English Dub Review: Lupin the Third: Part V “Viva Lupin III”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Here it is folks, the end of Lupin III: Part 5—until next week’s special OVA. Either way, any extra material might be a letdown, because the stakes don’t get any higher than this. Lupin is coming after Enzo and ShakeHanz with the intention of ending things once and for all.

We begin with the world governments no longer enamored with Enzo’s super-invasive spy technology. The bearded billionaire is sticking to his guns despite meeting with Albert and a few dignitaries because PeopleLog needs to invade everybody’s privacy in order to serve its purpose. The world leaders are pissed over being more exposed than they ever before. Enzo’s brilliant retort: “If you weren’t so damn corrupt you wouldn’t have to worry about all this dirt coming to light.” That’s how governments are supposed to work, after all. But try telling that to the people in charge.

Somewhere in international waters, Lupin and crew have rendezvoused with his mega-rich and embarrassingly famous ex-wife, Rebecca Rossellini. Beckers is much more palatable since she’s no longer madly in love with Lupin. It’s unclear if she ever got together with her loyal driver, thus replacing her affection for another, or if she just got over Lupin because she’s a strong independent woman. Anyway, Beck-a-Decka-Doo is only there for fan service and doesn’t have much to do. The same goes for Diana—a woman from a Lupin movie special from the 1990s—but at least she helps the gang crash land on Maul by using her amazing golden submarine.

Meanwhile, Fujiko is all gussied up in a wedding dress, in a silent but obvious confession of love for the master thief. Ami thinks the whole thing is weird but loves and admires Fuji enough to stay by her side. Unfortunately, while all the other countries are discussing the best UN sanctions to place on ShakeHanz, the President of the United States calls for a missile strike to reign down on the entire island.

Lupin scales the building just in time to save his “princess,” and almost gets shot in the process. But Ami—who’s the best character of all time—stands in front of her father’s gun, daring him to fire. At this moment, Enzo discovers his daughter is the hacker known as Underworld and is professionally impressed.

To win over Fujiko’s heart, Lupin reveals his deepest secret to her by unmasking—because Lupin has basically been Batman the entire time. It’s implied that Enzo and Ami see his face too, but they keep it to themselves because it’s an odd moment.

With PeopleLog shut down, Albert making a move to steal the recipe from Enzo’s partner, and Lupin and Fuji officially in love—again—there’s nothing left to do but evacuate before the USA blows the entire island to Atlantis. The series ends with the crew, including Fujiko, running from Team Zenigata as missiles erupt around them.

Lupin asks Ami to join the team but she refuses, for now. Instead, she’s going to take some time to get to know her father who FINALLY came around and saved her life as the ShakeHanz skyscraper was collapsing around them. Better late than never.

 

Our Take

This finale was comprised of non-stop action, the best of it coming from Jigen and Goemon. They must have seen that movie Hobbs and Shaw together, because when it came time to protect Lupin and the others from a bunch of military men, Jigen said: “Hey, do you want to do a Hobbs and Shaw?” To which, Goemon nodded back and said, “Hell yeah, I want to do a Hobbs and Shaw.”

After that, the two warriors went on to kick as much ass as the animation budget would allow. The best bit was when Jigen shot a bullet square at Goemon’s heart causing the Ronin to hold up his sword, slice the bullet in half, and take down the enemies over both his shoulders. The move was so electric, the people watching the live feed swore it was CGI.

Speaking of the live-streamers, almost every minor character who appeared in this season—and some even older allies—watched the action unfold. We’re talking: the dumb-dumb brothers, the surviving Rat Clan members, those black-hatters, Jigen’s sniper daughter and her mom, the grumpy old men’s landlady, as well as Princess Dolma. And that was just in this episode. Over the past few weeks, there have been dozens of Lupin cameos, all of them watching the feed.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the world’s greatest payoff. This season could’ve been an extremely tight and thematically amazing eighteen episodes. Instead, we had to endure a slew of tedious one-offs just to have a few extra “ah-hah” moments in the finale.

I’m well aware that we will likely never see Ami again, even if a Lupin the Third: Part 6 is commissioned. Her arc is complete, and even though she said “see you around” to Lupin as he left, I don’t foresee any future appearances besides a fan service nod similar to what they did for Beck-It-Ralph. That being said, since she was an amazing character, I wanted her relationship with Lupin to explore more in this finale instead of a rehash of the ballad of Lupin and Fujicakes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he ran off with the love of his life and not a teenage girl who’s pretty good with computers, but she deserved a better sendoff than this.

Part of me wanted Enzo to die and for Zenigata to adopt her. But old Koichi has his mission in life and nobody, nobody, is going to change that.