It's Not An Olympic Sport If...

To the Olympic Committee:

Here are some guidelines that I think you should enforce.

It's not an Olympic sport if ...

... you need to wear sequins to win

... you need a theme and a costume

... you need a broom.

Lupin the Third

So I'm watching the local free Japanese channel and I see this




and I think, "What the hell?" Everything about it caught my attention — the style of the animation, the clipped storytelling, the strange 70s feel of it all. Well, it turned out to be a cartoon called Lupin the Third and its provenance was truly strange. The cartoon series is based on a Japanese manga series written by Kazuhiko Kato whose pen name is Monkey Punch. The lead character, a thief, is Arsene Lupin III and he just happens to be the grandson of Arsene Lupin, who just happens to be a gentleman thief in a series of novels by the French author Maurice Leblanc. Because of the complicated intellectual property issues, for years, the cartoon couldn't be released outside the US under the Lupin name. OK. Is anyone still with me?

The plots are surreal and ridiculous. But the cartoon itself is an interesting drug trip. Below is a link to a full episode. Called "Farewell My Beloved Witch", it is truly, truly bizarre.

WATCH "FAREWELL MY BELOVED WITCH"