* AwesomeDearBoy: Yasuo Otsuka had left Toei Animation to join Tokyo Movie, as working on Lupin would allow him to use his knowledge and lifelong interest in guns and transport in his animation.
* ChannelHop: Adapting Monkey Punch's [[Manga/LupinIII Lupin III manga]] into animation was first suggested by animator Gisaburō Sugii to Yutaka Fujioka, the founder of Tokyo Movie (now Creator/TMSEntertainment). Although Fujioka was interested in the idea, Tokyo Movie lacked the financial resources to produce such a project on its own. This led to the creation of a Cinema Scope Pilot Film, which was intended to generate interest in the project and secure funding from potential producers.
* SelfAdaptation: Almost. The team studied Monkey Punch's style in detail, including the influence of American cartoonist Mort Drucker on the manga, and analyzed the characters from all angles; they were initially assisted by Monkey Punch himself until he felt the project was too much for him.
* TheOtherDarrin: The original 1969 pilot film (shot and recorded twice) Other Darrin'ed ''itself'', by having two completely different voice casts. Strangely, Creator/GoroNaya (Zenigata's long-time voice actor) played Goemon and Creator/ChikaoOhtsuka (Goemon in the first series) played Zenigata. The only other actors from these recordings retained for future ''Lupin'' projects were Creator/EikoMasuyama as Fujiko and Creator/KiyoshiKobayashi as Jigen.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: A lot, given this was a pilot film, but less than one would think.
** Scripts and treatments were written for a feature film adaptation, one of which depicted Lupin before the start of his thieving career as a hippie in Shinjuku, and explained how he came to be pursued by the police and other criminals.
** Goemon was protrayed as AmbiguouslyBrown, this would only show up again in Anime/MysteryOfMamo.
** Zenigata was specifically the 7th generation descendant of Zenigata Heji, like how Lupin is the 3rd and Goemon is the 13th. While still related to Heji, specifically being the 7th was dropped.
** Goemon was an antagonist out for Lupin's head. This carries out on into Anime/LupinIIIPart1, but after two battles, Goemon under goes a HeelFaceTurn and has remained Lupin's partner since.
** Jigen is characterized as brawler and while his gunplay is praised during his introduction, during the police's raid on the mansion, he uses his fists to defeat his opponent, saving his Magnum for a FinishingMove.
** Kogorō Akechi showed up near the end as a RetiredBadass [[TheMentor mentor]] and OlderSidekick to Zenigata but was DroppedAfterThePilot.