When Lupin III was first adapted into an anime in 1971, the voice cast for the five main characters consisted of Yasuo Yamada as Lupin, Kiyoshi Kobayashi as Jigen, Chikao Ohtsuka as Goemon, Yukiko Nikaido as Fujiko, and Goro Naya as Zenigata. For years, this cast would be seen as the definitive Lupin III voice cast, and every animated production such as the Red Jacket anime or The Castle of Cagliostro would see them reprise their roles… with one exception, the 1987 OVA, Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy.
The Fuma Conspiracy was the first and so far only instance where the usual Japanese voice cast for Lupin III was completely replaced with different voice actors. This was done by TMS Entertainment for budgetary reasons; the Lupin III cast were now the highest-paid voice actors in Japan, and the OVA was being produced on a tight budget, so TMS had to decide whether to rehire them, or hire a cheaper voice cast and allocate the budget to animation instead. They ultimate went with the latter, and the result was that while the OVA was praised for having some of the best animation in the series, it was heavily panned by Lupin III fans due to the replacement cast (in particular, Toshio Furukawa would end up receiving a lot of hate mail for playing Lupin). After the backlash, TMS would rehire the original cast again, and would make it a point to never recast the characters again (outside of very necessary instances such as Yasuo Yamada’s death in 1995).
The controversy over Fuma Conspiracy’s recast would also end up souring the friendship between Yasuo Yamada and the series’ creator Monkey Punch. Due to communication breakdown, Yamada assumed that Monkey Punch was not happy with his performance as Lupin and lobbied for the recast. In reality, Monkey Punch had no issues with Yamada’s performance, but did not fight the recast as he simply felt he had no business telling TMS Entertainment how to produce the OVA.