Ginko Hoshikage (星影 銀子, Hoshikage Ginko) is a character of Lupin the 3rd Part 1.
History[]
Ginko works as a hostess in the Atrantis club and is implied to be an underworld crime boss. She is known to smoke a long thin pipe.
Fujiko Mine invited Lupin III, Daisuke Jigen and Goemon Ishikawa XIII to attend the club. When Ginko came to greet them, Lupin and uncharacteristically Jigen who is normally distrusting regarding women was attracted to her. Goemon instead left as he thought that she was fooling them.
In the club, she puts her hand on Jigen's shoulder, shared a drink with him and being drunk as he was laughing tried to carry him and threw him into a chair in a room with the same that happened to Lupin and Fujiko as they sat on the chairs. Closing her eyes, the locks came up from the chairs tying up Lupin, Jigen and Fujiko and she had a devious smile.
As the club closed, Ginko drinks out of a glass and claimed the drink to be delicious. Her henchmen came in and put explosive watches on Lupin, Jigen and Fujiko. The chairs moved towards the wall and the screen came on as she was interested in Lupin's techniques in terms of stealing but claims that she has no match for the watches. She shows them a demonstration of a dummy blowing up while trying to remove the watch and says that the limit is 24 hours before they blow up. Lupin looks at his watch and it is 5 AM. She says that the only way of being free is that to give her a ransom of one billion yen per person as she orders her henchmen to kick them out of the club to gather the money. After getting the money, she will remove the watches.
After getting the three billion yen, Lupin returned to the club along with Jigen and Fujiko to explain the situation as she sat down with her henchmen around. She's heard about the police looking for the money but Lupin claims that it will take three days to deliver her the money to lose the police. After a smoke and being satisfied with her eyes closed, Lupin panicked that it is nearly time before the explosion so she orders one of the henchmen to press a button to uncover the safe, he grabs a machine and flicked the switches causing Lupin, Jigen and Fujiko to be free. Ginko however got her henchmen to hold Fujiko for the next three days while he goes to deliver the money.
Three days after, as they come out of their cars Lupin took Ginko to the warehouse where the money is stored. He opened the door however Ginko asked where is the money, so Lupin knocked some planks of wood disguised as a wall to reveal the three billion yen. Her henchmen was surprised how Lupin hid the money. The money was loaded at the trunk of Ginko's car and in a not bothered way gave Lupin Fujiko back. Fujiko however turned out that she has a share of the money as the kidnapping was staged, betrayed Lupin and went off with Ginko as they drove off.
At the back seat of the car, Ginko and Fujiko are laughing unaware that an explosive was planted underneath the car as Lupin set the explosive at 5 AM to get revenge on Ginko. At 5 AM, the explosive went off destroying the car however the driver, Fujiko and Ginko are still alive. The money floated in the air and they manically laughed together, it went down and she was grabbing the bills unaware that Lupin doctored the money with his face on.
She reappeared in Lupin the 3rd Part 5.
Etymology[]
When translated into English, her name means Silver Starlight. The ko being a feminine suffix.
- The name Ginko means "silver/silver coin/silver paint" (銀) (gin) and "child" (子) (ko).
- Ginko's surname Hoshikage means "star" (星) (hoshi) and "shadow, shade, other side" (影) (kage).
Notes[]
- George Marshall employs a similar technique to her for Lupin in Steal File M123 as in attaching an explosive to their bodies while gathering something that they want.