Is Lupin III technically a fanwork considering it's a sequel series to the early 20th century French novels?
Is Lupin III technically a fanwork considering it’s a sequel series to the early 20th century French novels?
It’s a bit complicated. During the 60s, at the time of creation, the Arsène Lupin property hadn’t fallen in the public domain yet, but at the same time, Japan’s trade copyright law had a loophole that allowed for the publishing of derivative works of imported fiction within the country. The LeBlanc estate discovered that fact a little too late when Lupin III had already become a hit in Japan, so they let them do their thing as long as the series never made its way out of the country without alterations to remove any reference to Arsène Lupin (hence why Streamline and Manga UK’s dubs in the 90s changed his name to Wolf). This remained the case until the Arsène Lupin property ultimately languished into public domain in the early 2000s.
It’s basically a very rare case of a fan sequel that manages to rival the original’s popularity, and it all happened thanks to a perfect storm of lax copyright laws.