Lupin the 3rd Part IV The Italian Adventure English Dubbed [Blu-ray]

JAPANESE LANGUAGE SETAfter almost a year since the release of the English Dub Blu-ray, the subbed set of Lupin the Third Part 4 is available for preorder. (Why would Amazon merge the reviews of this set with the English one? Some poor chap is gonna get confused.)Straight from the packaging, this set will contain:-All 26 episodes in Japanese with English subtitles-The Japanese soundtrack by franchise composer Yuji Ohno, including opening and closing sequences-Bonus Episodes-Liner Notes-Art GalleryA thing to note here: DO NOT BE DECEIVED by the “bonus episodes.” These are actually episodes 6:”Venice of the Dead” and 23:”Nonstop Rendezvous” included in the English Dub set and shown on Toonami. The reason why they are referred to as “bonus” is because these two episodes were not shown on television when Japan originally broadcasted Part 4 (and the reason why this series is sometimes listed as having only 24 episodes). They were only available in Italy. Japan got ahold of them after the series was over, dubbed them and included them on their Blu-Ray release. I realize that if you only watched this series subbed when it first came out in 2015 and didn’t watch the English version, you might have not seen these episodes. So there you go: bonus episodes.DOUBLE-DIPPING?Hey Discotek, can we get a discount if we can prove that we bought the English set last year? Nah, the price for this is already great. In all seriousness, if you’re in this situation you might be thinking: Is it worth buying this one too? It really depends on your preferences, of course. On subbed anime and in this case, the soundtrack. While the 26 episodes are exactly the same, the Japanese music is used here (if you look up ルパン三世 PART IV オリジナル・サウンドトラック ~MORE ITALIANO in the amazon.co.jp website, you can see and preview the songs there). You may roll your eyes at this, but this makes for a DRASTICALLY different presentation; one that I don’t think a lot of Americans have experienced with this series. Try it out and compare. You might like this one better. Also consider that this release has liner notes and an art gallery, much better special features than the last one and rightly so. Or, if you’re perfectly happy with the version you already have, with that “awful” Italian music on there, that’s fine too.Honestly, I thought that Papik’s completely reimagined Italian soundtrack in the English Dub set was a vast improvement over Yuji Ohno’s recent works. A big reason why is that Ohno’s usually exceptional soundtracks have started to sound ... the same? Or maybe “repetitive” would be a more appropriate word? Unfortunately, Part 4 is no exception (Part 5 has the same problem as well). What mostly makes up this soundtrack is just rehashed versions of old material and a painful over-usage of the melody from Theme from Lupin III (insert variant here) playing in the background. Even the original pieces were difficult to tell apart. This robbed Part 4 from truly having memorable songs or even an unique sound. The use of the traditional Italian instruments could not hide the fact that it was really just a Part 2, Cagliostro, movie/T.V. Special expy. But... it wasn’t all bad. This iteration of the Lupin theme song (2015) has to be one of the best (perhaps second only to the original 1977 version), coupled with a superior opening sequence. The songs sung by guest singers were also very good, like the closing theme. Why couldn’t the rest of the soundtrack be this original?Because of that (and that I found Rebecca’s Japanese voice to be tiresome), this won’t be an immediate buy for me. Once the price goes down a tad bit more, the DVD maybe, since what I really wanted was just the extras and having it for completion’s sake.FINAL THOUGHTSEither way, I appreciate the care Discotek put into this release, in spite of the whole licensing dilemma. Especially for those who held out last year; it’s not the English dub with Ohno’s music like everyone wanted, but this was still worth the wait. Remember, it’s NOT Discotek’s fault that we have two releases, thus the confusion. TMS was too stubborn to let America dub with the Japanese masters with Ohno’s music to begin with, so we got the Italian one instead (for better or worse). I’m not sure what TMS’s problem is: they let us have both albums of Part 5’s soundtrack and Goodbye Partner’s on iTunes and yet they purge YouTube erasing any trace of Part 4’s Japanese soundtrack’s existence. Maybe in the future, Discotek will bundle the two sets with a reduced price. Even though this heavily recycled soundtrack