Lupin the 3rd: Part 1 13
ルパン三世
Lupin III Episode 13

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Lupin nearly wrecks his car one night, attempting to avoid a man in the road. The man introduces himself as MAMOU Kyousuke. He states that Lupin will disappear in four days. Lupin picks up Jigen to carry out a heist to steal a gold statue. In typical fashion, Lupin has informed the owner of the statue, thus Zenigata is on the case. However, Lupin pulls a fast one on Zenigata as Lupin disguises himself as the real owner.

Lupin’s win is short-lived when the time traveling Mamou causes the statue to vanish. Mamou explains that in the future, Lupin XIII will wipe out the Mamou family. Thus Mamou has returned to the past to prevent that from happening. Lupin tries blowing this off, but Jigen and Goemon decide to do some research, which backs up part of Mamou’s story. Lupin returns to the castle where he stole the statue to challenge Mamou. However, Mamou refuses and causes the castle to vanish by going back to the past and killing the builder.

A worried Lupin asks Fujiko out and she accepts. Mamou continues to jack with Lupin. As such, Lupin proposes instant marriage to Fujiko, and she accepts. However, before the marriage can be formalized, Mamou sends Fujiko to the past. Back at the hideout, Lupin pulls a prank on Jigen and Goemon to see if they’d miss him. Pleased with the results, Lupin then sets out to con Mamou.

Mamou grants Lupin two wishes. His first wish is to pick the ancestor Mamou will eliminate, named Jirokichi. Lupin’s second wish is to have Fujiko returned to the present. Mamou agrees, but when he returns with Fujiko, he sees the farmer Jirokichi. It is Lupin in disguise. As such, he, Jigen, and Goemon take advantage of the situation to destroy Mamou’s time machine. Fujiko shows up in a wedding dress and drags Lupin to church.

Thoughts/Review

There were some interesting things that happened in Lupin the 3rd: Part 1 13. One I didn’t expect.

Time Machine Foe

One of the interesting elements of Lupin the 3rd: Part 1 13 is that Lupin’s foe has a time machine. I’m not sure why Mamou decided to come back to the past to punish Lupin III for the fall of the Mamou family by Lupin XIII. One would think Mamou’s ire would be against Lupin XIII for something that happened in Mamou’s future. That aside, removing the entire Lupin family line would seem to solve the problem.

While this episode introduces the element of time travel, it also introduces the inherent problems that come with time travel. For example, Mamou caused the castle that Lupin and Jigen infiltrated in order to steal the statue to disappear. How? By killing the person who made the castle. And yet Lupin and Jigen remember everything. But if there was never a castle, then they couldn’t have done a heist there and thus couldn’t have memories. We have to put this into the “wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey” element of time travel and move on. 😅

The resolution to the story was a stretch to me. Not sure how Mamou could so easily be fooled into thinking 1972 Japan was actually 1850 Japan, even in the countryside.

The surprising element from the episode came from Fujiko. For a start, she actually agreed to marry Lupin after spending time on the town with him. I know this series has revealed that Fujiko does love Lupin, but I still didn’t expect her to agree to marry him. Then at the end of the episode, Fujiko drags Lupin to the church to finish their aborted wedding. I really didn’t expect that. Sadly, this was mostly done for a joke as Lupin flees Fujiko for the first time.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review with some final thoughts.

• Zenigata returns after an extended absence. Unfortunately, his role is pretty much the usual, “Don’t underestimate Lupin” speech, followed by Lupin putting one over on him.
• Goemon also returns after an extended absence. He kinda just shows up midway through the episode.

In the end, Lupin the 3rd: Part 1 13 was an interesting episode to me, even if some of the time travel elements don’t quite work. And we have the surprising element of Fujiko wanting to marry Lupin.