Line #19 Anime/LupinIIIDeadOrAlive


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lupin_iii_dead_or_alive_5195.jpg]][[caption-width-right:250:Top, from left to right: Jigen, Fujiko, Lupin, Olèander, Goemon.\
2	Bottom: Zenigata, and the entire Zufu army.]]
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4	The fifth theatrical animated ''Anime/LupinIII'' movie, released the 20th of April, 1996. It has the proud distinction of having the original creator, Creator/MonkeyPunch, as Supervising Director. Creator/{{Funimation}} licensed this film for US release in 2002, along with ''Anime/FarewellToNostradamus'' and eight [[Anime/LupinIIIYearlySpecials annual TV specials]].
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6	Lupin and gang are attempting to recover the treasure on "Drifting Island"[[labelnote:*]] (subtitles say "Drift Isle")[[/labelnote]], an island inside another island, and part of the fictional country of Zufu. Zufu has recently undergone a bit of political upheaval: The king and his son, Prince Pannish, have been killed in a military coup d'etat. General Headhunter has been in charge for two years, now. And ''he'' wants the treasure that the king left on Drifting Island, too. He's willing to put out a bounty on the foreign thief to keep him away, one million dollars to the bounty hunter who brings in Lupin the Third, Dead or Alive!
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8	While Fujiko works her way into General Headhunter's service, Inspector Zenigata arrives by plane. Is Pannish really alive? What is the treasure guarded by the Nanomachines? Will the bounty hunters capture Lupin and his gang? Is anyone who they say they are?
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10	'''Complete spoilers below''' -- don't read further if you don't want to know how this caper turns out!
11	----
12	!This theatrical movie features examples of:
13	* AbsurdlySharpBlade:
14	** Goemon cuts boats in half without any of the guards at the river outpost realizing it.
15	** General Headhunter's knives are sharp enough to slice apart Lupin's gun.
16	* TheAlcatraz: The jail for Zufu boasts that there are only two ways out: death by natural causes and death by execution. To prove that, they annually select prisoners and give them a WinYourFreedom challenge, playing the prey while [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame the guards try to kill them.]]
17	* BananaRepublic: The fictional country of Zufu gets a subtle LampshadeHanging by being ''placed'' in the Banana Republic. The corrupt government is a military dictatorship, which has actually sent the previously prosperous nation into a sharp decline. At the end, the dictatorship is overthrown, but no government is set up to replace it, yet. Other indicators suggest that the nation is Latin American.
18	* BigBad: A rare work where the "villain behind everything" isn't even a character. The {{Nanomachines}} are the ultimate conflict, providing an initial challenge, and defeating the Protagonists several times early on. The main plot for Lupin's gang is to discover the secrets of Drifting Island, which is protected by the nanomachines. [[spoiler: Even General Headhunter is subordinate to the nanomachines, because he is a robot constructed by them.]]
19	* BitCharacter: Lupin rescues four people from the prison in the opening scene. One turns out to be important to the plot later, as a ChekhovsGunman. One shows up again as a bit character, [[spoiler: helping Emerah to escape]]. The one with the mohawk can be seen in the end [[spoiler: wearing a ski mask helping the resistances]]. The last one is just there to be saved and don't contribute anything else.
20	* BladeEnthusiast: General Headhunter has a collection of massive, vicious knives, and is an avid knife fighter, DualWielding them and even having trick blades hidden in his sleeves and shoes.
21	* BlandNameProduct: The portable television that Inspector Zenigata has is a [[Creator/{{Sony}} "Somy"]].
22	* BlastingItOutOfTheirHands:
23	** Olèander does this to Jigen and Lupin before revealing her identity to them.
24	** When three cops tried to arrest Inspector Zenigata, he defeated the last one by shooting the gun out of his hand.
25	** Pannish does a variation on this against Crisis during the climax, shooting down the barrel of Crisis's golden gun, making it explode.
26	* BoobyTrap: The Zufu national treasury is protected against thieves by programmed {{Nanomachines}}. It beats Lupin twice before the gang is finally able to fool the traps.
27	* BountyHunter: When Crisis puts out the Dead or Alive bounty on Lupin, at least three bounty hunters enter Zufu to attempt to capture/kill him. Lupin is so busy trying to escape from them that Zenigata manages to arrest him.
