Awesome / Lupin III: The Italian Adventure

• The series title sequence. It's very modern, but pays homage to Lupin's previous adventures.
• Episode 4, With a Gun in My Hand, has Jigen taking out Eric the Unkiller's entire gang without firing a single shot himself. How? He makes them shoot each other by calculating each bullet's trajectory as they're fired and dodging them. He then ends up killing Eric himself by dropping a chandelier on him.
  • Furthermore, the inspector gets an overlooked moment of awesome by figuring out how Jigen killed all those men just by casually walking into the crime scene and looking around.
  • "This is just speculation, but to be honest with you I'm always right."
• In episode 10, Belladonna, an old assassin acquaintance of Goemon's, has a bomb that was surgically grafted to her heart set to explode. Goemon manages to stab through Belladonna with Zantetsuken, popping the bomb off her heart through her back and harmlessly exploding a distance away, and she manages to survive with no lasting damage. Bad. Ass.
  • Earlier parts of the same episode demonstrate that his skills have only improved with time. An ace sniper bearing down on him? Cuts every bullet down without batting an eye. An entire enemy militia coming his way? He takes down an entire swam of lead in his direction and kills their leader with a vertical cut through him and his jeep. A corrupt Italian politician has the Protectorate in their clutches years later? Break into their place through the front door as the lights go out for a Mook Horror Show, as Goemon leaves not even a single man alive and doesn't take a scratch despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, including by the last goon coming at him head-on with a minigun.
• "The Dream of Italy part 1" sees Rebecca kidnapped by MI6 because she happened upon two of their agents during a mission. She is taken to their Italian HQ and much time is spent on the security of the place and the skill of the agents positioned, which includes Nyx. How does Lupin rescue her? By pretending to be their boss and ordering them to transfer Rebecca to another location because Lupin's gang has already infiltrated the current one as an agent. What follows is a Paranoia Gambit that ends with Nyx delivering Rebecca straight to Lupin himself. Although he kinda flubbed the getaway, this leads to an awesome moment for Rebecca's butler, who reveals that he put a briefcase bomb at Nyx's doorstep and threatens to detonate it if he doesn't back off. Even Nyx's berserker state contributes to his awesome because the other dozen agents are so busy trying to calm Nyx down that he makes his get away.
• Episode 14 deals with Lupin's capture and arrest in the previous episode, and Zenigata has him in an airtight, isolated prison where there was seemingly no way to escape whatsoever. So Lupin gives up and stops eating to starve himself to a quicker death. As it turns out, he intentionally faked not eating by using materials from the food to artfully pretend from Zenigata's narrow perspective in the doorslot, rusing together more and more matters before drawing a fake corpse of himself to finally bait Zenigata in and sneak around him. All the while setting the entire escape for himself by subliminally influencing Zenigata to set up these conditions in the first place. While Like You Would Really Do It is in full effect, it also highlights just how damn resourceful he is.
• In episode 21 private detective Akechi Holmes tricks Fujiko into getting Lupin back to Japan and right in his trap, and successfully arrests the king of thieves but lets Fujiko escape, as he deems her harmless without Lupin. Then the following happens:
  • After Zenigata and another cop with an Assault AmphibiousVehicle have picked up Lupin to transfer him to the closest jail, the police finds Zenigata Bound and Gagged in the toilet. Cue Oh, Crap! as they realize it was actually Fujiko and Jigen... And that Fujiko has an amphibious APC armed with a grenade launcher.
  • Zenigata, Holmes and the local police manage to reach the AAH and get Fujiko and Jigen to come down, Holmes and the cops jump the disguised Fujiko and Jigen... Who are actually Zenigata and a cop: Fujiko was the Zenigata in the toilet, and she and Lupin are now escaping on the APC. With Zenigata that manages to jump on the vehicle, of course.
    • Zenigata staying on it is made more awesome by Fujiko's driving style. At one point she jumps down of a hill, and Zenigata is still on it.
  • After his attempt at blowing up a bridge before Fujiko passed on it fails because of Jigen, Holmes resorts to his secret weapon: an old gunpowder siege cannon. The first shot damages the APC, the second shot almost blows off its roof... Then Fujiko brakes hard, sending the APC's roof and Zenigata on the cannon. At which point she simply drives through the last block and over the cannon. Ladies and gentlemen, Fujiko Mine.
• The Grand Finale:
  • Leonardo reveals his master plan: using his take on the Italian Dream, he puts all of Italy, San Marino and the Vatican in a dream where they'll have to face him at what they do best. If they win they can wake up and live in his new world, otherwise they'll have their personalities replaced by his own.
  • Lupin passes the test in less than a minute by deducing all of the above and where Leonardo is (San Marino) with minimal hints, thus outsmarting friggin' Leonardo da Vinci.
  • When Lupin reaches Leonardo's hideout, he finds that Rebecca failed the test. Lupin's reaction? Using Leonardo's invention on the Italian Dream to copy his mind into hers to beat him there, thus stopping the change. He not only succeeds, but does it when the alteration is advanced enough that he's effectively a Reality Warper there. And he does it by reawakening Rebecca's mind, who then restores her own mind.
    • Also, doing that effectively did the same to everyone who had failed the test.
  • As Lupin and Leonardo's copied minds faced each other, some other people passed the test too: Jigen won a duel with antique guns, Goemon defeated Leonardo in a swordfight with Renaissance-era Italian swords that not only he was unfamiliar with but his opponent was very familiar with, Fujiko beat him in a poker game (a game of minds) while both of them were cheating, Zenigata Judo-flipped and handcuffed him, and Nyx gave him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Then they all jumped on their respective vehicles and went to San Marino to help Lupin... And, in Nyx case, repeat the beatdown on the real deal.
  • Finally, we find out why Leonardo did it: the body created for him by the MI6 couldn't hold his awesomeness and was dying out (in fact he died soon after Lupin won), and Leonardo was trying to save himself by copying his mind in all the Italians in the hope just one of the body could hold him. Meaning he effectively possessed over 60,000,000 people, and nearly rewrote their minds, while he was effectively on his deathbed. And he did it all with class.