Lupin III Part IV (Blue Jacket): The Big Review Thread

The Standalone Episodes
No spoilers as to how the plots unravel, though I do mention stuff about the episodes’ premises and some notable details



Historically there’s been little continuity between Lupin episodes (though we’ll be covering the rare classic two-parter next week). The Woman Named Fujiko Mine addressed this pretty ingeniously by turning the seemingly disparate adventures early in the season into puzzle pieces near the end. That isn’t as feasible an option for Part IV: it’s over twice as long, making it harder to make a coherent puzzle, and as a prequel The Woman Named Fujiko was able to include more character development—Lupin’s gang was getting acquainted for the first time, whereas here their dynamics are all well-established and, since the series is designed as a return to normalcy, probably won’t be reshuffled. Thus we get the old cliché: arc episodes that advance a season-wide plot and standalone episodes that serve as little diversions.

Although I generally am a fan of episodic television (and brevity is often Lupin’s ally), the standalone episodes tend to all be, contra the Anna Karenina principle, disappointing in the same way (and often very disappointing indeed). They tend to the more touristic episodes, and I mean that it two ways—they’re meant to showcase something about Italy, and our lead characters are only visitors, letting the guest cast take the lead. The problem is that their stories are generally uninteresting—you’ll recognize the basic beats from somewhere else, and they are typically Italian in fairly stereotypical ways. They feel not Lupin III episodes, but vignettes the gang happened to stroll into. With that, let’s go episode-by-episode:

2 The Fake Fantasista: Inessential
It’s on the good side of inessential, though, with a number of nice little details that make the episode work. It’s appropriate that the second episode of a show featuring a bunch of con artists in Italy deals with betting on football, but what helps elevate the episode is the fact that it treats football—and football stars—as kind of annoying (I personally hate Italian football and my edition of the Inferno would put Marco Materazzi in Brutus’s place), an attitude I am familiar with from non-football fans in the Netherlands. There is a nice twist to the story, though, and even if it isn’t fundamentally Lupin’s he plays a nice, borderline noble role in it.

This episode also starts off a mini-trend of having the twist of the episode explained via flashback by one of the leads (Lupin in this case), like it were the end of a Mystery installment. Luckily the series outgrows this.

In a throwaway scene there’s also a bit of setup for episode three, where it’s revealed Lupin’s gotten access to MI6’s surveillance data. It’s also where we get Jigen incongruously operating a laptop in a cafe.

4 With a Gun in My Hand: Recommended
The Mystery conceit works better here, especially since it’s Zenigata doing the detective work. There’s barely any Lupin here, though—he ends up in Jigen’s wake this time, piecing together a shootout in a small, mafia-dominated town. It’s a “nice” improbably-pulpy installment which offers a lot for Jigen—switching back and forth between the new series and the old one it’s incredible how much Kobayashi Kiyoshi’s voice has aged, but if anything it works better for the character here.

5 The Magician’s Left Hand: Not Recommended
Now it’s Fujiko’s turn for an episode—though she doesn’t get nearly as good a showcase as Jigen she does get to seduce a young carnie: here comes the (stereotypically Italian) circus! Again, our leads are just interlopers in a rather rote and boring story, though it’s enlivened a bit by Lupin and Fujiko’s “it’s complicated” chemistry.



6 Until the Full Moon Passes: Highly Recommended
The first and best of Lupin III Part IV’s wronged woman stories, this is Zenigata’s showcase. It is also, fortunately, Zenigata’s story, and his antagonists are Lupin, Jigen and Fujiko. Caught in the middle is Elena Gotti, widow to a media empire with a rumored cash store. Our four regular leads are at their best: we have Zenigata at his most persistent and clever, while Lupin’s “honorable thief” image is both used and subverted. In the final showdown between the gang and Zenigata they’re menacing in a way we seldom see them: for once we’re seeing them from Zenigata’s point-of-view, and these aren’t good people. Well-balanced between humor, pathos, and pulp, “Until the Full Moon Passes” is the unquestioned standout among the standalones so far.

8 Welcome to the Haunted Hotel: Not Recommended
You can guess everything about this episode from the title, with the return of Jigen’s œnophilia only slightly softening the blow.

9 Requiem for the Assassins: Not Recommended, F
Goemon’s an odd fit for Italy and isn’t needed for most of these episodes, thus he’s usually dropped or steps out early after making a smart remark. Goemon’s showcase episode is likewise an odd fit—we have him re-connecting with a petite female assassin (taken form the streets, of course, with all sorts the corrupt political/mafia connections that entails) with whom he’d previously worked on some strange Italian post-colonial mission. It’s either clichéd or surreal, and frankly there’s too much Goemon in a modern setting—much of the episode is unintentionally hilarious. And I’m quite sure it’s unintentional, since, like Goemon, this episode has every sign of taking itself far too seriously.

