Lupin the 3rd: Part II 13
Lupin III Part 2 13
ルパン三世 – 新シリーズ Ep. 13
Lupin Sansei Shin Series
Lupin III New Series

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Lupin and Jigen easily infiltrate NASA Lab #7 in San Fransisco to steal a microfilm on how to create perfect, artificial diamonds as well as the test faux diamond. However, they discover the microfilm isn’t there, only the fake diamond. As such, a frustrated Lupin decides to find the people who stole it in order to steal the microfilm back and destroy it.

Elsewhere in San Fransisco, a depressed Zenigata keeps hallucinating about Lupin. That night in his cheap hotel, the thieves break in, render Zenigata unconscious, then perform dental surgery on him to implant the microfilm in one of his teeth. When they report back to their boss, they spill the beans to the disguised Lupin.

Meanwhile, Zenigata visits a shrink about his depression. After a session, he feels better, but when the real Lupin confronts him, Zenigata panics. He steals a taxi and flees. Lupin pursues, until Jigen causes Zenigata to crash. Zenigata continues to flee, stealing stuff along the way. Eventually, he steals a tractor and ends up in the ocean.

The thieves grab Zenigata on their boat, but Lupin gets the upper hand after seeing Fujiko betrayed him. Fujiko switches sides again, but the unconscious Zenigata wakes enough to sneeze the microfilm out into the water. Upon seeing Lupin, Zenigata decides to resume his life’s work and pursue Lupin.

Thoughts/Review

I’ve seen some dumb entries in the Lupin III franchise. Lupin the 3rd: Part II 13 has to rank high amongst the dumbest of the lot. I’m going to ignore the fact that NASA never had a facility in San Francisco. Heck, up until the third password sequence, I had no problem with how Lupin and Jigen got through the various security checkpoints. Though I question why Lupin would have to break into a locker if he had stolen credentials, including some sort of facial recognition system.

In 1977, it wasn’t widely known that diamonds are a dime a dozen. De Beers helped instill in the mind of the public things even today, keep diamond prices high. With that in mind, the premise of Lupin not wanting a method to easily produce diamonds that were indistinguishable from the “real” ones is understandable.

What didn’t work for me is these villains who stole the microfilm. Why not take the prototype diamond as well? Further, how’d Lupin suddenly know who’d stolen the microfilm when they were a mystery earlier? Why on Earth would anyone think that two thugs could do dental surgery on Zenigata to hide the microfilm? That was just insanely stupid beyond belief.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Lupin the 3rd: Part II 13 is a dumb, forgettable episode.