Lupin the Third Part 6 – 23
Lupin III Part 6 23
ルパン三世 PART6

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Zenigata plays the recording from Ari. One phrase triggers him. As a result, he is able to fend off Zenigata, Goemon, and Jigen. Mattea arrives to assist him as she wants Lupin to find Tomoe so that Mattea can kill her. As Lupin drives his bus away, he has dream-like flashes of being an adult and talking with Tomoe. Jigen and Goemon head to London and have a meeting with Moriarty. He has reasons for wanting to help the pair.

Elsewhere, Zenigata repeatedly visits Mercedes in prison. Eventually, he works out the location in Japan where Tomoe likely is. Meanwhile, Fujiko finds a depressed Lupin sitting in a darkened ally in the rain. She attempts to reach him, even giving him a passionate kiss, but to no avail. Sometime later, Goemon and Fujiko find the apartment Lupin was at, only to discover Fujiko in the shower.

After giving Fujiko a hard time about chasing Lupin, the three head to the parking garage. They discover Lupin’s Mercedes Benz SSK is missing. In the mean time, Lupin finds an old mansion and enters. He finds an old lady — Tomoe. She explains that she used hypnotism on one of the house maids to make her escape when Lupin was a kid.

Mattea shows up. She shoots Lupin out of the window. Then, she confronts Tomoe. The old lady states that after Lupin rejected her as his mother, even when she’d obtained the truth, she set out on a plan to rectify this. As such, she trained a number of women around the globe since Lupin had become a successful globe trotter with an eye for the ladies. Mattea is angry that her life has been wrecked. However, a bloodied Lupin returns. Mattea decides to use a knife to finish him off.

Thoughts/Review:

We had an interesting, if somewhat convenient plot reveal in Lupin the Third Part 6 – 23.

The Complicated Plan

I never believed Tomoe was actually Lupin’s mother. After watching Lupin the Third Part 6 – 23, I’m even more sure this is not his mother. Mainly, it is due to how the writers are desperate to point us in that direction that makes me think, “Yeah, not going there.” Further, a long running franchise like Lupin III lives on the status quo. While we have seen some shift from that in recent times (Rebecca, Albert), for the most part, it remains true.

That aside, Tomoe is supposedly Lupin’s mother. And, she had the proof. BUT, Lupin rejected her when Tomoe was attempting to make her flight from the Lupin estate. Thus, Tomoe went around the globe, found young women, brainwashed them to be assassins or whatever, then waited for Lupin to encounter them all and thus be triggered to return to Tomoe. Hahahahahaha! 😂

Seriously, this plan depends on sheer luck. Lupin has to go to the right countries, encounter the right girls (all of them, apparently), and then Lupin’s conditioning will be unlocked. Laughably, the writers attempting to tie in all of the one-shot, unrelated stories in the second half of this series to the main plot, using this scheme. So for example, Fujiko only reconnected with her (German?) friend Amelia, just so she could say something that Lupin would hear as part of the triggering process. Rubbish.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Egad…too busy. Need to wrap up review of Lupin the Third Part 6 – 23.

• I’m not convinced Lupin is still triggered at the end. I do think he went after this Tomoe lady at some point and she got the upper hand on him. And I suspect the trigger was just so he would do some job for her. Still, it was different seeing Lupin so negatively affected by all of this.
• Speaking of Lupin, it was interesting to see Fujiko pursuing him for a change. I do wish Lupin III writers would put more interest into Fujiko’s and Lupin’s relationship with each other.
• If Mattea’s motivation was to kill Tomoe, why assassinate the politician Hazel?
• Finally, the writers make a reason for Moriarty to have appeared at the end of the Sherlock Holmes arc.

In the end, Lupin the Third Part 6 – 23 was an interesting episode to be sure. We’ll see how things conclude.