10 The Lovesick Pig: Recommended
Another borderline case, this is Rebecca’s first appearance in the standalone episodes as she and Fujiko compete for Lupin at a wine auction. It’s starts quite sitcommy before progressing to cartoonishly silly and finally morbidly strange, but it’s good to see Rebecca and Fujiko finally up against one another, and their contest in many ways resembles the digital-analog conflict between Lupin and Nyx: Rebecca’s an heiress who uses her wealth to her full advantage in thieving, whereas Fujiko has to rely on her wiles and experience.

We also have Lupin consciously avoiding being photographed here, which is a nice touch.

15 High School Undercover: Not Recommended, D-
This is worst episode of Lupin I’ve yet seen. It’s dull, it’s unfunny, it’s the worst offender in terms of sidelining our leads for clichéd guest stars, and I’d rather rewatch the whole of Legend of the Gold of Babylon, despite it being about five times longer. That’s how much I dislike this episode. If “Requiem of Assassins” is the F—incredibly bad, but somehow compellingly so—this is the D-, with nothing redeeming about it (though there’s nothing offensive either, which somehow makes its consummate terribleness even worse).



16 Lupin’s Day Off: Recommended
Full disclosure: PUPPY! Not just puppy, but LONG-HAIRED DACHSIE PUPPY! Even with the red eyes Josefine is quite cute.

She’s not the main appeal of the episode, though—it’s quite silly, certainly a bit too silly in some places, but the main appeal is that nothing really happens. It’s mostly just Lupin, Jigen and Goemon talking to one another as they head to Messina to deliver Josefine to her owner and partake in the rare authentic Japanese meal at a restaurant nearby. It’s Lupin’s show about nothing, making it an entertaining slow drive through the countryside, albeit one sometimes interrupted by Zenigata. There’s a bit more to it, though—while their partnership isn’t really tested here, the episode does raise the question of how deep it realy goes.

Stray Observations



•Another aspect of balance I haven’t managed is how well the series handles reference and homage. There’s a fair amount of subtle homage, but just from browsing online I can tell that my own knowledge is not sufficient enough to catch many, probably most, of them. And it doesn’t affect my viewing at all. In short, Lupin III Part IV offers treats for the initiated but they’re just an added layer—if you don’t see them you’re not actually missing anything with respect to the episodes themselves. Another thread successfully navigated.

•One place where I do notice the series leaning towards homage, though, is in music, since Ohno Yuji is back with new arrangements of the old Red Jacket-Cagliostro era tunes. My opinion tends to vary from episode-to-episode—sometimes it’s a nice new arrangement, sometimes it feels like it’s leaning too hard on history.

•The new ending theme is, for the first time to my knowledge, sort of its own separate thing, thematically linked (a jewel theft, Italy) but independent, taking the form as a sort of a midcentury Italian singer’s concert performance and drive through the countryside. I like it, but the girl’s voice (and, to some extent the language) don’t really match with the more big band-esque sound they seem to be going for.

•There’s ample automotive nostalgia here for someone who’s recently moved from Europe to the States. As noted above, Lupin’s driving a classic FIAT, not one of the new ones, and a good thing too—I generally have an aversion to retro design, and the new FIAT is a lot porkier than the original (which remain driven and beloved, at least in Amsterdam), and in a lot of European settings it’s less a matter of raw speed or power but maneuverability and willingness to rev. Alfas are plentiful—the aforementioned countryside drive is, I believe, in an 1950s-vintage Alfa Giulia convertible, and Zenigata’s main car is an an Alfa Romeo 159, a pretty stunningly attractive car which also has a reputation for performance not living up to its looks or name. Rebecca drives a customized Ferrari, Nyx, in keeping with making him a polar opposite to Lupin, an electric hybrid BMW i8 supercar. The Paris-set “Don’t Move the Mona Lisa” is a showcase for Peugeot 308 police cars, and while we can’t see the black executive cars very well their tail lamps looked a bit 407-ish to me (like the 159, these cars will probably disappoint fans of old Peugeots, and represented a styling nadir for the brand as well—the 2000s were not a good decade for Europe’s smaller automakers). There’s also a cameo of a Messerschmitt bubble car in the commercial bumpers (see below)

•Somewhat oddly given the car and gun fetishism, we don’t get much attention to that other male status symbol, the watch—Jigen had a Zenith chronograph in “Is Lupin Burning?! but that’s about it. Lupin’s watch here isn’t any kind of real watch to my knowledge, but Nyx has a Rolex Submariner, much like Bond in the early Connery films.

