- Overview
- Gallery
- Relationships
- Voice Actors
- History
Overview[]
Before Lupin was friends with Jigen, Goemon and Fujiko as well as respect for Zenigata, Lupin did not have any long term associates. In his early days, Piccolo taught him how to become a thief however he was an alcoholic. Lupin had friendly rivalries with Brad and Mark Williams however both ended up dying. He had one off henchmen working for him such as Gan-Tetsu Hammer however since Lupin had his friendships strengthen, he does not require outside help as much. In the manga, Lupin learns thief & assassin skills as a child from his grandfather Arsène Lupin, which whom he greatly dislikes. Arsène made a couple of wills that turned Lupin III into an organ donor for his grandfather should he die first.
Lupin also apparently had a "Lupin Empire" in the early manga, a supposed organization full of henchmen that Lupin could control. It was founded by Arsène Lupin and bundled multiple criminal organizations around the world.[16] However, that concept became increasingly less prevalent and was practically nonexistent by the time Part 1 aired for the first time on Yomiuri TV (if not counting Strange Psychokinetic Strategy) in favor of keeping the focus on the five main characters.
Daisuke Jigen[]
His strongest friendship is with Jigen, whom he hangs out with even though in the early days of the manga, he was more of a hitman and would be willing to kill him. The first job that they did together was a bank job.[17]
In Strange Psychokinetic Strategy, Jigen was apparently a member of the Lupin empire.
His relationship with Jigen in the manga wasn't planned out very well. In his first appearance, Jigen brags that he's the only one that can kill Lupin. Lupin claims that they were childhood best friends, but he treated Jigen like an annoying henchman. Jigen hated that Lupin never listened to him & was always messing around with girls, so he tried to kill him a few times. That would all change when a few volumes later, Jigen is suddenly his partner-in-crime, making the two nearly inseparable. This relationship carries over into the anime. Lupin gives Jigen affectionate terms of endearment once in a while, even while his "fuzzy angel" doesn't appreciate it; in the German dub of Part 1 he calls Jigen "Grumpy Bear", which he doesn't mind, and he nicknames Lupin "Pickle" in return.
In The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, their relationship had a rough start. On his mission to steal a red-winged peacock from a pyramid, he attacked Jigen with fire and shot at him from a sarcophagus. After they're both trapped, they're forced to work together and, after escaping, they start to duel, but call off the fight. He next saw Jigen in trouble, and wasn't going to help him, but pitied him and saved him. In time, they became the inseparable partners they are now.
He's so close to Lupin that even the Internet briefly believed he was Lupin's lover.[18] Lupin found this amusing and teased Jigen about it for a while after.
Goemon Ishikawa XIII[]
In the manga, while his relationship with Goemon was strictly professional, Lupin did occasionally show concern for him, such as when he hugged him tightly after rescuing him from the Nezumi clan in the chapter Strange Bedfellows.
For a long period of time, Lupin and Goemon were enemies. But through the latter half of Part 1 and into Part 2, he relied on Goemon to do the tough jobs on a heist. Often, Lupin will gush over how cool Goemon is.
Fujiko Mine[]
| “ | Well, it's true sometimes she betrays me, but that's part of what makes her cute. | ” |
His relationship with Fujiko tends to vary between series. In Part 1 he was head-over-heels in love with her but acted level-headed when it was convenient to him. Part 1 Episode 1 establishes his surprisingly forgiving attitude towards Fujiko; even though she betrays him so she can have her arrest warrant torn up, he practically melts when she facetiously plants a kiss on him, and looks after her in awe after she runs off. In Part 2, Lupin gushes over Fujiko and would do anything for her despite that she rejects his advances unless it is for her own gain even though in rare occasions he fell out with her. There were times that he missed her either getting depressed or having a doll to have some pleasure. He likes to be cute and flirty with her, and for all of his gropey, boorish, sleazy habits he can even be sexually passive around her.
In some series such as Part III and Part 5, their relationship is more of the background and he is more focused on the task but still cares about her. In Part III, Lupin claims that he is telepathically linked with Fujiko over love, but he was just getting Sindbat's attention.[19]
His relationship in the manga with Fujiko was complicated because Fujiko was almost every woman in the series. But it didn't matter if she was a henchwoman, a rival assassin, a cop, a girlfriend, the relative of one of his victims, or the person who hired him, because he treated them all the same, either attempting to rape her or blackmailing her or accepting sex with her as a form of payment for doing a job.
In Lupin VS the Clone he also tried to rape her, but he was knocked out with drugged food before he could lay his hands on her. Even after rescuing her, he can't help but inappropriately touch her nipple while they both share a kiss.
The moments are rare, although Fujiko is the only one of the gang Lupin has shown his vulnerabilities to, such as when he gently embraced her in a churchyard in Part 1 Episode 13.
