Season Overview

Lupin III: Part 6 (ルパン三世 PART6) is the latest season of the Lupin the Third anime series. It aired from October 17th, 2021 to March 27th, 2022, and included 24 episodes. This is also the fourth season of the series I’ve watched (and I’ve seen four movies).

Sure, I haven’t seen everything that the Lupin III series has to offer. But by this point, I think I can say I’m pretty familiar with it. And, with that in mind, this is my least favorite Lupin III entry.

Even putting aside the content of this season, just the OP and ED were worse than those of Part 5. I know every season of Lupin III has the same OP song. But I didn’t like the visuals as much this time around. And the ED song was just worse.

Anyway, the main content of this season focuses on Lupin “finding his roots.” Throughout the whole season, we get hints about the woman who raised Lupin and taught him everything he knows. And because her name keeps coming up, Lupin begins to seek out answers to questions from his past.

I guess Lupin’s past could be interesting. But at the same time, I never really cared about his past. I care about who he is and what he’s doing in the present. How he became the person he is today doesn’t matter all that much.

And, I’d argue that this season did a pretty poor job of exploring Lupin’s past. At the end of the day, all the “setup,” which is a pretty strong word for it, amounted to nothing. I have no problem spoiling that because it was such a disappointment.

Episodic to the Extreme

Generally speaking, Lupin III isn’t a series with a whole lot of continuity. There’s an overarching theme or storyline, sure. But, for the most part, it’s episodic or comprised of small arcs that aren’t all that strongly tied together. This structure can certainly work; it’s worked for the series in the past.

However, I’d say that Part 6 takes this to the extreme. At least half of the episodes in the season felt like they were filler. They’re just random, one-off episodes that don’t seem to have anything to do with the main story or even the other episodes around them.

For example, there was an episode about Goemon becoming a male runway model for some fashion designer. And there was another episode about some CEO of a security company setting up a challenge for Lupin because she’s his biggest fan.

It’s really hard to care about an episode when it feels like filler, even if it’s not actually filler. Goemon is already my least favorite character of the series. I’ve said many times before that he feels extremely out of place. So, obviously, I’m not going to care at all about him becoming a runway model.

Additionally, every arc and individual episode has a new heroine. From what I remember of Parts 4 and 5, they each had a seasonal heroine who was with Lupin throughout the part. That’s not the case this time around. Some girls showed up more than others, but most of them are forgettable.

But, guess what? It turns out that all of those forgettable girls from the filler episodes are actually important in the end. That’s definitely something I didn’t like about this season. You can’t just pretend like all those characters mattered in the final few episodes.

It All Comes Together (Poorly)

So, how do all these random girls from the various episodes and arcs become important at the end of the season? Well, it turns out that they were all trained (and hypnotized) by the same woman who taught Lupin growing up. And she planted them in his path so that he’d run into them at some point.

Each girl then mentioned a special phrase or word that, when all put together, acted as a key to unlock a suppressed part of Lupin’s memory. What could that suppressed memory be? Well, it’s just that Lupin himself has been hypnotized.

I guess the special phrases act more like a trigger, in that sense. But, whatever. The point is that after coming into contact with all of these girls, Lupin falls under the control of his former teacher and believes that she’s actually his mother.

The mystery of who Lupin’s mother was is a recurring theme throughout the season. When we first learn about his teacher, it’s implied she’s his mother. But, once we meet some of the girls and they also refer to this person as their mother, it’s revealed that they all call her this because she views her students as her children.

Fair enough. However, it then somehow comes up that she might actually be Lupin’s birthmother and not just his teacher. And, that’s the mystery that we — along with Lupin — are trying to get to the bottom of at the end of the season.

Since I spoiled earlier in the review that none of this ends up mattering, allow me to go all the way. Lupin decides she’s not his mother, kills her, and then opts not to figure out the truth. So this whole season-long puzzle ends up without a definitive answer.

If it was a good puzzle, I wouldn’t mind the open-endedness. But it wasn’t a good puzzle.

Conclusion

Lupin III: Part 6 is a 5/10 from me. It’s not bad, though I did think the animation during the climax of the final episode was bad. But, I don’t think it’s good either. It exists and if you’re really into Lupin you’ll probably watch it regardless of what I say.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and Key Mochi~ for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika and Senpai tiers respectively this month, along with Rob and Toma for supporting at the Kouhai tier. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

Series Overview

Lupin III: Part 5 (ルパン三世 PART5) is the most recent part of the Lupin III series and the second part I’ve watched. So while I can’t really say how it compares to the first three parts, I can say that it’s quite a bit different from Part 4, which I’ll discuss in more detail later on.

