Lupin the 3rd: Part III 38
Lupin III Part 3 38
ルパン三世 – Part III Ep. 38

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

In Denmark, Goemon gets arrested and railroaded for allegedly cutting the arm off the Little Mermaid statue. However, it is a ploy by the Chief of the Copenhagen Tourist Bureau (Norman) to get Lupin retrieve the arm from a ship that sank. Norman is embarrassed that a tourist initially stole the arm. Lupin employs a female dolphin named Leticia. She is equipped with a mic and camera, and can “speak” to Lupin via other tech.

While Lupin continues the search, Goemon rots in prison. Zenigata is convinced that Lupin will spring Goemon, so he sets up camp near the prison. Fujiko arrives on a sailboard, offering to help. She attempts seduction to win him over, but a jealous Leticia gets in the way. The dolphin finds the arm while Zenigata gets suspicious and demands to see Goemon. In the prison, Norman’s aide, Walace, pretends to help Zenigata, but instead, helps Goemon to escape.

Norman returns Goemon to Lupin. However, Lupin thinks something else is in the arm. Fujiko comes in on a glider and steals it. To make matters worse, Goemon’s gifted natto contains a bomb that blows up Lupin’s boat. She meets up with Wallace, who reveals that the Mermaid’s Heart jewel was in the arm. Leticia captures this information for Lupin. She attacks, but Wallace has a heavy net bullet in his revolver and snares the dolphin.

At an aquarium, Wallace turns on Fujiko. However, Norman arrives, wanting a piece of the action. Lupin, via Leticia, makes his presence known. Lupin, Goemon, and Jigen steal the jewel and set Leticia free. However, when they emerge at the ocean, Zenigata is waiting. Lupin agrees to marry Leticia in exchange for her help with Zenigata. Fujiko again steals the diamond on a jet ski. Leticia snags Lupin to marry him.

Thoughts/Review

I have to believe that the writers of Lupin the 3rd: Part III 38 said, “We’re going to write some absurd crap, no matter how dumb it is, just because we can.” Right out the gate, the illogical railroading of Goemon, and the public sentiment against him made no sense. Other than Goemon’s sword, there’s zero evidence he cut off the statue’s arm.

Further, his arrest was idiotic. They happened to have a special cage installed in the ceiling of a Japanese restaurant, just to make the arrest? What? And then the cage with Goemon in it is dumped into a pit in the prison. Again, what the heck? At this point, I’ve checked out of the episode.

Then we discover making Goemon a scapegoat was just to get Lupin involved in a salvage operation to recover said arm from a sunken ship. Even if Norman wanted to officially avoid the embarrassment of the arm’s loss, you wouldn’t have a thief retrieve the arm. You’d get salvage experts to do it. But, considering Norman was a corrupt, government official, maybe it does make sense. 🙄

Finally, there’s the whole dolphin part of the story. First, how does Lupin convince some marine park to let him “borrow” a dolphin to retrieve the arm? And then conveniently, Lupin and the Dolphin are able to communicate. Not only that, but this dolphin wants to marry Lupin. My head hurts.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Lupin the 3rd: Part III 38 with some final thoughts.

• I’m so bored with the nonstop Fujiko betraying Lupin plot elements. What makes it worse is how stupid Lupin is to be conned by this so many times. It would be more interesting if Lupin played Fujiko by just playing along.
• Zenigata’s role here is just out of a requirement for him to be in the episode. He does intelligent stuff, but ultimately, it is meaningless.
• How the smeg does a revolver fire a large, heavy net to snare a dolphin? 🙄

In the end, Lupin the 3rd: Part III 38 made me lose IQ points due to its extreme stupidity.