Lupin the 3rd: Part III 41
Lupin III Part 3 41
ルパン三世 – Part III Ep. 41

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Lupin learns of a pending coup d’état in a Caribbean (?) nation. As such, Jigen disguises himself as coup leader, Colonel Arnold. He renders the real colonel unconscious so that Lupin and Goemon can come in and steal the current dictator’s treasure during the chaos of the coup. A women enters the elevator with the disguised Jigen and shoots him. Meanwhile, Lupin and Goemon find the current leader is already dead from poisoning. Further, his secret vault is already empty.

Lupin and Goemon escape, assuming Jigen is okay. The coup goes on and destroys the presidential residence. The real Colonel Arnold imposes martial law and wants the president’s secretary, Domingo, captured. Fujiko, as a reporter, attempts to interview Arnold, who dismisses her. Meanwhile, the wounded Jigen goes to a bar, where the woman is. She becomes greatly concerned when Colonel Arnold shows up.

When the colonel leaves, she attempts to shoot him. Jigen has to come to her rescue, but Goemon has to bail both out. At an abandoned church, Jigen learns that Ann (Anita) is from Czechoslovakia. She wants to return home despite what the Soviets did to it. Jigen figures that Domingo is Ann’s partner. As such, Jigen tells her to return to the bar.

At the same time, Arnold has captured Domingo. He refuses to tell where he hid the stolen treasures. Zenigata interrupts the execution, allowing Lupin’s party to rescue Domingo. However, Domingo escapes to an old, fighter bomber. Lupin follows in an old fighter plane. Goemon cuts the treasure-filled bombs free. Ann realizes she cannot return home, while Lupin’s gang take a cruise ship somewhere.

Thoughts/Review

Wow. Lupin the 3rd: Part III 41 is a case study of writers starting with a great premise, then falling off a cliff ’cause they don’t know how to resolve anything.

Amazing Start

I gotta say, Lupin the 3rd: Part III 41 grabbed me right out of the gate when this mysterious girl shoots the disguised Jigen. Then Goemon and Lupin discover that the treasure they are after is already gone. Adding to the mix is the ongoing coup d’état. Not only that, but the injured Jigen is cut off from Lupin and Goemon. As such, this episode gets off to a really good start.

The episode continues to be interesting when Jigen finds Ann (or Anita) in the bar. She sees the real Colonel Arnold. While she cannot understand why the man she shot appears to be unharmed, she goes to shoot him again. She fails and has to be rescued by Jigen, but that’s cool too. Further, I loved that Goemon needed to save Jigen and Ann. Yes, he’s a deus ex machina component, but that’s in line with canon.

This allows Ann to reveal why she’s doing this. I really liked that her motives weren’t revenge. After the Soviets killed her parents and she fled from Czechoslovakia. Years later, she wants to go home. Domingo offered her a way to do this if she killed the leader of the coup. As such, I could easily buy that a desperate person could get talked into killing a coup leader.

Falling Off a Cliff

After such a good start, Lupin the 3rd: Part III 41 falls off the cliff when Zenigata shows up. Somehow, Zenigata not only shows up on a military installation, but he interrupts an execution, just because “Lupin.” So rather than come up with an intelligent way (using the normal Lupin III methods) to have Lupin save Domingo, the writers descend to cartoon buffoonery, using the old conflict between Lupin and Zenigata.

The next level of writer fail is Domingo’s escape. Apparently, Colonel Arnold didn’t feel it was important to secure the capital’s airfield. As such, Domingo is able to store all this treasure inside a couple of bombs, attached to an old, prop fighter-bomber. We don’t know how he accomplished this, but fine. The airfield should have been secured.

What really sank the episode for me was what happened next. Assuming Domingo was always going to ditch Ann, there’s no proper resolution as to what happens to him. After Goemon slices up the plane and bombs, we see Domingo parachute out. I suppose he isn’t important. However, Ann is important to me. So why does Jigen abandon her? She was there at the airfield. Why not take her with them?

Then there’s Lupin’s escape. We don’t even know that they got the treasure. I presume that’s what happened since we next see Lupin’s gang on a luxury cruise ship. But how did that happen? No cruise ship is going to dock at a war torn nation. And with martial law in place, it seems like Lupin’s gang would have a difficult time escaping, especially with a treasure hoard.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Lupin the 3rd: Part III 41 starts off strong, but ends in a pathetic manner.