Lupin the 3rd: Part III 36
Lupin III Part 3 36
ルパン三世 – Part III Ep. 36

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon steal the (Falcon) Eagle of Helazard under Zenigata’s nose on a luxury cruise ship. Fujiko arrives, but rather than save them, she takes the statue for herself and deposed Prince Fallon. The prince believes that restoring the eagle that makes up the hilt of the sword a statue in the royal palace holds will help him take back the throne and end the military dictatorship from Colonel Tolfa. Fallon’s advisers are concerned about his plans to restore the kingdom.

Fujiko and Fallon manage to breach the palace. However, Lupin covertly tags along to get the eagle back. Tolfa’s troops, backed by Zenigata, arrive to arrest them. Jigen arrives with a helicopter to rescue them, but the prince gets left behind. Tolfa sends the military to find Lupin. He eludes them, but gets captured by Fallon’s forces. Fujiko decides she’s going to save Fallon, so Lupin decides to help.

Lupin uses radar decoys to confuse the military. His gang gets back to the palace, where Lupin releases rats to chew through the castle’s computer cables. The automated guns cause massive damage, allowing Lupin, Fujiko, and Fallon to return the eagle. However, the statue turns out to be Zenigata in disguise. He tries to arrest Lupin, but gets frustrated when Tolfa announces he’s going to kill everyone.

The prince risks his life to return the eagle to the statue. This causes the statue to glow and lightning to electrocute Tolfa. The prince is restored to power. He encourages Fujiko to rejoin Lupin’s gang since she craves adventure.

Thoughts/Review

Lupin the 3rd: Part III 36 was an episode that did nothing for me. For a start, I never once believed that Fujiko fell for Prince Fallon. You can’t write rubbish like that and expect viewers who’ve watched Lupin III for ages now to buy it. Everyone knows that the status quo must be maintained. The only way such a story would work is if Fujiko stayed with the prince, and future episodes showed her slowly start chaffing at the lack of excitement that hanging with Lupin provided.

The whole infiltration of this castle fortress was remarkably easy. I’m rolling my eyes at this. Meanwhile, Lupin and Fujiko loudly blather on at each other, without a care in the world. Then Fujiko and Fallon ran to each other. Of course they’d get captured because of that level of stupidity. I’ll be honest, I thought someone would get shot though.

Then there’s Zenigata. Not sure why he thought working with a military dictator would be a good move. Unfortunately, his character is written to be a dumb, single-focused individual who can’t see the bleeding obvious.

Finally, there’s the whole eagle/statue thing. I still don’t know how the eagle got separated from the statue. I don’t know why replacing the eagle caused the statue to “power up” and then summon lightning on the dictator, allowing the prince to regain power. Ugh. I was glad when the episode was done.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Lupin the 3rd: Part III 36 is a mindless, tedious episode that maybe with better writing, could have been interesting.