This review contains spoilers.
There are few anime I can think of that have managed to stand the test of time like “Lupin III”. If you are new to my reviews I strongly encourage checking out what I’ve written for the previous installments in the franchise. I’ve covered the first five TV anime as well as three of the theatrical films. Something I brought up often in those writings is how it had humble beginnings as a manga Monkey Punch didn’t expect to be a success and that it’s managed to adapt with the changing times. There is enough variety across the franchise that I feel people have their own idea of what makes a “Lupin III” anime a “Lupin III” anime. I am someone who has less restrictive demands of the franchise than some others might. You can go gritty, you can go silly, I welcome it all with an open mind. I like seeing what other people choose to do with the characters. I do have a preferred style, that being the Miyazaki approach of upbeat adventure, but I will give all interpretations a chance. So in 2021 when it was announced we would be getting a new series to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the original TV series I told myself to just go in ready to take whatever they produce. As a whole I would say “Lupin III: Part VI” succeeds at being an enjoyable experience. However it does come with its own flaws.
Before I actually get to the series proper I should tackle the special episode known as “Episode 0”. Anilist is still treating it as part of the anime, it’s a decision I don’t agree with but I will touch on it. This episode has one major function and it’s to be a sendoff to Jigen’s iconic seiyuu, Kiyoshi Kobayashi. He had voiced him consistently since the original Pilot Film in 1969, with the exception of “The Fuma Conspiracy” in which every member of the cast was replaced. He helped carve out Jigen as we know him and to do that across such a massive span of time is commendable to say the least. It makes perfect sense to do something special to honor his retirement. That said the episode itself is very divorced from the rest of Part VI, it doesn’t even feature the same character designs. The animation is pretty mediocre throughout it, there isn’t much of a plot, and what stands out the most for me is Kobayashi’s final performance. He was as great as he always had been, but we knew he couldn’t voice Jigen forever. I am grateful that he chose to leave the franchise instead of dying suddenly, like what happened with Lupin’s original seiyuu Yasuo Yamada. And I am also more than pleased with the replacement they selected, Akio Ostuka. He’s a talented seiyuu, it’s in his blood as his father Chikao Otsuka was also a seiyuu. Fascinatingly enough he was the voice for Goemon in the green jacket series back in 1971 and now his son has entered the franchise. Funny how that happened. But the episode itself is really not much beyond a farewell to a voice acting legend, its dubious connections to Part VI won’t impact my score though.
Now we get to the actual substance of this review. Part VI is an entry that leans heavily into the mystery genre. We have two prominent arcs within the anime, the Holmes arc and the Tomoe arc, both of which are based around questions concerning Lupin himself. Mixed into the anime are some episodic, seemingly detached, stories. So in a way the format is comparable to what Part IV did, but put a pin in that because I’ll get to how they differ in execution. Our first arc is about Sherlock Holmes investigating the murder of his partner, John Watson, and how Lupin relates back to the scene of the crime. And the second arc concerns an enigmatic woman named Tomoe claiming to be Lupin’s mother. The decision to play into mysteries is one that makes perfect sense. There’s always been mystery influences across the franchise and I appreciate the attempts at making this series more hard boiled. If I had to judge the two primary arcs against each other I do think the Tomoe arc is better. Both experience similar issues to one another, but I think I had more fun with this one. The Holmes arc spends a significant amount of time with the new characters it introduces and personally I wanted the focus to be primarily on the Lupin gang.