Lupin has also been married or attempted to marry Fujiko at least six times. The first time Kyosuke Mamo made her vanish for about an hour and this somehow annulled their vows. In Part 1, Fujiko tried to drag him back to the church but he ran away.[20] Lupin once got her the Hope Diamond as she had a dream of marrying Lupin, but she put him off of the marriage with an ugly mask just to mess with him. In Part 2, they were planning to marry in Switzerland.[21] In Part III, Lupin & Fujiko put on a dummy wedding to distract Zenigata while they escaped prison.[22] Also in Part III, Lupin is engaged to a talking dolphin named Leticia, and got Fujiko's blessing.[23]
In Part 5, it was mentioned that Lupin and Fujiko had a relationship but they split up as they did not find it fun. Still, in Part 5 Episode 24 he shows her his true self to show her how important she is to him. In The Castle of Cagliostro Fujiko mentions to Clarisse that she and Lupin were once lovers, but she walked out on him; even so, in that film their relationship is somewhat amicable, and in their sole scene together he was willing to let her work as long as she could tell him where Clarisse is. In Part III, Fujiko jokes she will marry Lupin on the moon but when he obtains a rocket ship, she immediately tries to skip out on him.[24] The amount of times Fujiko has used the promise of marriage as a reward if he can steal what she wants is innumerable. It will either result in her reneging on the deal after she gets it, or he will accidentally destroy the item, making Fujiko mad. Occasionally it's Lupin who skips out at the last minute.
Monkey Punch compared Lupin and Fujiko's relationship to that of D'Artagnan and Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers. "Not necessarily lovers, not necessarily husband and wife, but more just having fun as man and woman with each other".
Inspector Zenigata[]
| “ | He's too nice to be a cop. | ” |
In the manga, Lupin gets a thrill out of Zenigata chasing him, even though Zenigata doesn't feel the same way.
In the anime series, Lupin's rule of loyalty extends to Inspector Zenigata, who reciprocates by not trying to kill Lupin. Because of Lupin's occasional good nature and respect for Zenigata's determination, the two develop their own dysfuctional bond. Lupin affectionately and teasingly calls the Inspector "Pops", due to the fact that Zenigata appears to be twice Lupin's age, and once in a while treats him like one of the gang. Lupin's vendetta against the Tarantulas in the TV Special Walther P38 was partly due to their shooting and nearly killing Zenigata, as was his rage at the Inspector's apparent death in Part 2 Episode 98 at the hands of Truffaut; additionally in Part 2 Episode 98, he and his gang inadvertently saved him from being roasted alive by retrieving his coffin from the crematorium and stealing it. In The Last Job he also tried to avenge the apparent death of Zenigata, who had merely been knocked out cold by a Fuma ninja. There were times that Lupin saved Zenigata's life and his job at Interpol as he believes that it is not the same without him. It is also shown to be vice versa where Zenigata has cried over Lupin when he has appeared to have died.
His behavior towards Zenigata varies; sometimes he's callous towards him and gleefully watches him suffer, such as in Part 2 Episode 139 where he leaves him for dead in a terminally ill man's body, other times he goes great lengths to stick his neck out for him. Works such as Farewell to Nostradamus have him both placing Zenigata in perilous situations and going out of his way to save him at the same time.
Sometimes their relationship comes off as too intimate to others. When Zenigata arrives to stop Lupin's marriage to Rebecca Rossellini in Part 4, she assumes that Zenigata is Lupin's jealous ex-boyfriend; likewise, while trying to explain his relationship with Lupin to Ami Enan in Part 5, she says she believes that all forms of love are valid and that the story of two lovers on the opposite sides of the law is romantic. Lupin is amused, while Zenigata reacts in a flustered panic. In Lupin VS the Clone, Lupin has a dream about Zenigata posing seductively and shouting at him while Mamo probes his brain.
In the Geneon dub of The Mystery of Mamo, Jigen describes Lupin's relationship with Zenigata as being like that between him and Fujiko, "minus the masochism".
Occasionally the two would form a truce for a short while, usually against a bigger threat. In Castle of Cagliostro, they both team up to uncover the money forgery business that the small country was hiding; in Part 4 Episode Bonus 2, they both stop a speeding train caused by an obsessive fan wanting Rebecca to marry him; in Part 5 Episode 4, they both try to escape the border of the country Lupin was publicly hiding in, to avoid the massive amounts of hitmen coming after him; in The First, Zengiata even helps the Lupin gang take out a small Nazi base. Most of these truces usually have Lupin agreeing to have Zenigata arrest him, but as usual Lupin usually escapes before Zenigata even has the chance to arrest him.
