By no means is this irredeemable like everyone might think. I kind of enjoyed it, but it did feel like the most by-the-numbers Lupin III TV special. The biggest glaring issue with Goodbye Partner is that it feels like leftover Lupin III Part V plot that was never used, instead of feeling like a fresh adventure. It even uses technology in the same way as Part V, and it's so evident that this is was most certainly a part of the series that was scrapped. At the back of my mind, I kept thinking you could replace someone like Ami from the TV series with the girl in this one (Emily), and you wouldn't have to change much for it to fit the story. The main plot with the Emily being the center of everything and Jigen's betrayal was really anticlimactic and uninteresting. Keeping in mind I've seen this young-girl-gets-saved done in Part IV, V, and even some of the movies like Cagilostro. It's a tired Lupin III plotline that's kind of starting to wear out its welcome as time passes. Emily even looks like a reskin of the main girl from Beyond the Boundary, and Emilika's Japanese voice is straight-up just Vocaloid's Hatsune Miku, which seemed like it was just there to pander to modern otaku culture. Admittedly it's entertaining as it stays true to the series' portrayal of its characters, even in the animation, besides the CGI fingers, but it tries so hard to mix things up before doing a universe reset. I just didn't find Emily the least bit compelling, and the story of Jigen should've been a contained episode or a much shorter special specific to him. If you want a more gripping Jigen story you're better off watching the Woman Called Fujiko Mine sequel films that have much better atmosphere. This means that as a Lupin-centric adventure, Goobye Partner falls flat.

Parts of this movie feel like random episodes meshed together to fit an overarching plot that mainly feels disjointed that has me wondering if it was trying to be satirical or serious. I'd also like to point out that Edward Snowden and Hillary Clinton were in here for some reason, and it really felt like it was supposed to be those one-off appearances in the TV series, which they should have been, mainly for Clinton. In a special like this, they were kind of irrelevant to the overall plot, so their inclusion felt obnoxiously shoehorned in. The last half of this special somehow gets focused on governments equipped with armies of drones, that would make any Ubisoft executive throw down money for an open-world Lupin III game. Overall, the stakes didn't feel very high, and the tension was barely there as it back peddles on Jigen's betrayal. The entire thing goes on for way too long, constantly getting lost in a plot that never really resonated with me. Goodbye Partner is a good watch if you like Lupin III series, it just isn't going to surprise you. If you're already familiar with a majority of the series, it'll let you down, and as a movie, it misses the mark in being a grand-scale adventure.