Lupin III: Ai no Da Capo – Fujiko’s Unlucky Days

Synopsis:

Characters:

• Ishikawa XIII, Goemon (Main) - Voice Actors: McFarland, Mike, Inoue, Makio, Palumbo, Antonio
• Jigen, Daisuke (Main) - Voice Actors: Sabat, Christopher, Kobayashi, Kiyoshi, Pellegrini, Sandro
• Lupin III (Main) - Voice Actors: Strait, Sonny, Kurita, Kanichi, Del Giudice, Roberto
• Mine, Fujiko (Main) - Voice Actors: McCoy, Meredith, Masuyama, Eiko, Korompay, Alessandra
• Barton (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Moriyama, Shuichiro
• Nazaroff (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Chiba, Shigeru, Dal Fabbro, Luca
• Rosalia (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Toda, Keiko
• Zenigata, Kouichi (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Naya, Gorou, Wilburn, Phillip, Bianchi, Rodolfo

Staff:

• Cook, Justin (Producer)
• Watson, Barry (Producer)
• Ooishi, Hiromichi (Assistant Producer)
• Watanabe, Shinichi (Director, Storyboard)
• Fujita, Shinzou (Script)
• Vale, Eric (Script)
• Rosa, Sonia (Theme Song Performance)
• Watanabe, Natsumi (Theme Song Lyrics)
• Akashi, Seiko (Art Director)
• Aoyagi, Shigemi (Key Animation)
• Endou, Asami (Key Animation)
• Fukunaga, Gen (Executive Producer)
• Hashi, Katsuhiro (Background Art)
• Hatano, Yoshitsugu (Key Animation)
• Hayashi, Yoshimi (Special Effects)
• Ikai, Kazuyuki (Key Animation)
• Kamata, Hitoshi (Key Animation)
• Kamura, Hiroyuki (Key Animation)
• Kataoka, Kouji (Key Animation)
• Katou, Yasuhisa (Key Animation)
• Kobayashi, Toshimitsu (Animation Director)
• Monkey Punch (Original Creator)
• Morio, Maki (Background Art)
• Muta, Seiji (Key Animation)
• Naitou, Inosuke (In-Between Animation)
• Nakahara, Eitou (Background Art)
• Oda, Taeko (Key Animation)
• Ogawa, Ichirou (Animation Director)
• Oono, Yuuji (Music)
• Otokawa, Masashi (Production Manager)
• Pate, Justin (Recording Engineer)
• Sano, Takashi (Key Animation)
• Sekizaki, Takaaki (Key Animation)
• Strait, Sonny (ADR Director)
• Yagi, Motoki (Key Animation)

Reviews:

