Redline

Over a Christmas break in 2013, I binged Attack on Titan and became an anime fan. This often surprises the friends that I’ve made since then because, what with how I talk about this industry and my favorite shows therein, one would think I’ve been this way since I was a kid. My high school pals have been watching Dragonball and Naruto since they were kids, but they would likely call me out as the biggest weeb in the group.

A few years ago, I decided that when 2024 struck, I’d have a list of the top ten anime I have watched in those ten years. And then, New Year’s came and went and I realized I’d completely forgotten to write this. Thankfully, I already had the skeleton of a list ready to go and only had to make a few adjustments. I know I haven’t kept up with this blog as much as I would have liked, but I wasn’t about to miss this occasion.

So without further ado, whether you’re a friend or mutual anime blogger with whom I have been blessed to share this platform, here are the best anime I have ever seen.

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Ever since 1967, Lupin the Third has been a staple of Japan’s animation culture and one of the most storied and recognizable icons in the international market’s perception of anime. Despite having persisted in so many different iterations by so many different teams, it was only in preparation for this very review that I watched a Lupin anime all the way through for the first.

Why? I’m not sure. It’s a certified classic, and it isn’t as though I couldn’t have gotten into Part IV or V, both of which aired within the last few years. Not to mention Sayo Yamamoto’s critically acclaimed series, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. Yet it was a story set in the same continuity as that last series that truly caught my eye.

Takeshi Koike is insane. I say that lovingly as a man who loves his 2009 film Redline, which was famously in production for seven years. Koike is a frenetic and wildly imaginative director and when he has the freedom to direct and do character designs, his style treads this line of adult maturity and wild cartoonish exaggeration so well it becomes a dimension all its own. So when I asked myself “where the hell has he been lately?” I was pleased to find the answer in the form of Lupin.

From Telecom Animation Film and TMS Entertainment, this is Takeshi Koike’s Lupin the Third, a bold vision of a beloved classic that just so happens to be my first true entry into this series.

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