28	* CallingCard: Lupin uses two calling cards in this film. One is in the form of a video where he uses a {{Parody Name\|s}} of Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox, announcing that he would steal the treasure of Drifting Island. In the other, he uses an advertising balloon to announce his theft of Headhunter's Daughter.
29	* CombatTentacles: The [[spoiler:Nanomachine]] guardians of Drifting Island consist of countless mechanical tentacles tipped with manacles, blades, speartips, spikes, drills, scissors, and pretty much any deadly instrument known to man.
30	* CoolPlane: Lupin and gang first visit "Drifting Island" via gyrocopter. It's only built for one person, so they're actually overburdening it by having Lupin, Jigen ''and'' Goemon on it. The mechanic they borrowed it from also builds them two other flying devices.
31	* DarkerAndEdgier: This is the darkest of the ''Lupin'' Theatrical Releases, and has the honor of Monkey Punch (who is responsible for the dark tones of the original Manga) working on it.
32	* DeaderThanDead: Headhunter's end is so over-the-top that there's absolutely ''no chance'' of him surviving it (see ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill).
33	* DelayedCausality: After Goemon slices apart boats and telephones, they continue to hold together for several seconds afterwards. [[spoiler: As does General Headhunter, before turning into a pile of gold dust.]]
34	* DoNotAdjustYourSet: General Headhunter first sees Pannish when he takes over the national broadcast to announce to the country that he has returned, and that Headhunter had falsely taken control of the kingdom.
35	* EnvironmentalSymbolism: The general decay that we see in establishing shots of Zufu hint at the suffering of the people under General Headhunter's rule.
36	* ExplosiveCigar: Two examples in the opening:
37	** The stogie the Warden is smoking while collecting prisoners turns into a smoke bomb that sends the guards into a coughing fit while the Warden takes the prisoners out of the jail in a jeep.
38	** While being chased, the Warden lights up several and throws them behind to act as grenades against the guards.
39	* {{Fanservice}}: Strangely enough, not Fujiko this time around, but rather Goemon while he and Jigen are obtaining the boats to help spring Princess Emera from the palace. After one of the guards sees that his phone has become the unfortunate target of Zantetsuken's edge, we get a full-body shot of Goemon wearing nothing but his fundoshi and showing off his well-toned muscles.
40	* TheFellowshipHasEnded: The movie ends with the gang splitting up; Goemon says that the wind calls him east. Jigen wishes to go west. Fujiko says she must go "down south". To make everything neat, Lupin heads north.
41	* FoeRomanceSubtext: While Zenigata is leading a captured Lupin [[spoiler:(or rather, the local bartender Lupin disguised as himself)]] to their helicopter pickup, the good inspector is speaking boastfully of the peaceful life he will lead after Lupin's trial and finally going home. He discusses two names he discarded; ''War'' (because he didn't want to upset his female readers) and ''Love and War'' (because he didn't want people to get the wrong idea about the two of them).
42	* FreezeFrameBonus: While Lupin is researching the "sand" he found at Drifting Island, his computer screen gives out the atomic weight and number. [[spoiler: The computer {{Engrish}} calls it Atomic Quantity, but the numbers are for the weight and number of Gold.]]
43	* GunStripping: After kidnapping "Headhunter's Daughter", the crew are back at one of their hideouts, and Lupin can be seen cleaning his Walther, making sure it's ready for action.
44	* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: [[spoiler: Both Crisis and later Headhunter end up being bisected, the former by an axe-shaped Nanomachine tentacle, the latter by Goemon.]]
45	* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: The prison for Zufu holds an annual event, selecting a few prisoners to attempt to [[WinYourFreedom escape]]. So far, the guards boast that noone has succeeded, and call it "target practice".
46	* {{Montage}}: We are treated to an information gathering montage as Olèander tries to find out if Pannish is really alive or not. The audience hears a nice walking song, while Olèander spends all day searching the city. She starts from the market, but by the end of the day, she's walking around in the shady parts of the city.
47	* MuggedForDisguise: Lupin escapes from Zenigata by switching places with the bartender Zenigata has been hanging out with (along with a dash of LatexPerfection to prevent Zenigata from figuring out the switch until too late).
48	* {{Nanomachines}}: The previous regime had been very technologically advanced, in both construction and computer programming. Nanomachines were left to guard the island against thieves, and it has proven ''very'' effective, defeating Lupin's attempts to gain access twice before General Headhunter brought Olèander to blackmail Pannish.
