Lupin the 3rd: Part III 16
Lupin III Part 3 16
ルパン三世 – Part III Ep. 16

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Lupin and Jigen infiltrate a luxury liner to steal Eve’s Apple. Zenigata and his ICPO are on board to protect the gold apple, which is owned by obese, teen Prince Adam. Meanwhile, Fujiko works for Prince Adam as his governess. When she makes a move on the apple, Zenigata stops her and follows her to her room. Once she reveals her true identity, Zenigata tries to arrest her, but she stages things so that Prince Adam throws him out.

Meanwhile, Lupin puts on a pirate show in order to use the confusion to steal the apple. Prince Adam proposes to Fujiko, but she turns him down. Lupin gets him to participate in the pirate show, then promises to give Fujiko the apple. However, Zenigata thwarts him, forcing Lupin to abandon this attempt.

After the ship arrives in New York City, Lupin disguises himself as the prince in order to test Zenigata’s security on the apple. Zenigata’s security is quite impressive, so Lupin decides to use the upcoming New York Marathon to his advantage. Elsewhere, Prince Adam scarfs food and promises to do anything to get Fujiko to marry him. Fujiko encourages him to enter the New York Marathon, promising him a kiss if he reaches the finish line.

On the day of the marathon, Lupin redirects the marathon route to go to the secret exhibit where the apple is. In the mayhem, Lupin is able to use the security system against itself and steal the apple. Fujiko goes to get the apple from Lupin, but discovers that its mystical effect is to make people rapidly lose weight. Jigen sees in the paper that Prince Adam won the marathon since he lagged so far behind, he alone followed the actual route.

Thoughts/Review

Lupin the 3rd: Part III 16 is just a dumb episode with gags that aren’t funny. It starts off interesting enough with the shark mini-subs that Lupin and Jigen use to get on board the ship. I didn’t mind that Lupin saved Zenigata’s life, as it was in character for him. But then, Lupin somehow produces an entire pirate show for the ship’s guests to enjoy. Fine, I’ll roll my eyes and go with it.

Then we come to Fujiko, who’s attached herself to Prince Adam. I don’t believe for a second that she’d turn down a marriage proposal from this obese, teen boy (who wears eye shadow for some reason). She’d become a princess and eventually, wealthy queen of a country. However, the story has her turn him down ’cause (if the official subtitles are to be believed), she’s not into boys. As if that element would even matter when it comes to riches.

Where things really fall apart is in the second half of the episode. Zenigata thwarts Lupin on ship, so Lupin hijacks the New York Marathon to achieve his goal of stealing the apple? Ignoring the fact that the marathon has lots of officials and police to keep it going, all of the runners had to be insanely stupid. And yet that’s what they are as they cross a river and scale a massive wall, just to get to the place where the apple was on display.

Then they run through the building like morons so that they can trigger all of Zenigata’s security things, including a laser that goes nuts trying to slaughter everyone (and missing), yet it slices up what it needs to for Lupin to steal the apple. Ugh. I don’t mind gags in Lupin III titles, but this is a bridge too far.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Lupin the 3rd: Part III 16 with some final thoughts.

• I’ve never understood Fujiko refusing to use a disguise or alias. In the first series, she did that once. But in normal form, she takes a governess job as MINE Fujiko. How she manages to score these lucrative jobs with her history is something I’ll never understand.
• No Goemon in this episode.

In the end, Lupin the 3rd: Part III 16 is an episode that starts with promise, but then give up everything in favor of dumb stupidity, assuming this is funny. It wasn’t.