made me cringe, this gets five stars simply because Part 4 is the BEST Lupin series IMO and doesn’t overshadow the content of the episodes. Again, this series is a great entry point for new fans.ENGLISH LANGUAGE SETJust a few things to know before buying:THE SOUNDTRACKDue to a licensing problem with TMS, this set only has the Italian soundtrack and openings. It’s not the Japanese score made by Yuji Ohno. However, the Italian music is NOT as bad as everyone is making it out to be. It’s different than what hard-core fans are used to, but it does give the franchise a fresh new sound. If you have never seen Part IV or if it’s your first outing with Lupin and his gang, you (might) not know any different and/or care about the music. Likewise, if you have seen Part IV subtitled or you’re a fan of Ohno’s music and you’re not sure if you want to buy this or not, the Italian album is called “Lupin III (L'avventura italiana)- Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.” The artist is the group Papik. Listen to it and decide whether or not if you’re okay with it.THE ENGLISH DUBThe voice acting is fantastic as always. It may be a bit redundant to talk about the dubbing cast used for this set, but depending on where you’re at in the Lupin franchise, it may not be as obvious to some. The cast used here is the Pioneer one; the same folks who brought you the English version of the Red-Jacket series (there’s a new voice actor for Zenigata, but he does a great job filling the role). That means if you’re coming in from The Woman Called Fujiko Mine (or any other Lupin release done by Funimation) or from the Castle of Cagliostro dubs, this is not the same cast.NO JAPANESE LANGUAGE AUDIO TRACKBecause of the soundtrack licensing issue, there is only an English dub included on this set. That’s a shame, because it removes any Japanese influence from the show, making it seem like a 100% authentic Italian cartoon instead of an anime. On the other hand, it really attests to how excited Italy was in co-producing a Lupin series. Lupin is huge over there and TMS let them premiere this series in Italy months before it appeared in Japan. It genuinely shows on this set, with the Italian openings and soundtrack, and with the Italian flag and colors pretty much everywhere, that they put their heart and soul into Part IV. Because of that, it’s up to you to decide whether the lack of “anime” feel bothers you or not.SPECIAL FEATURESMy only real complaint about this release is how rushed it feels. It’s not surprising considering how many people (myself included) demanded this Blu-ray to come out as soon as the show’s run on Adult Swim was over. Unfortunately, it hardly has any extras. They give you an interview with the ADR directors, which is nice. Other than that, it has the TV edits of the openings and closings and varying versions of the “Roll Call.” The “Roll Call” is something you’ll probably see on this set only. It basically lets the main cast of characters introduce themselves (kind of like what they did back in Part I). Listen, I’m not saying that the introductions are bad or anything, it’s just that after watching 26 episodes in which the EXACT SAME sequence plays after the opening theme every single time, I feel like it didn’t need to show up again in the special features section of the disk.The TV edits are awesome, but I wish there was a option to have the disks use those instead of the full versions that play by default before every episode. Honestly, the full version gets really cheesy about halfway through. It’s embarrassing to watch!Another thing I wanted to address here is that Discotek is planning a Japanese language-only release later this year. That set will have Yuji Ohno’s music on it as well as the Japanese opening and closing themes. I’m also 100% sure that the special features will be beefed up for that release (probably liner notes and everything), because they have a lot more time to get everything planned out and they’re gonna make it up to those who skipped out on this release due to the soundtrack issue. So if you want more Part IV extras or just want to watch it how you did originally, consider getting that upcoming Blu-ray.FOR THE TOONAMI VIEWERSYou can basically disregard everything I said above. If you loved the way you saw Part IV on Adult Swim, buy this set! It has nothing more, nothing less.OVERALLI give this release five stars, because the episodes content-wise are amazing. What’s really going to determine your happiness with it depends on how you feel about the changes. I would definitely recommend to newer fans of the Lupin the 3rd franchise.