•Each episode opens with an epigram, switching halfway through the series. These are quotes Lupin attributes to himself—they’re not that great, get over yourself! The graphics are nice, though, with a map of Italy for the first half and a collage of Leonardo fragments in the second.

•The little commercial bumpers are a lot of fun, though I prefer the first half’s more cartoony ones, which hearken back to the second series. I’m less fond of the second half bumpers, which feature Mamou Kyouske (of “Beware the Time Machine”) next to a Messerschmitt and Fujiko in daisy dukes (a reference to Voyage to Danger?).

•Going back episode-by-episode I was wrong about the relative frequency of Goemon and Rebecca—Goemon appears much more often, but Rebecca tends to have much meatier roles nonetheless.

Next week we’ll be returning to classic reviews of the second series with the first Lupin two-parter: “The Second Time Around.”

17 The Murdering Marionette: Inessential



It has some nice conceptual touches, but is ultimately a bit too familiar a setup and easy a conclusion. Incredibly for a Lupin story it actually manages to strain disbelief.



17 The First Supper: Inessential



Suspension of disbelief in Lupin III is odd—the last episode strained disbelief but here the seemingly fantastic rolls right along—when Lupin explains how the events of “Don’t Move the Mona Lisa” tie into the Italian Dream project, it makes total sense to us. In fact it’s a bit too obvious and straightforward, and didn’t necessarily need a whole episode. It’s “inessential” in terms of quality, and almost “inessential” in terms of content, though the episode certainly lands (ha!) the ending.



Next week we will be covering episodes 18 and 19 of the new series (and not doing a classic review since I was not able to post this until today).

Classic review delayed until Sunday due to travel

23 World Dissection, Part I: Highly Recommended





24 World Dissection, Part 2: Recommended

Deeply, deeply flawed, but with a number of nice touches that elevate the whole thing






There are a couple of DVD-only episodes of Part IV still out there, but as far as I know they’re not yet legally available in English. This year’s annual special has already aired, but it’s mostly reassembled from episodes of the series with extra footage. Our only option now is to go back: next week classic reviews resume with the eccentric pair of 79 “Diamonds Gleam in a Robot’s Eye” (or “Ice, Robot”) and 84 “Leave the Revenge to Lupin.”

Another delay on that classic review—we have new Lupin to review! The two DVD-only episodes have been released on Crunchyroll, so we’ll give them a look. The first, “Venice of the Dead,” is a standalone mid-quel; the second, “Nonstop Rendezvous,” is essentially a prequel to the entire series (despite a couple of framing scenes that place it close to the end).

25 (6): Venice of the Dead: Recommended



I can see why this episode was left for the DVD release—it is a bit of a trifle. But Lupin does trifles better than anyone else, and I wish this were part of the main body of the show. It doesn’t strive for meaning like a number of the Italian vignette episodes, but somehow it effortlessly gets there.


The hook is reminiscent of many of the paranormally-themed Lupin installments, though it might be better to call a lot of these simply creepy. A lot of these really don’t work for me, so I was not thrilled when I saw this episode would be zombie-themed. But the episode’s much smarter, and free of clichés (both general horror clichés and clichés specific to Lupin, than first appearance might imply.



26 (23) Nonstop Rendezvous: Recommended



This is another trifle, but a real one—there’s little deeper resonance here but it’s a great ride, a classic automotive adventure in the mold of The Fuma Conspiracy, plus a solid Lupin-and-Zenigata-forced-to-work-together plot. It’s well-animated, its humor works, the villain’s straight out of NotOKCupid (seriously), and it’s a fun jaunt in the old Cinquecento—what more could one ask for?

Well, maybe something other than another rescue Rebecca plot. It’s nicely-executed, though—in addition to all of the above, this “first encounter” never has them meet—Lupin’s concern for Rebecca is solely as a lucrative mark, nothing more. It adds a bit of subtext to their rapid courtship, and while it’s not strictly necessary it’s a nice extra bit of icing.

Again, though, I wish this had been released as part of the regular series.

Stray Observations
• One nice thing is that the episode implies that while Zenigata’s a better shot than Lupin, Lupin’s the luckier shot. The attention to detail, both animated and thematic, really elevates this series.

• It’s striking how much Lupin’s Walther is featured in this episode—another nice touch in the new series is that it managed to minimize the less savory aspects of Lupin’s character without (usually) making him feel sanded-down.

• Weird, three gun observations: this might be the only Lupin episode to satisfy the bullet-counters among you.

Next week we finally get our dose of 1970s pseudoscience with 4 ”I Can Here Nessie’s Song” (or 3 “50 Ways to Leave Your 50 Foot Lover”) —incidentally the first Lupin installment Part IV’s chief director, Kazuhide Tomonaga, worked on—and 7 “Tutankhamen’s 3000-year Curse” (or 6 “Cursed Case Scenario”).