• User Psycho_Sanji (Score: 8/10):
  Da Capo of Love: Fujiko's Unlucky Days (The Columbus Files) is a nice Lupin special. It starts with Lupin and Fujiko up to their usual shenanigans, until they are bombarded by explosions and things get wild. The story here is that Fujiko has amnesia, and only she knows where the treasure is. And of course, getting Fujiko's memory back is Lupin's top priority. Lupin is pretty serious a lot of the time in this one, because Fujiko is who he cares about the most. It's always nice to see that kind of emotion from the world's greatest thief. There's plenty of great comedy from the man aswell of course. He has a great villain to comedically own here too, the green jacketed laughing madman, Nazaroff.nnJigen and Goemon both get some good stuff here, Goemon is hilariously eccentric in this one. Lupin and Jigen's usual tag-team is put on the backburner in cases like this one though, when a woman needs Lupin's help. Inspector Zenigata pops up from time to time, and while he's used sparingly he does get some good laughs.nnThe main story does get a little shaky by the end though, involving mad scientists and a crazy world domination plot.nnYuji Ohno gives this a very smooth jazz soundtrack of course, with the appropriate intensity added when needed. The original voice acting from these veterans is great as well. And some fun trivia, Nabeshin of Excel Saga fame directed this special.nnAll in all, this is a good Lupin adventure, with some nice attention given to Lupin and Fujiko's always interesting relationship. Check this one out.
• User sdde (Score: 4/10):
  Now I believe I am allowed to say I am a fan of the Lupin III franchise. I love the characters, the comedy, the unrealistic gadgets, the fight sequences, the music, and on occasion the villains. However, in this particular special left a sour taste in my mouth.The question is; why? It's hard to think of how they achieved this with the main cast of the show, since I love watching all four of them, but in this only Lupin is used correctly and he can't save it no matter how hard he tries. Seriously, he tries so hardto save something in this special.nn*SPOILERS*n The opening scene is reassuring enough with a classic game of wit and tease between Lupin and his dear Fujiko-chan after just stealing 'an entire Swiss bank', boggles the mind I know. Obviously there's 1 item Fujiko was after and this is the title mentioned 'Columbus file', which is the only document locating the mystical 'Columbus Egg'. This is where things start to head down hill, literally.nn A five second countdown might as well appear on screen the instant Lupin sets his eye on the file, and his hill top mansion is promptly blown to bits. Events transpire which destroy the file, leaving Fujiko (whom apparantly memorised it in the 2 minutes she had it) both as the bad guys' one and only target and missing. Yeah, that's new, but wait it gets even more original! She reappears in the special's leading original charater, Rosaria's, house with amnesia! Oh boy.nn Now you know why Fujiko is not Fujiko during this escapade, but lets move away from spoilers and onto the other characters:nn Jiigen; the fastest gunslinger in the world, often capable of shooting numerous enemies before they've even reached for their holsters, and he does nothing. Nothing at all. The only memorable things Jiigen does is to have a joke Yaoi scene with Goemon, and drive the escape vehicle! Jiigen's an awesome character and more than capable of kicking ass without anyone's help, but in this he might as well just stay in the car.nn Goemon; the ultimate swordmaster, capable of cutting through pretty much anything...wait I stand corrected, make that, absolutely anything. His abilites are completely overused, including the running gag that he's able to hit broken machinery and get it to run. This complaint is opitmised toward the end where he LITERALLY CUTS A TORNADO! I can believe that Goemon has superhuman sword skills, like cutting rock or even entire builings, but the wind?nn Zenigata, easily my favourite character of all Lupin II's cast, a comedic gold mine of dogged determination and bad luck. Is completely underused and as result his normally hilarious attempts to capture Lupin are reduced to idiotic annoyances. Moving swiftly on.nn Rosaria, one word: coincidence. Her entire motivation and backstory are centred around the Columbus Egg, and then Fujiko, the only possible key to finding the egg shows up in her house. Otherwise she's fairly consistent, but no-one who will…
• User fortuneye (Score: 6/10):
  [THIS WAS WRITTEN RIGHT AFTER WATCHING IT AND ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACC. KEEPING THIS HERE FOR AN ARCHIVE] Watched the Columbus files. Kind of a meh movie. I liked the more serious moments lupin had and the usual goemon jigen stupidity. The gimmick of the movie is literally just the cliche main girl character has amnesia and jusy so happens to have seen something important right before losing her memory (COUGH COUGH detective Conan movie Captured in her eyes COUGGGHH) the movies exclusive character/story was also kinda dumb as usual with lupin movies but she was way more girlboss than most others I’ve seen soshe gets a plus therenThis lupin movie gets a very straight cut 7/10. Not the worst but far from the best

News:

• North American Anime & Manga Releases for February (02/02/2021)
• Q4 2020 Anime & Manga Licenses [Update 12/14] (09/28/2020)

Forum Topics:

• Lupin III: Ai no Da Capo - Fujiko's Unlucky Days Episode 1 Discussion

External Links:

• Official Site
• AniDB
• ANN
• Wikipedia

Related Anime/Manga:

• Lupin III (anime - Parent Story)