Anime Review: Lupin III Part V

Whether the Phantom Thief? In a world with a massive smart-device and web-connected-camera, LLM Fueled panopticon, what place is there for the “Leaving a note in advance of the (ultimately successful) theft Phantom Thief”? That’s not just me commenting on the current state of the world, that’s what Lupin III Part V is about. Considering this came out in 2018, this makes it feel weirdly prescient.

Lupin III Part V shifts the story across the Alps from Italy to France. It also ups the gadget quotient and generally makes the story more high tech. Lupin no longer just has his array of low level Bond gadgets, but also has a fair amount of hacking in his arsenal – which he supplements early by bringing a super hacker, Ami, onto the team.

His marks this season includes Cryptocurrency banks, Dark Web shadow markets (with a serial-numbers-filed off version of SilkRoad), before getting into smart devices, social media, AI, and Tech Bros. While a couple of those feel a little “Ripped Straight From the Headlines”, they never seem gratuitous. This is helped by, inspite of being based on particular entities, conceptually none of these went away – different from when Law and Order pulls this.

This season also introduces interstitial episodes set in various past eras of Lupin’s career, particularly Red, Green, and Pink Jacket (mainly serving as shorthand for Parts 1 – 3, no Woman Called Fujiko Mine here). Unlike when this comes up on Part VI, it doesn’t feel self indulgent. This is a story that is very much in dialogue with Lupin’s legacy, and is reflecting on Lupin’s past to find his place in the present and ultimately in the future.

This relates to Lupin’s relationship with Fujiko as well. This feels like the first Lupin series where they really ask the question, literally and figuratively, what are Lupin and Fujiko to each other? Does Lupin view Fujiko as another prize to be stolen, and he desires her because he can’t have her, or is this more serious. It implies, through Fujiko being one of the people asking this question, that the answer from her is more serious, but unfortunately it’s more focused on Lupin’s answer.

This is kinda frustrating, because since Fujiko’s role on the Lupin Crew is as foil and Femme Fatale, she also ends up repeatedly being set up as the Inscrutable Woman. The most she gives as an answer for how she views the relationship is loving the chase, while also being melancholic about it. While I appreciate the complexity, and that they have to present an answer for her that has to square her motivation with approaching 50 years of deeply uneven writing for Fujiko, there’s still an sense that having ovaries and producing estrogen makes someone utterly incomprehensible.

It’s still a really solid Lupin III series. I still consider Part IV to be the better jumping on point, but introducing Past Lupin stories in this season, and making it about his legacy, makes for a good jumping off point for audiences to explore some earlier works. I’m glad I watched this season.

Lupin III Part V is available for streaming on: