Cool!

La Belle Sauvage is a prequel to the His Dark Materials trilogy that I just found out about a few days ago.

I last read HDM about a decade ago, so I went into the book remembering the broad outlines of the plot of that trilogy (and occasionally grabbing some context on the wiki later).

The book, which is about some adventures Lyra went through as a baby, does a good job of standing alone when you don't remember too much about the book series she's the protagonist of (other than that daemons are a thing).

Overall, my impressions are that this book would make a good action-y movie - the plot, though it starts off a bit slow, ramps up quickly and leaves you not wanting to put the book down. If you've read HDM, I'd recommend reading this. If you haven't ... I might still recommend it.

(My main complaint is that the ending leaves Ending spoilers .)

Ooooh, man. Okay, I'm six episodes into this thing, and I just... have a compulsive need to talk about it. So seeing as we have a review thread going... well, here ya go.

Lupin the 3rd is a looong running anime series. It started in the 70s, has reappeared and gone off the air a ton ever since, and has kickstarted more than a few careers in the process. In particular, the original "green jacket" run and the film that followed it brought a young upstart by the name of Hayao Miyazaki to prominence. You may have heard of him.

The show follows the titular thief, descendant of the legendary Arsène Lupin, another fictional gentleman thief. It follows him and his companions (crack shot and right-hand-man Jigen, anachronistic samurai Goemon, and femme fatale/on-again-off-again love interest Fujiko) on their quest to steal rare and valuable objects for no real other reason than because it's fun, all while being pursued by Inspector Zenigata, the obsessive Interpol agent who's on their case.

To translate, it's basically a madcap mix of James Bond, Tom and Jerry, Ocean's Eleven, and Mission Impossible. And if that didn't sell you on the series I don't know what will. I grew up watching it as a kid though, so that may just be the nostalgia talking.

Anyways, enough background. I just watched six episodes of the Lupin III Part 5. What did I think?

It's... just... fantastic. This might be the most fun I've had watching anything all year. Although I don't watch that much TV so maybe that's not saying much. But it's still really good. It's updated and modernized the series (in that it's actually set in the modern day) while still capturing what makes the characters likeable. Lupin is morally questionable and sometimes sleazy (the opening literally depicts him travelling into space to spy on Fujiko sunbathing), but he has his own weird set of moral lines, and he's so charming that it's hard not to like him, at least a little. Goemon's uptight and formal, Jigen is the sarcastic one who's the first to complain, and Fujiko is always juuuust this side of selling Lupin out for kicks. And Zenigata is just as charmingly absurd as everyone else, albeit on the other side of the law. The characters work just as well as they did in the 70s.

But this time, they've added technology and hacking and stuff that was distinctly not around in the 70s. And that modern technology is... the basis for some really good plot threads. When Lupin robs a gang of hackers, they turn hunting him down and taking pictures of him into a viral competition. Suddenly, Lupin can't go anywhere without his location instantly posted to the entire world. So how does Lupin respond? By aggressively oversharing everything he does to make the game boring, all while traveling outside Interpol jurisdiction so the police can't do anything about it. And that's just the start. It just keeps getting better from there until it all reaches a climax that you probably saw coming a mile away but you don't care because it's just so awesome to watch.

Every episode left me with a smile on my face, and that's really the highest praise I can give.

Oh, and if you're worried about having to binge 300 episodes to get into this show... don't worry. Every Lupin series is totally standalone and largely monster-of-the-week. You can just tune in and watch this new series without having seen anything else.