The one hundred and first comic: #268 Lupin III
Considering the apparent presence of Lupin, the French aristocratic thief, in Japanese culture, and that this manga about his grandson created a character popular in all media, I went in with fairly high hopes for this work. Sure, I wasn't expecting an amazing work, but this is flawed enough to be unenjoyable.The most obvious flaw, at least in the works I've read, is that it quite quickly jumps over showing what's going on - show, don't tell, if you wish. Lupin commits a theft and we get told some bits of how he did it, but don't get to see it. We don't even follow the investigation, but just the lead up to the crime, the reveal of what happened and then it ends. This gets worse in some non-crime chapter, where in one, with Lupin trapped on an island, the resolution seems to happen in seconds because they're reached the page count.
Add to that how it's often not as clear what's going on. A bunch of characters look similar, in particular Lupin and his adversary Inspector Zenigata. The latter is often the focus character, but since Lupin loves disguises it happens a bit too often that he's disguised as the inspector, sometimes as a meaningless reveal at the end. The action, too, is rushed, and it means that my eyes end up glazing over until there's some conversation to latch on to again. Even looking ahead to some later issues, most of these problems stay around - at least not to a point where I'm enjoying it any further - and I guess that's the groove it settled into. I'd say we moved on to do it better, but by 1967 I think the medium was advanced further anyway.