The biggest difference between these two parts, though, is that Part 5 is set in “modern” times. Rather than being set in the 1970s, or whenever Lupin III is normally set, Part 5 is in the 2020s (or even later). And thanks to that, this part prominently features both modern and slightly futuristic technologies.

In fact, I wouldn’t really call any of the technology in this series futuristic. Instead, it would be more correct to say that it’s modern technology that just happens to work a lot better than real modern technology. This stuff exists in our world, but it’s far less refined than it’s portrayed in this series.

I have to say, at first, I wasn’t a fan of the modern spin of Part 5. It seemed a little too gimmicky, such as with Lupin’s high-tech monocle and Ami’s internet-connected earring. But, over time I got used to that and I don’t think it really changed the series all that much outside of one area which I’ll bring up later on.

Not only does Part 5 have a focus on modern technology, but it’s much more about world politics than Part 4. Part 4 generally stayed within Italy, San Marino, and France. In Part 5, while there’s still a European focus, other parts of the world are involved more heavily — such as the fictional country of Padar (which I think is supposed to be Pakistan).

It’s Ami, not Amy

Allow me to start off by saying that I’m not usually one for running gags like this, but Lupin constantly referring to Ami as Amy was pretty good. I think the reason I was fine with this name gag, as opposed to the Yoshiko/Yohane one from Love Live! Sunshine!!, is because it’s pretty clear that Lupin is doing it on purpose.

And it’s not as if Lupin is just intentionally mispronouncing Ami’s name wrong just to make her mad or anything. Whenever he does it, it’s usually when they’re in some sort of risky situation, such as being chased by bad guys or being captured. He kind of uses this mispronunciation as a way to reassure her that everything is alright.

I think the idea here is that if Lupin still has time to joke about her name, then it shows Ami that he has the situation under control and everything will be alright.

Well, I guess at this point I should mention who Ami is. In Part 4, Rebecca Rossellini was the featured supporting character. In Part 5, that role belongs to Ami Enan. But, that doesn’t mean that Ami is simply a replacement for Rebecca — they’re two very different characters.

Ami is a middle or high-school-aged girl who also just so happens to be one of the premier hackers in the world. And as you might expect, because she’s a “super hacker” she has no real friends. She spends all her time on the internet living vicariously through other people rather than experiencing life for herself — until Lupin appears.

But the most unique thing about Ami is probably her internet-connected earring I mentioned earlier. It’s a voice-controlled device that she can use to do basically anything. She can look things up, she can run DDOS attacks on servers, and she can even hack into security cameras all via simple voice commands.

Part 4 vs. Part 5

There are two big ways in which Part 4 and Part 5 are different that I want to discuss. First, Part 5 is much more violent. And second, Part 5 has more of an “escape” feel than a “heist” feel.

Something I quickly picked up on in Part 5 is that Lupin and his gang kill a lot of people. In fact, even Ami kills multiple people. And this isn’t like we’re just left to assume that these people died, or maybe survived somehow. No, we actually see them die and it’s stated that they were killed.

This isn’t something that happens in Part 4. Maybe there were a handful of deaths in that, but generally speaking, Lupin and his gang would inflict non-fatal wounds on people. With Part 5, that’s no longer the case. And they aren’t even just killing villains. They’re also killing random security guards — which goes against the “virtuous thief” image I had of Lupin.

The focus of this season on escaping rather than thieving is probably the one thing I liked the least about it. Part 4 was full of exciting heists across Italy, San Marino, and France. But in Part 5, there aren’t really any comparable heists — any “heist” in this part is more about an ulterior motive, such as saving someone like Ami from capture.

And the focus on modern technology just promotes this idea of escaping even more. A running theme of the season is that the modern age is no place for an old-school thief like Lupin. There are so many ways for his every movement to be tracked thanks to the internet, that he’s always on the run.

I thought this concept was somewhat interesting the first time around, but there were actually two arcs that focused on it. First, there was a killing game that relied on internet commenters to pinpoint Lupin’s location. Then, there was a Facebook-like app that relied on facial recognition and adaptive learning to pinpoint Lupin’s location.

Conclusion

I would definitely say that I liked Lupin III: Part 5 less than Part 4. But in the end, I wouldn’t say that there’s too much of a difference between them as far as my enjoyment is concerned. So with that said, I’m giving Part 5 a 7/10 just like I did for the previous part.

Part 5 is potentially the better option for someone who’s just getting into the Lupin series. I think because it takes place in a different time period, it’s restricted less by what’s expected of it — so it can be enjoyed more as a standalone part. And if you already like Lupin but haven’t seen Part 5, I think you’ll find that it’s more familiar than you may have expected.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month and for suggesting I not only watch Part 5 but all of the Lupin entries I’ve watched so far. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Part 6 is available now.

