Before Studio Ghibli, before Nausicaä, before Oscar honors and western fame and general anime elder statesman-dom, Hayao Miyazaki worked on the very first Lupin III series at A Pro, along with his longtime Ghibli partner Isao Takahata. Though he'd shift from this work to the renowned Heidi, Girl of the Alps and then Future Boy Conan, he'd return to Lupin at the end of the '70s, directing The Castle of Cagliostro before moving on to Nausicaä and the rest of the Miyazaki canon. Castle of Cagliostro thus represents a bit of a turning point for Miyazaki, a swan song for his television career (even featuring his mentor Yasuo Ohtsuka as animation director, a man Studio Ghibli would later highlight in documentary form) and the grand opening of his film career in one.

But as interesting as Castle of Cagliostro is as a historical document, that's maybe not the best way to look at the film. Because even after all these years, the gags pop, the chases hum, and the characters leap off the screen. The Castle of Cagliostro is just a damn good adventure.

Cagliostro stars master thief Lupin and his regular companions Jigen, Goemon, Fujiko Mine, and the constantly put-upon policeman Zenigata in an adventure that plays out somewhere between a spy thriller and a fairy tale, as they all orbit the mysteries surrounding the sinister Count Cagliostro and his bride-to-be, Clarisse. You don't really have to know much about the Lupin mythos to appreciate this film; outside of vague cultural radiation from too many years talking about anime, this was essentially my formal introduction to the character, and it was still easy to pick up the various relationships and rivalries that define the core cast. Lupin's the suave thief and consummate lady-killer, Jigen's his gruff sharpshooter, Fujiko's the femme fatale with her own fish to fry, Zenigata's gonna put that thief behind bars whatever it takes, etcetera. The film establishes these dynamics in the same way it does everything - with speed, personality, and boundless energy.

Cagliostro opens with Lupin and Jigen fleeing a casino heist, and rarely slows down from then out. After a beautiful road trip title sequence that foretells the many lovely backgrounds to come, the film swiftly jumps into an extended car chase, with Lupin and Jigen attempting to rescue a fleeing bride as she's pursued by some loud and angry men. This chase is dynamic in direction and animation, featuring all the engaging tricks of execution that will crop up again and again throughout the film.

The character animation is the first thing you'll notice, as each character moves with a very specific posture and sense of energy. In the film's bonus materials, Ohtsuka talks about how he disliked the stiffness of stature in his previous work, and wanted to make sure the characters here expressed themselves in motion; that directive is clear from the first scenes forward. The film's animation can seem a little stretched at times, but the underlying animation style is dynamic and full of life. After that, you'll likely notice the movement of the cars, which convey speed and power while hovering on the brink of dissolution, possessing an almost anthropomorphic energy as they buckle and roar. That sense of cartoon-heightened anthropomorphism is a constant in the film; characters work according to a lively mix of real-world and Looney Tunes logic, dodging bullets and tumbling down buildings but also occasionally attempting to swim up waterfalls.

From there, you might take a moment to appreciate the film's eternally inventive direction, and the little details that elevate all great adventures. After chasing the two cars on a cliffside road, Lupin veers off to head them off through a forest, leading to a vivid scene of the car tumbling through branches and briefly being visited by a very confused bird. This leads to the ultimate clash of cars, where they essentially break into pieces as they're driving. This early in his career, Miyazaki seems to have not yet honed the ambiguous relationship with technology (or male-centric violence, for that matter) that defines so much of his later films - Cagliostro is full of cars and guns and gadgets that play as unquestioned, earnest fun.

Miyazaki is still recognizable though, both in the energetic direction and the film's love of the world as it is discovered. Between all the daring chases and high-stakes rescues, Cagliostro consistently takes a moment to reflect on its own beautiful world. A crumbling castle early in the film stands covered in creeping vines, and when Lupin wanders around back, he finds a lake with stepping stones that lead out to a beautiful stone pagoda on the water. Sunlit meadows wave gently in the breeze, and gardens bloom with flowers. And the titular castle looms over all, rising in contradictory peaks and spires to stand as a permanent challenge to Lupin's tenacity.

That castle gets title billing for a good reason - the plot's castle-storming conceit make it Lupin's most consistent adversary, a foe he must scale or sneak under or bluff his way through to make his way to the almost literal princess-in-a-tower Clarisse. There's a forbidding dungeon, accessible by any number of improbable trap doors. There's a fountain that leads to the aqueduct, perhaps a good choice of entry - if you can get past the garden's waiting lasers. Walls rise and taper, offering plenty of opportunity for both legitimately thrilling fights and physical sequences that seem like animation-heightened versions of Jackie Chan stunts. The castle is a central character in the film, and Miyazaki seems to have taken its opportunities as an obligation to make the definitive adventure-heist-fairy tale.

The film is great, is what I'm saying. It's breezy and fun throughout, rarely taking itself too seriously and always jumping to a new thing before the old thing gets old. Many of its scenes ring as instantly iconic, and though the plot can get a bit schmalzy and stereotypical and the characters are pretty thin (this is the kind of film where an evil count has a sinister butler who employs guards known as “The Shadows”), those variables mainly exist to justify more daring setpieces. It isn't infused with strident meaning in the way Miyazaki's later work tends to be, but it doesn't really have to be. It bounces buoyantly along, propelled by fun narrative ideas and a rich musical score brimming with jazz, big band theatrics, and many songs that directly mirror the action and gags on-screen.

Castle of Cagliostro comes in a colorful slipcase on a disc packed with extras. There's an introduction to the film with David Hayter, voice of Lupin in the second of the collection's two English voice tracks (a Streamline Pictures dub from 1992, where Lupin is referred to as “The Wolf” due to IP concerns regarding the original original Lupin, and a second by Manga Entertainment from 2000). There are storyboards from the film, along with a plethora of openings (creditless, International, US) and credits. There are Japanese trailers, interviews with each of the English Lupin's voice actors, and further interviews with Yasuo Ohtsuka, key animator Kazuhide Tomonaga, and Monkey Punch. There's model sheets and translation notes and even a brief history of the film, along a commentary track by Lupin superfan Reed Nelson. Special editions don't get much more definitive than this - it doesn't come with a complementary hug from Miyazaki, but basically anything else you could imagine is included.

Overall, Castle of Cagliostro is essentially a must-buy for fans of Lupin, Miyazaki, or just great anime adventures. The film is a classic, it holds up remarkably well, and this feature-packed, high-quality release is as strong a collection as you could imagine. The widescreen bluray transfer looks crisp throughout, doing great justice to a film whose visuals represent one of anime's most iconic visions. As a document of Miyazaki's long career or just as an inherently rewarding film, Cagliostro does not disappoint.