Lupin the 3rd: Part III 37
Lupin III Part 3 37
ルパン三世 – Part III Ep. 37

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Lupin and Jigen break into a prison to spring Carlos, who’d previously betrayed Lupin on a heist and kept all the gold. However, the old man is dead, and the request to get him out of jail was the dying man’s ploy. Zenigata appears, so Lupin and Jigen manage to escape. While in pursuit, Zenigata accidentally snags a young woman named Ann. She pleads for Zenigata to avenge her as Lupin stole her family heirloom, causing her father to kill himself and her mother to die later.

Meanwhile, Lupin and Jigen scope out the Carlos’s funeral. They spot Carlos’s grandson and make contact in the graveyard. He doesn’t know about Carlos’s treasure, but says the priest was Carlos’s friend. The priest is actually Zenigata. Lupin and Jigen only escape, thanks to Goemon. However, Ann intercepts them and shoots at them. Lupin returns fire, hitting Ann. Zenigata arrives and Ann dies in his arms. This enrages Zenigata.

Elsewhere, Carlos’s grandson meets with Fujiko to celebrate their plan. However, the man has the drop on Fujiko, knowing she spiked his drink. Unbeknownst to her, he spiked her drink, knocking her out. The grandson is Ann in disguise. Meanwhile, Zenigata catches Goemon and puts him out of action with a glue bullet to Zantetsuken. He manages to make it back to Lupin and Goemon to report on the situation.

Ann meets Lupin in disguise and sends them on a wild goose chase. She then reports in to Zenigata in disguise. Zenigata has a shootout with Lupin in a football stadium. Lupin appears to die as Jigen and Goemon grab their friend. They head to the graveyard where Lupin, disguised as the grandson, confronts Ann. Carlos’s gravestone is made from the gold. Lupin takes it as Zenigata arrives and learns the truth.

Thoughts/Review

I’m not really a fan of the sex change disguises, but Lupin the 3rd: Part III 37 has them. In general, the disguises Lupin and company often employ require them to have some semblance of a body structure as the person they are disguised as. Body structure wise, Ann and Carlos’s grandson are pretty different. Sure, it works as a twist, but it is a cheat. Thus it makes the twist cheap and a lazy way of hiding things in my opinion.

Nevertheless, I did like this episode since it was one where Zenigata gets focus. We get to see him bring on his A-game, especially in how he handled Goemon. If it weren’t for plot requirements that Lupin escape by hook or crook, Zenigata would have nailed them as well. That’s rather unfortunate as the episode would have rocked with Zenigata forcing Lupin to reach deep to escape.

As it is, the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m not sure why Lupin would acquiesce to a request from someone who stiffed him to spring him out of jail. Even if it is just to find the location of the gold, why go that route?

Then there’s Fujiko, who’s insanely stupid in this episode. Somehow, this Ann chick knew about Carlos’s gold and had to know about his death. How? I suppose she could have been Carlos’s granddaughter, but the episode never says. But Ann, disguised as a man, manages to con Fujiko. The “twist” that the man was actually a woman can explain why Fujiko failed so bad. But again, it is a cheat. The result of which is a lot of faked deaths, except for Carlos, and a lot of false twists.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Lupin the 3rd: Part III 37 has the ingredients for a good episode. But the demands of the plot keep Zenigata from rocking like he should. And the convoluted nature of the attempt to get the hidden heist gold keep the episode from being all that good.