I think I’d prefer to address my biggest issue with the anime sooner rather than later. If I had to best describe the anime’s biggest flaw it’s that the two main arcs are built around mysteries that lack tension. The Holmes arc is built around the misconception that Lupin killed Watson and the Tomoe arc is about her claiming to be his mother. Neither offer much room for intrigue if you’re a seasoned Lupin fan. Once upon a time in the original manga we would see Lupin shoot to kill constantly until Monkey Punch quite literally just seemed to change his mind on this. When he wrote the famous story with the doppelganger he suddenly has Lupin becoming depressed over being framed for murder, I don’t know what sparked this change, it’s honestly hilarious how it presents itself. Since then, while you can make the argument he kills in self-defense, he doesn’t have the same ruthless energy of his manga counterpart. None of Lupin’s anime iterations come across like a man who’d kill to get what he wants. And when it comes to Tomoe’s arc, the truth is Lupin’s origins have always been intentionally vague and I don’t expect that to ever change. All we need to know is his grandfather is Arsene Lupin I, his father is Arsene Lupin II, and he is French-Japanese. The manga did once have an arc about Lupin as a teenager, but it isn’t good and nobody has tried working that into the anime. The same can be said for the manga having Jigen be his childhood friend, though Monkey Punch never explored that and left it as a single line of dialogue. So our two biggest arcs in the series are ones that want me to suspend my disbelief enough to think Lupin could have killed Watson and that we’re meeting his mother. I’m sorry, I just can’t do that. The episodes are still amusing and serve as good entertainment, but they should have had their mysteries concern something that actually feels in line with the franchise as I know it. To a new fan who picked this up as their first Lupin anime, maybe it hits differently. What I’m trying to provide is the perspective of someone who’s aware of the tricks up TMS’s sleeve and they never fooled me.
With the episodic portions of the anime, there are some really great episodes to be found. Two of them were written by none other than Mamoru Oshii. I loved his episodes, despite him not being in the director’s chair you can tell this is his work. Personally I’m not very attached to Oshii as a director, but I was immediately curious to see what he would do here. He even got to incorporate elements of his Lupin film from the 80s that never happened. There are fans who’ve criticized these episodes for being exposition heavy and lacking cohesion with the rest of the anime, and that’s valid. Both are dialogue driven, somewhat confusing, and feel like Oshii abandoning any sense of tonal consistency for the sake of his own vision. This feels like the very reason why his film was cancelled all those years ago and replaced with “The Legend of the Gold of Babylon”. But I can’t deny that I still appreciated them and consider the episodes among Part VI’s highlights. Other episodes I liked were the solo episode for Jigen, the one about the railway ticket, the two part story where Lupin seems to have traveled back to the 1930s, the episode where a woman behind a specialized security system is just a wild Lupin fangirl, and the one about a girl who creates her own story based off of watching the Lupin gang from afar. Some episodes in this anime were written by acclaimed Japanese mystery writers like Kanae Minato and Masaki Tsuji, and they did a really fantastic job. Unfortunately I did think the episodes reserved for Goemon and Fujiko’s characters, while fine, were disappointing compared to other episodes they’ve received in past installments. More than that though these one off episodes would hit in the midst of the major arcs which could throw off the momentum those stories had. I think Part IV handled this better because they still kept Rebecca around to help make things feel less fragmented. Those blue jacket episodes may not have meant much by the end of the story it was trying to tell, but we still had the presence of this new character to ground them and help us grow attached to her in the process. I even think Part V had the better idea of giving us multiple mini arcs with episodic adventures in between until it culminates in an arc bringing all the players together. And honestly it is an easy fix to make, just rearrange the order of the episodes and the pacing is fixed. Part VI does try to connect the women they encounter in these episodes back to Tomoe in the end, but I feel like that shouldn’t have come at the expense of the anime’s flow. If I’m being very honest I sometimes wish this anime was purely episodic with a new mystery each week instead of this clumsy attempt at recapturing IV’s format.
As far as the characters go our main cast is still a delight, though altered in some cases to suit the tone of the anime. Lupin is still Lupin, he’s the sly thief with a chronic smirk though more restrained compared to earlier incarnations. By now I think TMS has settled on a way to characterize him and it works. Lupin’s not an uncontrollable womanizer to the degree he was in the 70s, yet he still feels like himself thanks to his roguish charm. Jigen feels in line with the more mature writing the character received in IV and V, another decision that I think suits him. Akio Ostuka’s performance successfully captures Jigen’s wisdom as well as his natural sarcasm and inability to tolerate foolishness. Goemon though, if this is your only impression of Goemon Ishikawa XIII then I don’t think you don’t know what makes him such a great character. The sad truth is I felt he was really underused throughout Part VI, more so than he was in Part IV. His behavior throughout isn’t out of character, but I don’t know if he leaves as much of an impact as he should. In the show Fujiko is also underused in my opinion, however she was a major feature in some of my favorite episodes this time around. Oshii wrote her shockingly well and the episode about the girl writing her story did an effective job at presenting Fujiko’s natural charm. You watch it and you can understand why a stranger would be taken in and write this elaborate story based off seeing her at a distance. Zenigata is written in the same vein as his counterparts in IV and V, it’s something that works and I enjoy watching him this way. I like that we have a balance between the two extremes of his character, it doesn’t feel as though we sacrificed anything. His partner Yata is back, voiced by Nobunaga Shimazaki, and while I still question his greater purpose it was good seeing him do more this time around. Albert also returns from Part V, unfortunately its brief. I would like to see a new special with him as a prominent character, Kenjiro Tsuda is terrific and I want more of him in this role. The new additions like Holmes, Moriarty, Tomoe, and Ari, they’re fine. I definitely think Moriarty should have had more presence considering Akira Ishida voiced him, it really is a pity. But the new characters as a whole are okay and at least I can say they aren’t as dull as Nix from Part IV.
