Happy Saturday and at least here in Toronto, the weather is perfect for Halloween...all rainy and dreary, but at least tomorrow on the 31st, it should be clear for the trick or treaters. I checked out the live camera for Shibuya on YouTube and it appears that the crowds did return with many in cosplay mode but my impression is that the Halloween vibe is still not quite as high as it was before the pandemic.
I haven't been a keen purveyor of the "Lupin III" franchise but I do know about the romance between Lupin and femme fatale Fujiko（不二子）. Although I've heard that the pair eventually had their kids, I've always thought that there was a Charlie Brown and Lucy Van Pelt and the football relationship underlaying that relationship albeit there was a whole lot less malice between Lupin and Fujiko. The former would always go to "kick the football" so to speak only for the latter to pull it back at the last moment through some teasing flirtatious moment to end things until the next time.
Earlier this year, I wrote up on "Love Squall"（ラヴ・スコール）which was one ending theme for the second anime run for "Lupin III" which had an epic three years of comedy, intrigue and adventure between October 1977 and October 1980. Today, I give you the first ending theme, "Lupin the 3rd Ai no Theme" (The Love Theme for Lupin the 3rd).
Initially an instrumental created by Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）through his You & Explosion Band（ユー&エクスプロージョン・バンド）, the smooth-as-Bailey's Irish Cream featured that disco/soft rock flute and the main instruments of harmonica and bluesy guitar, a combination that pretty much screams 1970s detective voiceover with the private eye nursing a tumbler (and maybe a black eye) at his favourite watering hole. I haven't forgotten the silky strings, though, which always lent a touch of class. Not sure whether variations of this instrumental were used during any interactions between Lupin and the love of his life.
About six months into the run of that second season so early 1978, the ending theme was switched into a vocalized version of "Ai no Theme" with seiyuu/singer Ichiro Mizuki（水木一郎）handling the tenderhearted delivery thanks to Kazuya Senke's（千家和也）lyrics. I noticed that the arrangement changed a bit with the harmonica taken out and the bluesy guitar put back a bit more into the background.
I'm sure that with the jazziness and class of Lupin's love theme, it's been covered many times in the years following. In fact, I did find one cover by bohemian band Ego-Wrappin and the Gossip of Jaxx via a March 2010 tribute compilation to "Lupin III" titled "Club Jazz Digs Lupin The Third", and yep, listening to the band and the steamy vocals of Yoshie Nakano（中納良恵）, I thought that the perfect setting would be a smoke-filled underground jazz club in the heart of Shinjuku...namely Shinjuku DUG. There's something more introspective and distant in this arrangement, though.
Kinda wonder if a couple of folks did dress up like Lupin and Fujiko in Tokyo tonight.
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