Lupin III: Goodbye Partner

This movie had a LOT of problems... SETTING: I don’t really understand the setting. Traditionally, Lupin has traveled all over the world instead of sticking to one location. Real places and real people have always been used and expanded on; for instance, da Vinci was made into a psychic super villain once. However, in this movie we have scenes in places like Area 61 and Las Vegas Arizona. In other words, very slightly off. We also had a Snowden knockoff for some reason (he’s in the movie for all of 30 seconds). And on top of that, the evil Big Bad is named Emilika. She’s supposedto be Chopin’s sister, Emilia, but it sounds so similar to how America is pronounced in Japanese, that it’s hard NOT to think that this isn’t some poorly veiled jab at America. Everyone seems over the top mean, cruel, and stupid. You have characters thinking attack drones are delivering pizza, texting while driving, and just being completely oblivious. The president is a self-centered, greedy woman whose solution to a problem is to bomb it. At one point Lupin openly complains about America using brute force. And it’s all set in America. Frankly, the movie seemed passively aggressively hostile towards America. SOUND: Typical great voice acting and jazz music! However, the addition of Chopin as a main piece seemed random. ART: I love Lupin art because it’s so atypical anime style. There’s a lot of heavy Western influence, especially in some of the 70s and 80s Lupin anime. This is not one of them. This one fully embraces its Japanese origins while still placing the anime mostly in America, which just came across as culturally odd and somewhat discordant. The 3D animation, specifically EVERY SINGLE TIME someone played a piano, was absolutely terrible and jarringly different from the rest of the art style. Some animations were cute, some shots were typical Lupin flavor, while others felt overly done and unnecessary just for the sake of the shot, as if the director and art coordinators got in an argument about the reasoning behind a scene and ended with, “Just do it for the Gram!” STORY: All Lupin III franchise specials and movies have a pretty specific formula. And that formula has worked since the 1960s, most of the time. This is one of those rare times it didn’t work. It’s like the production team just didn’t understand Lupin. They sat down and thought, “Ok, we need a teenage girl in danger. We need Fujiko to betray Lupin and side with a bad guy, but turns out she’s probably on his side and being selfish, or IS SHE?!?! We need a possible break up between Lupin and his partners. Don’t forget Zenigata! Give him some ridiculous mini subplot. And make sure the Big Bad wants to do something EXTRA EVIL that might actually be magic, but is also something Lupin would steal, ok?” I was disappointed in this one for a lot of reasons. (1) The Lupin franchise has been traditionally hard to detail the timeline, canon, and even character backgrounds. But this one will just make your head hurt in the first 5 minutes. We have Area 61, Las Vegas Arizona, etc. But very specific on piano details. Things that are wrong just for the sake of confusion. I’m still unclear on Jigen’s subplot and Zenigata’s minor entanglement. (2) There was too much going on. I’m still not sure what happened. Just overall too much happened. (3) There are many different Lupin anime, OVAs, specials, movies, live action, absolutely everything. Heck I just found a Lupin board game at a flea market, and I have the PS2 game. That said, the franchise has struggled with what it wants to be. In one, you have a goofy Zenigata who walks around yelling “crap crap crap!” While in another he’s the epitome of overly dedicated, straight laced cop, and in yet another he’s hooking up with Fujiko and acting a bit shady. Some of those can pass for PG-13 easily while others are a hard R. The original manga series had a very dark Lupin, definitely not innocent and pc. This movie though?? It seemed like it was trying to pass itself as PG. No smoking from the Good Guys. No blood. No deaths. When someone did die, you saw it in silhouette. Surprise! Everyone that’s a Good Guy is Completely Pure and Innocent. And honestly that’s not what Lupin is, so ruins a bit of the enjoyment.

I've watched a lot of Lupin III's seasons, specials and movies over the years and I hope that one day I get to watch everything there is. I'm happy to know that a show from 1969 (Pilot film) still manages to get love after 50 years since its debut. Animation: clean, simple and colorful but with a major problem called unnecessary CGI. Sound: 1) iconic Lupin III theme song is always a plus. A granted plus is still a plus. 2) Sawashiro Miyuki's (Mine Fujiko) singing will never fail to amaze me 3) As much I like classical music, the Chopin song on a loop was drivingme insane Story: 1) the plot is predictable as heck but in a "okay" way. 2) this movie should have ended 25 minutes sooner. It just kept dragging and dragging to the end with ridiculous explosions and boring stuff. 3) Mine Fujiko's role in this movie feels like a cameo rather than an important part of Lupin's gang and franchise 4) I got a lot of the references to the USA political situation but I don't feel that they made the movie worse or better As I said above, the last 25 minutes of the movie were terrible. For the first hour and a few minutes in, I was enjoying myself in this nostalgia trip. I was ready to give this movie a solid 7/10. However, the last third of the film was so bad, that I give this movie a 4/10. It completely ruined my overall enjoyment and that's why it's a low score.