Series Overview

Lupin III (2015) is the fourth part of the Lupin III series. I’m just going to keep referring to it as Lupin III (2015) though because technically just Lupin III would refer to the first part of the series. Also, Lupin III is the romaji spelling of the Japanese ルパン三世, but I’m using it over the English Lupin the Third because the English title doesn’t include “(2015)” after it.

Hopefully that all made sense. Basically this review is on the 2015 entry in the Lupin III series.

This is the first entry in the main Lupin III series I’ve seen. Before this, I watched four of the movies and The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. So Lupin III (2015) was a bit different from anything I’ve previously seen. However, if you liked the movies, you’ll probably like the series, and the same is true in the other direction.

The main difference here is that the series is much more episodic than The Woman Called Fujiko Mine was. But, that doesn’t mean there’s not an overarching story at all. There were two main arcs from what I could tell: The San Marino arc and the Da Vinci arc. I’ll be discussing the differences between the two later on.

Regardless of the arc, the vast majority of this series takes place in Europe, specifically Italy and San Marino. There are a couple of episodes that take place in France, and even one that takes place in Japan, but overall this is an Italy-focused series.

I know that Lupin is supposed to be considered a worldwide thief, but I still generally associate him with Japan, so seeing him and the gang explore Italy and San Marino was cool. Also, I just think Italy and San Marino are interesting backdrops for the series.

New Supporting Characters

There were four new supporting characters introduced in this part of the series: Rebecca, Rob, Nix, and later on, Da Vinci. Rebecca and Rob are both allies of Lupin, while Nix and Da Vinci are primarily antagonists, though that isn’t always the case.

Rebecca Rossellini is my favorite of the new characters — and not just because she’s a cute girl. Though, if I’m being honest, that plays a significant role. I actually think Rebecca is cuter than Fujiko, which I’m sure a bunch of Fujiko fans will think is completely out of line.

Rebecca is just more fun and she has a better character design. That’s right, I said it.

But looks aren’t the only thing Rebecca has going for her. She’s also the heiress to some wealthy family (I forget exactly what they do). And in her free time, which is basically all the time, she does whatever she wants — including moonlighting as a thief.

Rob is Rebecca’s handler. He serves as her bodyguard, chauffeur, and general assistant. But arguably his most important job is to keep Rebecca out of trouble so that she doesn’t tarnish the Rossellini name by getting caught during one of her heists.

Nix is an agent working with the British Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6. He’s kind of like a more serious version of our old pal, Inspector Zenigata. Zenigata is still around, but Nix takes on the role of a more dangerous adversary.

I will say that the one thing I didn’t like about Nix is that when he was introduced he kept on giving near 100% chances of success for himself and then proceeded to fail every time. You’d think that after a few failures he’d learn that he doesn’t have a 100% chance of success.

Da Vinci is an antagonist in the second half of the series. He’s not literally Da Vinci, but rather an experiment that was being performed by MI6 gone wrong. The best way to think of his personality and abilities though is to think of Kars from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2.

San Marino vs. Da Vinci

As previously mentioned, both halves of the series take place primarily in Italy and San Marino. However, the first half was much more focused on San Marino, so that’s what I’m referring to when I mention the San Marino Arc. And the second half, when Da Vinci is introduced, is the Da Vinci arc.

I think the San Marino arc of the story was the better of the two. It was much more grounded in reality, though there were still some less than realistic features such as Nix’s superhuman hearing. Once Da Vinci was introduced, it reminded me of the Lupin movies with the superhuman assassins, and I just don’t enjoy that quite as much.

Of course, Da Vinci isn’t one of those superhuman assassins, so it’s not entirely the same. But he’s still a recreation of a historical figure who has the ability to alter reality through the use of dreams. So again, it’s pretty unrealistic. And the final episode of the series (excluding the special episodes which I also watched) really went off the deep end.

By contrast, I believe the final episode of the San Marino arc (I could be mistaken) was the one in which Zenigata finally captures and imprisons Lupin.

I thought that was possibly the best episode of the entire season. Sure, there were other episodes with better action or story, including a few with some amazing animation. But I really liked how that episode delved into Zenigata’s character and how once he’s captured Lupin, he doesn’t really know what his purpose in life is anymore.

Conclusion

Lupin III (2015) is a good anime, so it gets a 7/10. I liked some of the movies and The Woman Called Fujiko Mine a bit more, but generally speaking, this series was almost on par with them. I think if the second half of the series was more like the first, I would have liked it more.

I also have to say that I really like both the OP and ED of this series. The OP had some cool visuals, and the ED had a great song. I’m not really sure which I prefer at the end of the day though.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next part is available here.

