Highway robbery just took on a whole new meaning.
Lupin III Part 5 is, as the name implies, the fifth installment of the main Lupin III series.note It follows on directly from 2015's The Italian Adventure (a.k.a. Part 4).
Some time after his adventures in Italy, Lupin sets his sights on the greater treasures of France. Of course, in doing so he gains the ire of some very dangerous people and soon finds himself up against a figure of his past as well while trying to stay alive and uncovering long buried secrets in the process. Secrets that could spell trouble for the nation in the wrong hands.
Lupin once again dons the blue jacket first seen in the The Italian Adventure, making this the first time Lupin retains his jacket color from a previous, mainline series note .
The series, slated for 24 episodes, premiered in April 2018 with TMS Entertainment once more providing the animation. Its setting and storylines are greatly modernized compared to most prior Lupin outings; Lupin now uses a smart lens which allows him to hack security systems, and there is a heavy focus on recent technological trends such as cryptocurrencies and social media.
Now has a Character page for those introduced in this series.
Toonami debuted the English dub on June 15th, 2019, and Discotek Media would release the series on Blu-Ray in 2021. Home media releases of this series also include a bonus 50th anniversary OVA, Lupin III: Is Lupin Still Burning?
Part 6 was announced on May 25, 2021, and began airing later that year in October.
The series has the following tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Lupin keeps pronouncing Ami's name with a shorter "i" sound than she herself does, and she keeps correcting him.
The English subtitles have him say "Amy", while she corrects it to "Ami", and the English dub has Lupin call her "Emmy". - Adaptational Villainy: At least early on, Fujiko appears to be one of the antagonists who wants Lupin dead and their first meeting in some time has her drawing a gun on him. Lupin claims he is over her. It turns out that she was working with Lupin the whole time, though.
- Artificial Limbs: Jose, the villain of the second arc, has a mechanical arm which allows him to give out an electric shock.
- After Action Patch Up:
- Lupin has to perform this on the wounded Ami, after the latter got shot in the arm in episode 3.
- Happens to Lupin himself in the second arc after getting shot by Albert.
- Happens to Lupin again in the third arc after getting shot with an arrow.
- Jigen does it to himself after getting shot in the arm.
- An Arm and a Leg: In the third episode, one of the assassins takes on Goemon with a fishing lure made of razor thin wire. He manages to get it around his neck, only to find out Goemon has cut off his hands before he had realized it.
- Always Someone Better: Albert was this to Lupin back in the past during his starting days as a thief. Indeed, Albert's introduction in the present day has him managing to outsmart Lupin by switching the gun full of blanks Lupin had thought he planted before their confrontation and even dismantling the bomb Lupin had planted in his car as a backup.
- And the Adventure Continues: The series ends with Lupin managing to defeat PeopleLog during the governments' assault on its HQ with Jigen, Goemon, Fujiko and himself rushing off from the HQ building with Zenigata (along with Yata) in hot pursuit. Though they leave Ami with Enzo (at her own decision when Lupin offers a place in his gang) and Enzo proclaiming he'll make an even better version of his app which will likely make it harder to do their heists. Lupin proclaims he'll always be ready and willing for the challenge and his gang is more than happy to continue having their adventures with him.
- Arc Villain: This season seems goes by arc logic or "Episodes". As such Lupin finds himself facing off against recurring villains of that episode.
- Episode 1: Marco Polo, a dark net collective who goes after Lupin when he steals away Ami.
- Episode 2: Supposedly Albert, a man from Lupin's past, at the start. But it then shifts to Jose and his group who get their hands on a black book both were after by the third episode of the arc, with Lupin and Albert forced to work together to stop them.
- Episode 3: The high priest of Padar. There are hints that someone else may be the actual villain behind the scenes, which leads us to...
- Episode 4: Enzo Bron, the head of a multinational tech company who backed the King of Padar in the previous arc (against the high priest), who is now out to get Lupin.
- Armed Legs: Lupin takes out the leader of the Rat Clan by hiding a gun within his shoe when they have a showdown in the third episode.
- Bland-Name Product: Among other examples, Bitcoin is called Bitmoney.
- Blinded by the Light: Lupin (actually Jigen in disguise) uses a smartphone rigged with a powerful flash to escape from a café filled with DGSE agents.
- Bloodless Carnage: Quite a few assassins die fighting Lupin's gang or each other but there is no blood spilled. Except when Lupin is apparently shot in the head, resulting in a geyser of blood, but even then, it is all in silhouette. Turns out to have been an internet filter.
