A few questions...

1. I just picked up the Funimation DVD of LUPIN THE 3RD: FAREWELL, NOSTRADAMUS. Is this the same film as RUPAN SANSEI: KUTABARE! NOSTRADAMUS (aka LUPIN III: DIE, NOSTRADAMUS) (1995)? The IMDb claims the latter title was helmed by Shunya Ito of the FEMALE PRISONER #701 series. But he's not listed on the English credits for the Funimation disc (which credits two other directors, neither of whom I've heard of). Did Ito use a pseudonym, or is this another case of erroneous info on the IMDb?

2. Did Funimation or Animeigo ever issue the third theatrical film (LUPIN III: THE LEGEND OF THE GOLD OF BABYLON - 1985) on DVD? I've been looking for it with no luck. Is it under another title?

3. Seijun Suzuki was one of the directors responsible for the BABYLON film. I've also read that he directed a few installments of the TV show, but the IMDb lists only "unknown episodes" in his filmography. Does anyone know the titles of the episodes he directed?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! :)

According to this very old bit of news from Anime News Network, Disotek Media has the license to LUPIN III: THE LEGEND OF THE GOLD OF BABYLON, unless something has changed between now and then. They are releasing LUPIN III: THE FUMA CONSPIRACY at the end of this month. ANN doesn't list any releases for LUPIN III: THE LEGEND OF THE GOLD OF BABYLON at all. May just have to wait on Discotek.

LUPIN III: THE FUMA CONSPIRACY

New Anime Distributor


ANN - LUPIN III: THE LEGEND OF THE GOLD OF BABYLON

Here's the page for LUPIN THE 3RD: FAREWELL, NOSTRADAMUS

You can try poking around the anidb (Anime database) too: AniDB
(Can't get to it right now, page won't load, but maybe later)

As a LUPIN III fan, I went to see BABYLON in first release when I lived in Tokyo and was disappointed. For years, people outside of Japan had no idea that it was directed by Seijun Suzuki, because his kanji name was usually mistranslated, and the same is true of Shunya Ito, who did indeed direct NOSTRADAMUS. Now, these two men did not direct these films in the traditional sense, nor direct the animation (each film has its own Animation Director); rather they directed the voice actors and supervised the overall direction of the film.

BABYLON was indeed issued by AnimEigo on VHS and Laserdisc in 1998 under the title RUPAN III THE LEGEND OF THE GOLD OF BABYLON. They had to issue the film under the romanization, RUPAN, because there were some rights issues in using "Lupin" going on between Tokyo Movie Shinsha and the estate of Maurice LeBlanc.

Yes, I've got the LD, and it's definitely not something to go out of your way to find.