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Lupin III is an eponymous manga by Kazuhiko Kato, a.k.a. Monkey Punch, which was published in Weekly Manga Action, a seinen manga magazine, beginning in 1967. It follows the exploits of the not-so-gentlemanly thief Lupin III, alleged grandson of Arsène Lupin (famous gentleman thief character of French author Maurice Leblanc), friends, and enemies.

This manga, followed by New Adventures and Shin Lupin III, spurred the creation of a whole lot of anime, more comics, and a couple live action things, too. The anime, as a whole, is not all that similar to the manga, and there are few actual adaptations of manga storylines. The anime has no canon or consistent plot, so the main characters' backstories, personalities, etc. are variable, and there's no story to catch up on.

Our players (Hot tip: Never trust character bios on the main five Lupin characters. They're never accurate because it's impossible to simplify all the iterations of a character into one bio. Fandom wiki lies. Wikipedia lies. Do not trust anything or anyone):

I became aware of the movie Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, one of the more famous entries in the franchise, through a biography on Hayao Miyazaki that my dad gave me. I was about 12, which evidently was the perfect age to cement this franchise in my brain for eternity. The disease lay dormant (watching Cagliostro like seven times, watching The First and Part II dub compilations) until about midway through my junior year of high school, age 16, when the obsession overtook me and I was gone forever. I've seen or read pretty much everything I have access to as an English/Spanish-speaking USAmerican.

Lupin III means a lot to me! It's my go-to thought-occupier whenever I feel particularly bad, and I love drawing the characters. They are truly all I draw. Additionally, my queer headcanons about the characters have helped me understand my own identity immensely. Cagliostro was, weirdly, a major source of comfort after realizing I'm aromantic at the tender, stupid age of 12. This franchise has unusually positive depictions of open and generally nontraditional relationships, and the fandom is so so polyamorous. I love it here

My most favorite of my favorites:

The manga!
I need to reread it. A lot of (mostly Western?) fans really don't like the manga, and it seems to me that those opinions are mostly based in misinformation about Monkey Punch, the shitty Tokyopop English translation (I do admit, I read what I could in Spanish), and expecting it to be more like the anime. I wouldn't recommend it to a brand-new Lupin fan, but it's still totally worth reading!