49	* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: When Crisis, the national chief of police, says that Lupin and his gang couldn't have survived a high fall from a cliff onto rocky waters, Inspector Zenigata laughs at his foolishness. He points out that Lupin has survived the same situation many times before, and he'll stay in Zufu until Lupin is gone.
50	* OfCorsetsSexy: The third assassin who comes after Lupin is a pretty girl wearing a purple corset as her only article of clothing above the waist.
51	* OffWithHisHead: To show Olè how serious he is, General Headhunter casually decapitates one of his subordinates.
52	* OmniscientDatabase: Lupin's computer is capable of analyzing "sand", and determining the atomic composition of {{Nanomachines}}.
53	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: [[spoiler:General Headhunter's corpse is reanimated by the nanomachines near the end of the movie, but he's quickly taken down by Lupin and the gang.]]
54	* OutrunTheFireball: [[AvertedTrope Amazingly averted]] in the opening, when the Warden of the prison drives the car into a cave where the missile explodes in front of him. He keeps driving ''through'' the explosion, which destroys the latex disguise, revealing that the Warden is really Lupin!
55	* ParodyNames: The opening for Lupin's CallingCard, announcing his theft, is a modification of the Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox VanityPlate.
56	* RedHerring: [[spoiler: Emerah is initially introduced as the key to the vault on the island. It turns out, it was a lie her real father had told Headhunter so he would keep her alive.]]
57	* SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou: Some of the promotional works for ''Dead or Alive'' depict Lupin aiming his Walther at the audience against a gold-to-black gradient background.
58	* ShootTheMessenger: In General Headhunter's opinion, the trope is "cut the head off of the messenger". Not even for bringing him unexpected news: just bringing the news that he might already expect is dangerous if he's already in a bad mood.
59	** It was probably also done to intimidate Olé, who he was interrogating at the time.
60	* SleepingDummy: Fujiko sets one up of Emerah, along with a voice recorder, to fool General Headhunter and allow Emerah to escape.
61	* StreetUrchin: One of the scenes used to establish the current tone/mood of the Zufu nation is an open-stall market, where people are arguing over the price of apples. When two boys hiding in a TotemPoleTrench are caught stealing apples, they run away from the proprietor, bringing the apples they stole back to their gang of a half-dozen group of similarly poorly clothed kids.
62	* TookALevelInBadass: Zenigata. Captures Lupin twice, outsmarts him a couple of times, and beats up three Zufu police officers without even getting up from his seat.
63	* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Headhunter makes a final attempt to kill Lupin, mere moments after Jigen and the others have seemingly gone their separate ways. Except they had anticipated it and unload on him from all four directions at once. Lupin [[CombatPragmatist kills him immediately]] with [[BoomHeadshot a headshot]], followed by Jigen and Fujiko shooting him in the chest and back respectively, and Goemon finishes the job [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe by bisecting the corpse]], which collapses in a pile of gold dust.
64	* TorpedoTits: When Fujiko fights a massive female guard in front of Headhunter, the latter suddenly deploys large spikes located on the chest piece of their costume to impale Fujiko.
65	* TotemPoleTrench: Two children are in the market, hidden inside an adult's cloak and mustache. {{Street Urchin}}s, stealing apples from a stall.
66	* TranslationStyleChoices: While most of the film is dubbed in a Dynamic Equivalence, Jigen's lines regarding Fujiko are all changed to comment more favourably on her.
67	* UnderestimatingBadassery: After the failure of their joint attempt at arresting Lupin, Crisis orders Zenigata to leave the country, and when Zenigata doesn't three cops try and arrest him. All they manage is to ruin his sandwich, a casualty of [[CurbStompBattle Zenigata casually knocking the first two out without bothering to stand up]] before [[BlastingItOutOfTheirHands shooting the gun of the third]].
68	* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: One of Monkey Punch's only rules while producing ''Dead or Alive'' was that Lupin and the gang had to escape with the treasure.
69	* VictoriasSecretCompartment: Fujiko, a few times.
70	* WigDressAccent: How Olèander fools Lupin & gang. Obviously, Inspector Zenigata is taking lessons from Lupin, now. Zenigata had disguised her as Emerah when Lupin announced that he would steal General Headhunter's daughter.
71	* WinYourFreedom: The Warden, of the Zufu prison in the opening, tells the prisoners they have a chance to escape the jail. They have five minutes to run before the guards start HuntingTheMostDangerousGame.

Context Anime / LupinIIIDeadOrAlive