned Cersie that he knew about her incest and was gonna tell Robert out of a desire to allow her to save her children.  But why did he think that was necessary?  The fact is because of the arguments about Dany he'd lost faith in Robert's character, he thought Robert would kill the children he'd been raising as his own for years if he learned they weren't biologically his, and frankly I doubt that was ever even true.  And in that kind of society assuming the worst about your King isn't very Honorable.

But is the repeated claim Robert wouldn't even have been killed at that time if Ned hadn't told Cersie true?  I'm unsure only because this may be something where maybe the TV version messed up the timeline, but on the TV show they'd already left on that hunt, it's heavily implied Lancel was already supplying the poisoned Wine.

But the real question is, once Ned felt he had no choice but to resort to a Coup, what was his practical mistake there?  It was trusting Little Finger, yet involving Little Finger was explicitly pointed out as the "dishonorable" part of Ned's plan, Little Finger himself egged him on about it.

The House of Gaiseric???

[November Update: This post is one I now somehwat regret making.}