The Lupin III franchise consistently fails at one thing: theme. The manga of the 60’s and the original show of the 70’s consisted entirely of short and simple heists that were on the literary level of pulp. The “gentleman thief” didn’t steal treasures out of any grand Robin Hood ideal, but for the thrill of the sport. It became the perfect format for a long-running franchise: Lupin and his loyal cohorts have a game of wits with cartoonish villains only to have the femme fatale swipe the prize at the end. As the decades wore on, new writers wanted to add some depth to thepulp. Out of this we get various pretentious specials and shows that spew philosophy and political screeds under the guise of the franchise. Sometimes it was so ridiculous that it worked, other times it was an irritating hindrance on an otherwise great format. The 2019 special Goodbye Partner achieves the classic format, but stumbles as the writers shoehorn their personal views into the story. Anyone who watches this special can, without a doubt, tell you three beliefs that the writers hold; they are desperately paranoid about an all-encompassing internet, deeply resentful towards the United States and its most popular politicians, and hold a romantic belief in high-tech Communism. If you make your personal politics that clear through an adventure-comedy show, you are not a good writer. The “treasure” of the special is a diamond which in turn is required to make a super computer which in turn is able to hack every government system and control the global economy. Would such a thing work in real life? Probably not, but I’m quite willing to let anime bullshit be anime bullshit. Amusingly, the antagonist wants the super computer to give the United States the power to “take over the world!” Not to mention, guess what he also exclaims… “America First!” and “Make America Strong Again!” A little on the nose, aren’t we? Worst of all is the falling action. The super AI has the typical “Destroy humanity to save the earth!” goal which, after learning about the value of humanity from the characters playing piano, transitions to “Create an equitable society by stealing boxes from Amazon and droning them to slums across the world!” By God, is this some sanctimonious shit. Do I need to deconstruct the writers’ fallacious understanding of wealth? You’re stealing those boxes from Amazon, they *exist* because the producers want a profit. Not to mention you’re probably just giving video-games and DVDs to these impoverished villagers. I’m sure they’ve all been saved from poverty because of your benevolent redistribution of Amazon boxes. The writers spew a romantic ideology of inanity, parroting the likes of presidential hopeful Bill De Blasio when he declared, “There is plenty of money in this world, and there's plenty of money in this country, it's just in the wrong hands.” Read a book, fellas. Despite the nonsense, Goodbye Partner does achieve the classic Lupin III format and style. The opening minutes are brilliant, with a solid jazz score following Lupin escaping a sky-scraper of armed guards with the help of Jigen and Goemon. Indeed, the score is consistently great throughout the special—muted trumpet and upright bass making every heist scene that much groovier. Jigen is given one of his many film-noir-like back-stories of a past romance, Goemon is out to prove his superior swordsmanship, and Fujiko is of course doing her own conniving on the arm of the antagonist. Zenigata, as is typical, allies with Lupin in order to catch the bigger fish. Lupin ends up going for the diamond because he—one, can’t back down from a challenge; and two, wants to fuck with Jigen. All in all the characters are done quite right, making the political nonsense fairly tolerable. Goodbye Partner is worth the watch—not for Lupin newbies or for Lupin elitists, but for those who can always enjoy the franchise as long as they get the basics right. There is an utter joy to be had in watching Lupin and friends simply take pleasure in the sport of the heist, no matter how convoluted and high-stakes the heist may be. Dismiss the politics of the special as the pent-up frustration of lonely writers, and enjoy the show.

Lupin III: Goodbye Partner is a fairly entertaining special running for about an hour and a half. The premise itself is quite interesting mostly because Lupin's loyal friend and partner Jigen is an antagonist throughout the film. Our main character is tasked with stealing a "Time Jewel" from a highly fortified facility. In typical Lupin fashion its carried out but not before a betrayal by Jigen who takes it for himself, therefore setting up the events of the movie. Characterization remains strong as all of the returning characters in the special behave as they would in any other Lupin property; Jingen's betrayal is portrayed insuch a way that wouldn't be out of character for him. With a strong main cast, then what about the side characters? There's Alisa, a young girl who is kidnapped for nefarious purposes. Though she's kind of a damsel in distress sort of character, she does have more going on and is also quite plot crucial. Roy Forest also serves to be a clever and conniving antagonist for Lupin to face as well. The movie moves from beat to beat quite briskly so I was hardly bored watching it. But that pace feels too brisk when concerning events towards the ending. Without spoiling anything, things escalate quite quickly and there's a lot of information that you'll have to keep track of. This causes things to feel a bit messy although everything is tied up by the end of it. I think the movie would have benefited from having an additional 15-30 minuets to build up things properly or some extraneous details needed to be cut out. Another complaint that I'd anticipate from the movie is the use of politics in it. If you're the type to be bothered by it, don't let it because its still a good Lupin special. At the same time, do not dismiss the political content simply because it is there. This special deals with technology and wants to comment on that, so it provides pitfalls, examines uses and provides solutions which I think are worth considering. (On a side note, this special probably influenced or was influenced by part 5 since it's so tech focused. Just my two cents). I will admit though, that it felt a bit shoehorned in since its a contributing factor towards the messy ending. Despite it all, its still a fun Lupin romp. Animation is serviceable, there isn't anything too spectacular going on. The character designs do remain strong, retaining a "classic" Lupin look as well as being as expressive as they've always been. This special is mostly set in Los Angeles and the Nevada desert, so while the backgrounds and locations do look pretty, they're a bit uninspired for my tastes. This is an issue if part of your enjoyment for Lupin comes from the setting. In this instance, the setting is flavorless, mostly serving its function as a vehicle to contextualize the events in a plausible manner. The music is still strong, with it's original compositions setting the appropriate mood. Music is also a crucial plot element to the movie, with Chopin's compositions being used throughout. I'm not very into classical music so I couldn't tell you how good the renditions are, but they sounded good to my ears. Overall, if you're a Lupin fan, I wouldn't say you're missing out by skipping this special. But if you want more Lupin, then check it out. More Lupin is never a bad thing after all.

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