Castle Of Cagliostro Manga 109 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 04/25/2000

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Windows XP hates me. It hates me more than anything else in the world, and for some reason my friend gave me a copy that didn't have a serial key. So I was trying to ride out the 30 day activation period until he could get it to me, but once it started saying stuff like "Your grace period has expired" I was out of there faster than after spending a night with Andrew's mother. Allow me to inform you that this was an absolutely legit copy of XP too. No pirated software for me! My buddy stole it from the tech support at our school, which I figure is much better because my school directly hurts me by charging about $16,000 dollars more a year for tuition than it should. Luckily I've got my cushy scholarship to keep me safe. But I wouldn't need anything like that had I the finesse of Lupin and his older confident Jigen. This Miyazaki directed feature film starts off with a bang as the duo burst out of a casino that I'd imagine is located in that weird pseudo-country where the guy married a chick from America. You know, I think they have a lot of riverboat gambling there... it's kind of like the old South. I think it's called Guam, but you might have to check me on that.

You'll have to come to grips with the fact that they did a deed that was basically impossible. If you think any amount of men are getting out of a casino with any amount of money you are mistaken as hell. I don't know what kind of casino security Guam has, but if this was Vegas those guys would be dead before they hit the reception desk. And as it turns out that the cash they heisted is completely bogus, though very well made bogus bills. Then comes the legend of Cagliostro, the smallest country in the UN and also the source of all of this fake money, called "Goat bills". Cagliostro is no stranger to the mysterious master thief Lupin III either, and wastes no time dispatching their robot ninjas to go kick his polyester suited ass right back to France. Yes, we were all a bit disappointed when it was revealed that the ninjas weren't really robots at all, but I guess you just have to roll with the punches when it comes to things like this. I take solace by telling myself that they'll always be robot ninjas in my heart... the ultimate combination of deadly precision and man hating machinery.

But there's something more than the big score they're going after, there's a cute little redheaded princess that Lupin seems to have his eye on. And let me tell you, I would too, if it wasn't for the fact that she's stupider than a box of bricks. Still, she looks pretty good all dollied up and drugged out of her mind for the Satanic wedding ceremony. Suddenly the movie stops being about stealing large sums of cash and more about stealing the firecrotched princess's virginity... or something along those lines. But that will hold no complaint to me, as long as there's hilarious antics and awesome character designs to keep this thing going they could do just about anything they wanted and I'd sit all the way to the end of the 109 minute runtime. They don't go bad on their promise either. Lupin's arch-nemesis UN inspector Zenigata is introduced shortly into the film and soon joins forces with his most hated adversary to bring down the most dangerous counterfeiting organization in the known world. Though, as Andrew brings up, should we really care if someone's making fake Rubles? I mean, the things are worth less than the paper they're printed on. Ah ha! Take that former Soviet Union!

And how can you argue with a movie that was called "one of the greatest adventure movies" of all time by Steven Speilburg. Well, judging by his more recent films you could probably not attribute a lot of credence to that statement... forget I said that. Just because Speilburg likes it doesn't mean you can't, it was probably just an accident that he decided to give it the thumbs up. Though, maybe it got such rave reviews because it was just that good. Castle of Cagliostro has a solid mix of comedy, action and intrigue. It's a film perfectly suitable for children, but requires an adult mind to really understand. It's things like this that remind me why I like anime, which isn't to say that I want to go tell everyone I know that I do, but it kind of gives you a warm feeling inside. It's impressive when a romantic subplot does more than just piss me off.