Serious anime fans know that Hayao Miyazaki didn't just show up one day, found Studio Ghibli, and proceed to create all of these great movies. Like all people, he started from the ground up, working as an animator on early films and TV shows for different studios. The film that really got him attention as a serious creator for the first time was The Castle of Cagliostro, a Lupin the Third movie (based on the manga by the creator known as "Monkey Punch") about Lupin's adventures in a fictional European country. As usual, our thief is after some fantastic treasure but ends up chasing girls, instead, which some would say is actually another kind of treasure, so there you go. It is interesting to see Miyazaki put his fingerprints on another creator's work, as his more famous films were usually his own original creations.
In case you are wondering why I am writing about this, today is the day that Manga Entertainment is releasing a Special Edition of the movie on DVD in North America. I find it interesting, from my closet marketer perspective, that they are copying the Disney/Studio Ghibli releases as closely as they can in the cover art, with the red banner up top and the single image of the main characters on the front (as you can see below). Probably not a bad idea for those stores that put all the Miyazaki films side-by-side on the racks. Anyway, if you have an interest in the film this is your best bet for checking it out, as there as some solid extras on this edition of the movie, compared with the earlier release put out a number of years ago. 
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