Lupin the 3rd vs. Cat’s Eye (2023)

I love Lupin 3rd, and I LOVE Cat’s Eye even more. I grew up with both shows in the 80s, and I worshipped Cat’s Eye, read all the manga, watched all the anime. So when I saw this title on Amazon Prime, I was excited to watch it. But what a disappointment it was. The anime style and character design is so bad and amateur that not only it was distracting, I actually started getting a headache from watching the whole 93 minutes of the movie. The story premise had potential, but it became more stupid as the minutes went by. I could see the plot twist pretty much the minute the character involved in the twist showed up at the beginning of the movie. Whoever wrote the story completely butchered the beloved characters – Lupin was never charming or likable, even after they tried giving him a heart of gold. He just seemed like a total a-hole. The Kisugi sisters (the Cat’s Eye trio) were so naive and dumb, not at all cunning and smart like they were in the manga or anime. Even their action scenes came off as cheap acrobat tricks, no elegance or grace. The villains were completely laughable, and all the supporting characters are boring and forgettable, even Fujiko was lame. It’s almost like the writer(s) has never studied the original works that this movie was based on. What a shame that a new generation of viewers were introduced to these amazing characters in such an awful way. I highly recommend skipping this lame-fest and watch the original animes from the 80s/90s instead.