Series Overview

Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine (Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna / LUPIN the Third ～峰不二子という女～) is a prequel series to the rest of the Lupin the Third franchise, most notably the movie trilogy of Fujiko’s Lie, Jigen’s Gravestone, and Goemon’s Blood Spray.

And if you’ve read my reviews of those movies, you’re probably familiar with how I felt about Fujiko’s character — she seemed to be used mainly as fan service. But, oddly enough, although this series doubles down on the sexy nature of Fujiko, I actually thought it did a much better job of portraying her character without objectifying her.

In those movies, even in Fujiko’s movie when she was using her body to achieve her own goals, it felt like the sexualization of her character was mainly for the enjoyment of the audience. She would be naked or exposed in random action scenes for no real reason, and I think they were trying to show that she accepts her sexuality.

But in this series, where there’s a lot more nudity, it feels as though Fujiko is really the one in control of it. There aren’t scenes where she’s randomly stripped of her clothing without reason. Instead, these are calculated actions taken by Fujiko.

And by calculated I don’t mean that she solely uses her body to achieve her goals, though this is certainly the case. For her, it’s also a sort of self-empowerment. Later on she says something along the lines of “theft and casual sex are just part of who I am,” and I think that just goes to show her ownership of it all.

Introduction to the Characters

As much as I did like how Fujiko was written in this series, one of the most interesting things I found was how she’s the one who brought all of the main characters together. Lupin is obviously the main character of the franchise, but the group of him, Fujiko, Jigen, and Goemon actually originated with Fujiko.

I thought that Lupin and Jigen would have been the first two of the four to meet, but that’s apparently not the case. Lupin and Fujiko are the first to meet, which although unexpected, still makes sense to an extent. But then Fujiko meets Jigen next, and then Goemon.

It turns out that Fujiko actually knew all three of the other main characters before any of them actually knew each other. And to take this even farther, the only reason the other main characters met each other was because of their involvement with Fujiko.

When Fujiko first meets Lupin, she’s infiltrating a cult that is producing a valuable drug. And when she’s finally about to get her hands on the drug, master thief Lupin III also shows up to steal it. This is also when Lupin decides that Fujiko is going to be one of the treasures he steals in the end.

Fujiko’s introduction to Jigen is very different. Rather than it being a chance encounter, Fujiko is officially hired to steal Jigen’s .357 Magnum. This, combined with a later episode in which Fujiko attempts to use Lupin and Jigen as bait, helps explain why Jigen is often wary of Fujiko in the events which take place later in the franchise.

And then we have Fujiko’s first meeting with Goemon, after which Goemon mistakenly thinks that Fujiko is a nice woman who’s attracted to him. This one was a bit strange because as I’ve mentioned in other Lupin reviews before, Goemon kind of just exists. He randomly shows up throughout the series and isn’t a real part of the crew.

Who is the Woman Called Fujiko Mine?

In the previous section there were some light spoilers about the first few episodes of the series, but this section is going to get into some major spoilers. If you haven’t watched the series yet, I suggest skipping over this section for now and coming back once you have.

Alright, so throughout the first half of the series the episodes seem fairly disconnected, but once we make it into the second half everything starts to come together. We learn that Fujiko was actually being manipulated the whole time and that even her run-ins with the other main characters were decided by a third party.

But before I get into who that third party is, let me bring up something I noticed in this series that connected to the Fujiko’s Lie movie. The organization which is behind all of Fujiko’s actions has its hand in a hallucinogenic drug production ring. And do you remember Binkam’s ability from the movie?

That’s right, he used the same drug — or at least a similar drug — to the one being produced in this series.

As for the person who’s eventually revealed to be behind everything that has happened to Fujiko, it turns out to be a girl with a very strange past. As a child, she was experimented on by her father and eventually became bedridden because of it. And when her father died, she decided to start her own experiments.

She had her memories implanted into hundreds of other young girls and then planned to watch how their lives developed; this was supposed to simulate the possibilities she could have had in her own life. But in the end all of those girls killed themselves shortly after.

The only one who didn’t was Fujiko, but as we learn, these memories were implanted into her as an adult. So just after we learn that who Fujiko is is a fabrication, it’s also revealed that isn’t really the case.

On one hand, I’m glad that Fujiko didn’t end up simply being the product of some experiment. But on the other, that ending felt like it trivialized everything the second half of the series built up. I think that’s my only real complaint about the series though.

Conclusion

In the end, Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine is my favorite entry in the Lupin franchise I’ve seen so far. It’s a 9/10 from me. I think it just did a much better job of exploring the character of Fujiko, and although the animation wasn’t as good as it is in the movies, I think the characters are more important.

If you enjoyed this review or found it to be helpful in any way, remember to click the like button ❤ down below. Also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month and for suggesting this series to me. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.