Been a Lupin fan since my early teens and this series doesn't dissapoint! Unofrtunately copyright issues with the soundtrack mean this is English dub only, no Japanese. The bigger problem other than preference is that Yuji Ohno's soundtrack (which has some great updates of his older Lupin tracks) is replaced by the Italian release's soundtrack by Papik.Still all the English performers do a perfect job! Everybodys on their A game (Tony Oliver is the perfect voice for Lupin) and the episodes are all superbly entertaining! Animation is beautiful as well! Highly recommended to fans and non fans!

Why did they make Da Vinci so devastatingly sexy

Lupin the 3rd as a whole . Is a masterpiece, this season of it was superbly animated and should blow you away with how well they did for each episode . It is consistently amazing , very episodic whole still following a story and timeline. You may think this is a romance heavy season and you'll be surprised within the first episode or 2

An Underrated Gem. In My Opinion, The Best Non-Fantasy Anime I've Seen...

Good tv serie and good quality

THE GOODVideo xfer is fantastic. It looks great in 1080p and even better upscaled to 4k. The 5.1 audio track is on par with the video. The English dub uses the Adult Swim cast, which as far as dubs go, are very good at what they do. Discotek packaging is A+ as usual.THE BADHere we go...there is no Japanese audio track on this disc! This is one of my main gripes with this release. I'm surprised, as Discotek usually puts A++ effort into thier DVD and Blu-ray releases. The Castle of Cogliostro they put out had ALL dubs included from over the years. Also the Japanese opening is not here. A Lupin the 3rd release with no Lupin theme just dosent feel right...The music is terrible. It's not the same as the Japanese dub. I assume it's either the music from the Italian dub or rescore for the US dub, not sure on that tho.This release is extremely light on special features.If you have a region free Blu-ray player, I would suggest the Region B release (which I purchased from Amazon UK). It has the Japanese opening, the Japanese dub and score (only 2.0 audio but whatevs) an artbook, and a whole extra disc of bonus content for $10 more than the US release. Hopefully Discotek corrects this an releases a more complete set in the future.

This set contains the complete Adult Swim dub. No Japanese audio track. Some confusion from another reviewer as to why "The Italian Game" is not included on this set... Italian Game is the most recent of many, many Lupin TV specials, and not a very good one at that due to the recycled footage (another reviewer estimates 75%, I'm going to go with 90%). This may be coming at a later date. I can understand the upset about no dual language tracks (apparently Discotek is doing a separate set for the Japanese dub) - but this series is such a licensing mess out of the gate, we're lucky that an English dub happened at all. I'm just thankful that they used the 2nd TV voice cast. The only confusion I have about the set is that apparently this won't have the same music that aired on Adult Swim, it will instead have all of the Italian themes and cues. I don't mind this enough to lower my rating, but I will miss the Japanese score. Great show, wish they'd hurry up and make a new series.

A great return to form for the first proper Lupin series in a few decades. It does a decent job of mixing episodic heists with elements of a serialized story arc that leads to the season finale. I highly recommend picking up a copy for yourself.

bellissimo

Lupin the best

内容別はいつものルパン三世で映像も綺麗で最高ですが、トラップあり、日本語版だはないです。

The bluray set (3 discs) is perfect and very well working.Very good HD images and Audio 2CH in English.The only thing that does not work for me, here in Italy, is the Subtitles display in English but I don't care about this.Maybe this can be a problem for who needs to read.Anyway, I cannot tell if the problem is caused by my Bluray Reader (Samsung) or because of a different standard between the UK version and the Italian Bluray Discs.I enjoy the product and can tell it's really well done.So sad that this beautiful "Italian Adventure" has not been released, by now, in Italian Language, but this English set is perfect.