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Jan 13, 2012 3:00 AM
#1

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Sep 2008
7062
THIS IS AN ANIME ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS THE MANGA BEYOND THIS EPISODE.
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The music in this special was probably one of the best, probably because they had a singer character in the character cast. I think it really fit well and the ending was peacefully quaint. What bums me out is that they had superb new female characters and did not use them to their fullest ability... sigh.

Poor Goemon though.
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Jan 5, 2014 3:58 PM
#2

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Jun 2010
1873
Some somewhat interesting things in here; this is actually the nastiest Lupin has been in a very long time. He uses fraud and outright lies to deliberately take everything Cynthia has for the sake of doing so and uninvolved people like the oil-rig workers suffer for it. He mocks the henchman-type character's frustration over his dreams being ruined. That henchman's desire to marry Cynthia seems to be unexpectedly genuine as he bristles at Lupin kissing her and finds time to call her "the greatest woman" in his final confrontation with Lupin.

It's kind of neat for this special's leading lady to be the villain from the very beginning and potentially fascinating for Lupin's typical flirtatious relationship with the leading lady to be antagonistic and destructive in nature, like a distorted reflection of his untrustworthy but easygoing relationship with Fujiko.

It doesn't work that well, though. Too much of Lupin's relationship with Cynthia rides on his "stolen kiss", and maybe I wasn't paying enough attention because I thought this was kind of dull, but I can't really remember why Lupin was motivated to "war" with Cynthia like he did. Lupin's investment fraud is also not really much fun to watch play out.

Some other problems are the pointlessness of the "Lupin is dead" part of the film and how little screen-time the second new female character, Sandy, gets. Why end the film with so much focus on her when she's been on screen for less than five minutes? In general I think the pacing is off, too, and makes this film a bit of a bore.
Oct 28, 2015 12:19 PM
#3

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May 2008
163
It was boring and repetitive.
Jigen couldn't have said it better:
May 15, 2016 5:40 PM
#4
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May 2016
1
Can anyone help me with some English in "Missed by a dollar". At 20min24 sec, after "Hold on, man", what is Jigen saying?
Jun 21, 2016 9:17 AM
#5

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Apr 2013
197
I can't help but think about Syria and "Arab spring" when the Big Bads talk about wheaking havoc in the Middle-East oil-rich countries
Jul 12, 2019 9:08 PM
#6
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Jul 2018
564072
Its decent. Main weakness is that it tries to do too many things. Could have been more focused and simple then it easily could had potential to being another great special. And the story was few amount of plot holes and luck out there. Overall its no near boring though but the plot starts too late as well.
Still there were many scenes I liked how they were executed like how Lupin's fake death wasn't shown over-dramatic and then we could see realistically only Zenigata seems to only caring too much than his gangs (lol). This way its refreshing how it feels like without Lupin around. There were many other. Also the "Lupin girl" wasn't that typical as many other previous special but kinda wished the story could have taken very different turn instead of war thingy. The last scene with Cynthia was cool but again wished the story really could been very different..

Jul 15, 2019 8:28 AM
#7

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Sep 2011
2632
My first time watching the first Lupin III Special of the 2000s, and it was good. Cynthia wasn't the usual antagonist, for one she was a woman. A competent business woman, who was cunning and powerful. She was planning on dragging the whole world into war so she could profit from it. She was terrible, but Lupin totally destroyed her. She was tricked and ended up as a penniless prisoner. And it must have stinged too, since she even fell for him after that stolen kiss. Lupin is usually more forgiving with women as well, so it felt fresh to see him walking away, and leaving her there like that without even giving her the brooch or something.

Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko were great here too. Even though Jigen let his Magnum fall, Goemon was tricked by that 'religious' girl, and Fujiko lost an insane amount of money twice with bad, and stupid investments. Even so I liked their dynamic here, it's not everyday you see Fujiko saving Goemon during a fight either. But I would have loved if they had more time to shine while Lupin was "dead." Nabikov was kind of pitiful too, and not the usual hired killer either. Well, at least he was also in love (or obsessed) with Cynthia so there was another side to him. And I guess that Zenigata recovered his position after arresting Cynthia, and he did provide some funny moments too. Oh, and Sandy was cool, I loved the songs and the fact that Lupin gave the brooch to her, but her parts still felt a bit disconnected somehow.
Oct 21, 2020 8:46 AM
#8

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Nov 2012
4710
Love gritty Lupin specials like this and Walther P38 so I adored this. Admittedly it does have some short comings but I choose to ignore them here and just go with the flow which made me like this special much more.

Cynthia was one fine ass business woman too.

Pretty great Lupin special for the turn of the century imo.

Some more images:
https://imgur.com/a/YlfUccz
VarendantsOct 21, 2020 8:52 AM
Oct 26, 2021 3:53 AM
#9
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Apr 2021
84
Idk what to say.Maybe it is my bad english -I watched it with sub-but un the middle of it I totally missed the actions.I dirn't understand much about the situation😅I hoped there will be a "bad romance" between Cynthia and Lupin .And there was but it didn't turn out that way as I wanted.I was suprised seeing Lupin's full mean side or whatever.But he still did it in more badass way than Fujiko does every time with her betrayal.It wasn't even funny or awkward as Fujiko's actions.I think the girls are used for nonsense thing too.But don't tell me ,Lupin did everything during max 2 minutes with the make-up in the church!It is the "best of the best" particularity for real :/ So I liked the first half but if alcatraz connection is a middle-leveled like this too ,I don't think I will like that...
It’s time to ditch the text file.
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