Lupin IIIPart III is the third incarnation of TMS Entertainment's long-running animetelevision adaptation of the Lupin IIImanga series written by Monkey Punch. The series aired on Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation between March 3, 1984 and November 6, 1985. Among English-speaking fans, this series is commonly known as the "Pink Jacket" series in reference to Lupin's outfit, which replaces Part I's green jacket and Part II's red jacket with a bright pink one. The feature filmLegend of the Gold of Babylon, was released in theaters during the original broadcast run of this television series. At the request of YTV, Yūzō Aoki, who had experience with the previous Lupin III series as a key animator and storyboard artist, designed the characters and served as an animation supervisor. As this series continued its broadcast, differences in character design gradually emerged due to discrepancies in subcontracted studios, animation directors, and key animators, but there was no particularly thorough revision of the drawings, partly due to the fact that TV anime at that time did not require the character designs to stay on model as much as today. Towards the end of the series, the basic designs drastically changed to have a strong pop and gag touch. On the writing side of things, a number of screenwriters from the action and detective drama scene, including Hiroshi Kashiwabara, Hikaru Arai, Junichi Miyashita, and Toshimichi Ōkawa, participated in this series. Many of these writers have also worked on subsequent television specials. Music for the series including the opening and ending themes was written by Yuji Ohno. The opening themeSexy Adventure was performed by Yūsuke Nakamura and the ending theme Fairy Night was performed by Sonia Rosa. A DVD box set of the series was released in Japan on May 26, 2002, followed by a Blu-ray box set in 2017. In 2009, the Southern California-based United Television Broadcasting network began airing subtitled episodes from all three Lupin III series on their UTBHollywood channel.