Monkey Punch[]
| “ | Go to hell, Monkey Punch! | ” |
In the manga, Lupin breaks the fourth wall often, addressing his own creator, and has a strong love-hate relationship with him. Often he complains to the author about the scrapes he gets into and the bizarre plot twists each chapter brings. In the chapter The Dream Sequence, he hit Monkey Punch on the head after he found out that everything he had just seen was all another dream and cursed him when the woman he was about to have sex with tore her own skin off, revealing a skeleton inside. In another chapter, he has sex with Monkey Punch while pretending to be his own female secretary.
Tomoe[]
Lupin loved and trusted Tomoe when he was a child, but according to her, on the night of her apparent death, she tried to flee with him but the Young Lupin didn't believe she was his mother. In his adulthood, he had thought her to be dead for years. After learning she was possibly alive, he was anxious to meet her. Lupin initially saw the good in her, but he killed her when he found out her true nature.
Other[]
The manga chapter The Rest is Silence shows he once had a childhood friend, and both fell in love with a wheelchair-bound girl. As young adults, the childhood friend saw Lupin hanging out with the wheelchair-bound woman, and attacked him in a fit of jealousy, causing the death of the woman. When they meet up again, the friend draws on Lupin, and Lupin quickly kills him. He then finds to his shock that his late friend's weapon was unloaded, implying the man wanted to die for getting the woman killed.
In the manga, he had mixed feelings towards his grandfather, who played tricks on him and wanted him for spare organs; he was happy to see him years later anyway. He had a rough relationship with his father, but he loved him, and was in tears when he found out he died in a train crash. He was overjoyed when he found his father alive and well. He had a good relationship with his mother as well, even though she was as cunning and ruthless as her husband. It's not known what happened to them after Lupin was killed by Zenigata and his squad in the final chapter of World's Most Wanted.
Along the series, Lupin finds himself married with multiple persons. In Part 2, he had a sort of shotgun Vegas style wedding with a stripper named Amore but the legality of it is questionable.[27] In Part IV, Lupin married Rebecca Rossellini for a heist. Lupin wanted to sign divorce papers but later he has discovered that Rebecca didn't deposited the marriage act, so the ceremony is not valid. Before Lupin left Italy she even ripped the marriage act, asking only if she can use the Lupin surname. Lupin also married a man named Onabes in "Lupin Becomes a Bride", an episode inspired by the 1959 movie "Some Like It Hot". He was disguised as Miss Marie as he wanted the paintings and to get revenge. Onabes was attracted to him/her and really wanted to be together. Lupin told him he was a man but Onabes said he didn't care. They had a real wedding, Lupin stole his paintings, and the two never officially divorced. This means that Lupin is still officially his wife.
In Part 1 Episode 3 he met the first of many incidental women, Linda (Part 1 Episode 3), a lab assistant turned witch who needs special flowers to live. After they playfully cavorted in the flowerbed, Linda confessed her story to him. After Dr. Heinlein explains Linda's story further and tells him how Stern wants to steal the flowers to power a nuclear missile, Lupin reacts with shock. However, Lupin torches the flowers, forgetting Linda needs them to live, and is upset when he sees her dying.
Clarisse de Cagliostro wanted to have a relationship with Lupin, but he turned her down for a couple of reasons. First, he didn't want her to become a thief like him. The second reason was the fifteen to twenty year age gap. Clarisse was a child when she met Lupin, and he despises pedophiles like Count Cagliostro.
He similarly gave Mattea Farah a pep talk about having her whole life ahead of her, even while he was punching her in the face.
In Bye-Bye Liberty - Close Call! he dated a woman named Judy. He was sure she was the one until she spent all his money, cheated on him and dumped him.
The Secret of Twilight Gemini has him going on a journey with a woman named Lara. Given that her grandfather Don Dolune was meant to be Arsene Lupin himself, this meant that Lara was Lupin's cousin, or possibly even his sister.
In The First, Laetitia teams up with him to uncover the mystery of Bresson's diary and they had a little romance throughout the search. She sets a trap for him but she becomes attached to him and betrays her grandfather Lambert. Lupin confesses her that Lambert is not really her grandfather but Bresson's granddaughter. At the end of the movie, Lupin tells Laetitia that he will meet her in 5 years when giving her the letter to a conference in the Boston University of Archeology as a farewell.
In the manga continuity, Lupin has had children. One of them is called Lupin Jr and he also had a spinoff series however he does not appear in the anime. The Lupin bloodline continues where there is a Lupin XV and in both the manga and Elusiveness of the Fog, Lupin XXXIII. In Part III Episode 44 he's tricked into thinking he's the father of three children, a boy named Mark, a girl named Vivian and a baby of no known gender, and has shown to be caring towards them and keeping them away from danger.
In the anime, Lupin has shown to be good with animals, whether he knows it or not and whether he likes them or not. Over the course of the anime franchise, cats, dogs, mice, doves, pigs and dolphins have taken a liking to him.
References[]
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