[Interview Exclusive] Adult Swim Passed On A Series That Was “JoJo Meets Lupin III” From The Creator Of Hot Streets

Anime continues to be viewed as a niche medium of storytelling by many mainstream gatekeepers, but it’s a style that Adult Swim has repeatedly turned to over the years as a way to inform its comedy. Series like Perfect Hair Forever and the more recent Ballmastrz: 9009, Gemusetto Machu Picchu, and even entire episodes of Rick and Morty are designed around the idea that their audience has at least some frame of reference when it comes to anime. That being said, Brian Wysol recently revealed that he pitched a very anime-inspired project to Adult Swim following the cancellation of Hot Streets that he describes as “JoJo meets Lupin III.”

“I had sold a property to Adult Swim right after Hot Streets that was a cross between JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Lupin the Third,” reveals Wysol. “The problem with it was that nobody knows what JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure or Lupin the Third is. So they’d come back to me and ask, ‘What is this like?’ ‘It’s like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Lupin the Third.’ ‘Well, what else?’ 

Wysol laments, but understands, Adult Swim passing on the niche project. Adult Swim’s direction over the past few years makes it more compelling to wonder if passing on this project was in Adult Swim’s best interest or if it could have become a flagship title during these transitory years. 

Hot Streets ended in 2019, meaning that Wysol’s pilot would have come around at a time when Adult Swim was premiering series with a more avant-garde independent animation aesthetic, like JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales and YOLO: Crystal Fantasy, which ironically enough is exactly Wysol’s brand. Not all of the animated series that have followed Hot Streets on Adult Swim have been misfires, and some programs like Smiling Friends and the aforementioned YOLO: Crystal Fantasy are exactly the type of risks that Adult Swim needs to be taking. 

“I was really hoping to do this adventure-action show. I was really excited about it and I think that it’s one of the best scripts that I’ve ever had, but ultimately Adult Swim has gone in a different direction,” admits Wysol. He also mourns the anime-influenced approach that he hoped to inject into a hypothetical third season of Hot Streets. “I was going to turn Hot Streets into a shonen adventure show with a middle-aged Mark Bransky as a karate hero. I had some big plans and I wanted to really shake things up.” Hot Streets was no stranger to dramatic genre shifts, but this push towards a shonen sensibility with Mark positioned more as the lead might have felt more like a whole new show just as much as it was a continuation of Hot Streets; almost akin to how Momma Named Me Sheriff grew out of the corpse of Mr. Pickles. Curiously, Ballmastrz: 9009 also concluded on a cliffhanger that would have given its third season a sizable anime-inspired facelift. 

Despite Adult Swim passing on the project and nixing anime-centric futures for Hot Streets and Ballmastrz, it’s hard to see how this potential anime hybrid project from Wysol would have been any worse than the gambits that Adult Swim instead decided to take. It’s entirely possible that the greenlighting of Wysol’s series in 2020 would just mean that audiences would now be getting ready to bid it adieu after a serviceable two-season run, which is the arc that so many other Adult Swim animated series like Birdgirl and Teenage Euthanasia seem destined to fulfill. 

Wysol’s program likely wouldn’t have changed the trajectory that Adult Swim has been on, but it’s possible that it’d turn into another unique creator-driven hit that’s at least as good as Hot Streets. Sadly, Wysol’s potential pilot–like many–seems to just be lost in time. It might have been perfect for Adult Swim if it was just pitched a little later or a few years earlier. As perplexing as “JoJo meets Lupin III” might have sounded back in 2020, it’s remarkable what a few years of context can do. This actually sounds like the type of mash-up storyline that would appear in season six of Rick and Morty or season two of Smiling Friends. Adult Swim even has the necessary infrastructure to schedule a medium-lampooning vehicle like this between episodes of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Lupin III so audiences can explicitly see just what archetypes are under examination. A project of this nature becomes even funnier when it stealth premieres between actual anime series.

Toonami previously strayed outside its typical programming guidelines when it scheduled Ballmastrz among its anime library. At the same time, an original series that’s deeply indebted to anime suddenly doesn’t seem so off kilter if Adult Swim airs it alongside comparable programming like Gemusetto Machu Picchu. Adult Swim’s current support towards their Toonami anime block has never been stronger and with more original productions on the way, including a legit Rick and Morty: The Anime, it’s clear that anime influences are becoming more of the norm rather than impulses to stifle or be ashamed over. 

“I think that anime is always weirdly underrated by everybody and that it’s always just bubbling under the surface,” explains Wysol. He elaborates, “I also think that something that’s being completely ignored is the storytelling in anime. I think people like these stories and that there’s something from them that we’re not properly capturing in Western animation. A lot of what we’re getting are visual references to anime, but there’s a lot more to it than that. I think we could be taking a lot more from anime’s storytelling.”

It’s disheartening that Wysol’s project couldn’t find a home at Adult Swim during a time when other networks and streaming services are growing more receptive of anime’s omnipresent influence on media. We’re in a time where a Jordan Peele blockbuster horror film can visually shout-out Akira during its big money shot moment. “JoJo meets Lupin III” wasn’t meant to be at Adult Swim, but hopefully it’s not long before networks realize the potential in such stylistic gambits and the audiences that they bring with them.

 

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