Lupin III: Voyage to Danger (special)

The last anime project directed by Masaaki Osumi.

Nachi Nozawa's first role in a Lupin III anime in 24 years. He previously voiced Lupin in the pilot film from 1969.

The first Lupin TV special to not have Yousuke Akimoto as the voice of any of the characters.

The concept of Lupin hijacking a submarine was based on the plot of the series finale of Lupin III Part 3.

Fujiko’s TV crew permission papers say in Russian: “Back in Moscow - Peterhof, Pushkin”. Peterhof and Pushkin are two St. Petersburg palaces that are both great tourist spots.

Masaaki Osumi previously directed the Lupin pilot film and the first quarter of the first Lupin TV anime before being let go due to poor ratings of the show. Decades later as a means of apology, the producers of TMS offered Osumi a chance to direct this TV special in which he agreed. Reportedly, Osumi has since felt as though the hole in his life has finally been filled.

Before Hisashi Eguchi was assigned as the character designer, Yasuo Ohtsuka drew some character designs that were unused for this TV special.

At the beginning of the TV special, you can clearly read "polizia" on the cop cars, the Italian word for police. Indicating that Lupin & Jigen are in Italy.

Goof: The Italian cops were wearing carabinieri uniforms while driving “Polizia” patrol cars. In reality carabinieri cops drive their own separate cars with carabinieri label on them.

The first Lupin TV special to have a post credits scene.

This TV special was something of a gamble. The ratings for the Lupin TV specials were steadily declining so the producers decided to shift the tone from the light hearted romps of the previous films to something akin to the violent action films of the early 90's. The gamble paid off and the success of this TV special led to several subsequent Lupin TV specials.

Lupin III was originally intended to wear a yellow jacket instead of his red jacket, but this idea was scrapped.

The Ivanov’s name may of been borrowed from the well known 1887 play “Ivanov” by Anton Chekov. While there was a Russian WW2 airplane named “The Sukhoi Su-2” that had Ivanov as its code name. There is however never been an actual submarine bearing the name Ivanov throughout Russia’s naval history.