Lupin The Third

How often does a poseable action figure make you laugh out loud? There is an innate zaniness that must be included in toys or model kits that represent Monkey Punch’s iconic character Lupin the III. First introduced in 1967, Lupin the III has since become one of the most famous manga and anime characters to expand outside Japan.

My first introduction to the character was in 1983 when I played the laserdisc cartoon arcade video game located at the Montclair Plaza called Cliffhanger made up of a compilation of the first two Lupin the III feature length films. Accordingly, along with Warriors Of The Wind it became my first exposure of Hayao Miyazaki, as he directed the film the Castle of Cagliostro that was partly used in Cliffhanger.

How could a teenager not love Lupin the III? It seems it had everything a kid could ever want: Firearms, vintage cars, disregard for the law, zany mis-adventures, foreign locations, samurais, Ninjas and of course the miniskirt wearing and busty figured Fujiko to look at! Insert wolf howl here!

I have had my fair share of Lupin the III model kits and toys over the years but I was intrigued when Kaiyodo released their take on Lupin the III and when the Lupin and Jigen samples were sent for review I was more than happy to receive them for review.

I like Revoltech, as the line seems to be a Japanese toy maker’s first big successful attempt to put out a line of modern, screen accurate poseable character action figures. Yes there have been other figures in the 1980’s but they were neither screen accurate such as Saint Seiya or Super Sentai or they never produced in huge quantities such as Sega’s Zillion line or short lived like Spiral Zone. Overall Revoltech figures look great and these qualities crossover into the Lupin the III figures.

Like all Revoltech figures, Lupin comes with a load of accessories such as three extra facial expressions, six pairs of extra hands, a chair, table and glass and five plastic bullet ricochet parts. The six pairs of hands include one hooks and rope, holding a pick for the safe, a handgun, one holding a large ruby and one made to hold the glass. A clear foot stand and figure stand that snaps into the figures back is also included.

One of the more interesting items included is the extra parts holder made up to be a safe. I like how they integrated the holder into the set itself, which makes it a nice addition to the set.

Now this is where the fun comes in. While most of the vintage toys and model kits I usually review here have little or no articulation, I was more than blown away at the articulation involved with the figure. And not just any kind of articulation but articulation that adds to the character flair of the figure. My co-worker even suggested that these figures are such high quality and capture the characters so well that they could be used for a stop motion animation film.

All the different types of face, hand and body configurations are just pure fun, and really bring this figure to life. My favorite is the nutty Lupin look with the huge ruby.

The scenario of sorts that is included is the safe, chair and table. Lupin can be made to be picking out the lock, while the safe can be set aside and Lupin can be make to enjoying a drink at the café along with the Jigen Revoltech figure whose set also comes with a chair.

And finally the scene that made me laugh out loud is the Jigen and Lupin running from ricochet bullets! Very funny if you ask me!

Any madcap Lupin adventure can be made with this Revoltech Lupin set and is a highly enjoyable set to own. I hope Goemon and Fujiko are released, as it would be great to have a complete set but as is, it is already a fantastic set to own.

©2012 review and pictures by Leonardo Flores