Visually I think the anime could have been a lot stronger. The color palette is muted in a way that didn’t work for me and the character designs were good, but also not my favorite. Lupin looks nice, it feels refreshing seeing him in green again given its my favorite jacket. However this design feels eclipsed by how amazing he looked in the blue era. Jigen is very comparable to his other recent incarnations, in fact I’d argue it’s very much the same design he’s had for a decade now. I do like when he’s drawn this way regardless and recognize that Jigen has a very specific look so similarities through the years feel inevitable. Zenigata is also similar to his recent designs and it suits the way he’s written. But then we get to Goemon. After how amazing he looked in Part V I was disappointed in how this anime made him look. This is still better than how he looked during pink jacket, but I don’t think that’s saying much. If I had to fix one thing about his design I’d change the shape of his hair to be more like how Yasuo Otsuka drew him. Fujiko looks lovely though. This isn’t her sexiest design, but it also isn’t her most demure. I’m reminded of the way Takeshi Koike designed her for “The Woman Called Fujiko Mine”, though with softer lines. But how is the animation? It’s alright. It honestly feels like a step backwards knowing how great the last two did. The CGI cars didn’t bother me, what bothers me more is how stiff everything felt. Some episodes are very static and the characters look off model a few too many times. There are good cuts of course, but they feel few and far between this time around.
Musically things are as great as ever. Yuji Ohno is someone who’s praises I can’t sing enough. I don’t have the musical knowhow to best communicate why his arrangements work, I just can tell it’s what Lupin needs. Lupin would not be Lupin without a big jazz band behind him. This new rendition of the main theme is terrific, I love the way he worked in electric guitar. And it’s one of those versions where you hear voices sing “WOW!” during the opening, I think that adds some great energy to the track. Our two closings follow in the grand tradition of music set to footage of Fujiko, barring pink jacket anyway, the first is an upbeat track called “Milk Tea” while the second is a moody jazz number called “Bitter Rain”. Between the two I prefer “Bitter Rain”, it creates a great sense of atmosphere. Among the new tracks some that I really enjoyed were “Lost in Thoughts”, “Sweet Florist”, “Foggy Love – in the dream”, “Tornado 2021 – trace of the past”, and “Escape Through”. For returning tracks we have the classics. We have “Magnum Dance”, and I squealed every time I heard it. And, naturally, we got to hear “Love Theme”. No matter how many times I hear that song I am always going to feel swept away. Those classic tracks have more than proven their timelessness and the new material Ohno produces shows he still has it in him.
Looking back on this review it’s a lot more critical than I expected. The truth is in some ways this anime did feel inferior to other versions we recently got. However, it did take me seeing Part V for a third time to have it really click for me so maybe after giving Part VI another shot I’ll see something new in it that makes it all work. Some installments in this franchise required me revisiting them to fully appreciate what they did. Part VI isn’t perfect and it isn’t the bright, lighthearted tone in that I tend to favor. Regardless, I am happy it exists in the form that it has. I love seeing different interpretations of this classic setup. And no matter what happens I know there is more to come. Sure maybe this anime will never reach the same heights as my favorite Lupin adventures, but maybe someday something else will. We’re now in our fifth decade with Lupin, we’ve moved so far from where Monkey Punch first took us, and there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon. Most anime from the 70s remain relics of the past, but not this one. Sure, Lupin could have been swallowed with the times as Miyazaki once put it. But because people continue to find new ways to create for the franchise that never happened. You’re not old, you’re a classic. And I love you for it.