- Averted in the second arc. Jose's assassin team die very bloodily in some of the most brutal on-screen violence ever seen in the Lupin III franchise.
- Totally averted in the fourth arc when law enforcement and military personnel get killed off by Jigen and Goemon. Jigen wipes out a prisoner transport security detail, going for headshots whenever possible. When his first revolver runs out of ammunition, he switches to a grenade launcher and eventually the PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle he used back in Cagliostro. Shots from the last one punch through police-issue face plate armor. Goemon's use of Zantetsuken against the American troops assaulting ShakeHanz leaves little to the imagination. The Americans got slaughtered, especially when Goemon and Jigen pull combo moves that target vital points.
- Booked Full of Mooks: In Episode 7, Lupin meets up with the head of the DGSE in the middle of a café. However, the head intends to double-cross Lupin and filled said café with DGSE agents.
- Book Ends: The series begins with Lupin being hunted through an ARG and the final arc start with him likewise being hunted through this method only with much more advanced software that make it near impossible for him to counter against. Even his near flawless disguises don't work as the app can scan facial features. Both times, Lupin uses methods that let people who weren't in focus to get the drop on the programmer. First came Fujiko, then came Jigen (although that was because Albert interfered on Jigen's behalf, helping him escape arrest and giving him a lot of ammunition).
- Bowdlerise: The Italian dub removes the fact that Ami was kidnapped by a child pornography ring and states instead that her parents sold her to criminals to pay a ransom.
- Breather Episode: A few after each of the main arcs. Interestingly enough, each seem to be callbacks to prior Lupin eras.
- Episode 6, which is a more comedic callback to the Pink Jacket series, compared to how much more serious the rest of the show is.
- Episode's 11, 12 and 20 on the other hand are standalone episodes that call back to the Red Jacket series.
- Episode 17 is a callback to the Green Jacket era, especially the way Hayao Miyazaki ran Lupin.
- Episode 18 is a callback to Part 4, a comedic episode about the gang's toilet being broken and Goemon wanting Japanese food.
- Bring It: With social media tracking his every move through "The Lupin Game", Lupin goes on social media himself to show where exactly he's going - to a fictional African country, Bwanda, which isn't part of Interpol jurisdiction. Once there, he continues to post about his daily activities ad nauseam, making many people quit the Game out of boredom since the thrill of the chase is gone. However, Marco Polo still sends assassins against him, and Lupin goes online with "Lupin is here" signs to get them all in one place.
- Carnival of Killers:
- Marco Polo hires a range of wacky assassins to kill Lupin's gang during the second and third episodes.
- Jose's group during the second arc also fits the bill.
- Child Prodigy: Ami was programming games at a very young age.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The Marco Polo group works online under a cloud of secrecy and has powerful technology at their disposal, but they rely on that tech too much. When their cameras record the death of Lupin, they take it for real, when it is just Ami using her skills to fake it, since the drone they are relying on is being controlled by Lupin's group all along. Their anonymity swiftly falls apart with Ami's expertise, and all three of Marco Polo's admins are subdued within seconds once the gang tracks them down; none of them have real defenses or guards and they have no escape routes ready.
- Continuity Nod:
- The series contains nods to previous exploits of Lupin including The Castle of Cagliostro, some bits of the Red Jacket and Pink Jacket series, showcasing Rebecca, the previous Sixth Ranger from The Italian Adventure, and even referencing events from The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.
- In episode 3, Fujiko mentions to Lupin that her showing up to kill him (or specifically, fake his death), is her first present to him in four years. The last time we saw Fujiko give Lupin a present, was four years ago, during his wedding in the first episode of The Italian Adventure.
- Episode 6 in particular is one massive love letter to Pink Jacket, copying that series' character designs, slapstick comedy and more cartoony artstyle. At one point Lupin and the gang also dress up in the same ghost disguises seen at the end of Castle of Cagliostro.
- Episode 11, 12, and 20 follow up on 6 in being homages to a previous series, this time Red Jacket. 11 in particular frames itself as a flashback episode, with the gang reminiscing about an earlier heist.
- Episode 17 continues the trend, this time being a call back to Green Jacket, especially the the way Hayao Miyazaki directed the series. Also, Lupin's "disguise" being a striped tie and glasses combo is ripped straight from The Fuma Conspiracy right down to the color of the tie.
- In episode 20, when Zenigata regains his memory, he has flashbacks to Lupin's past adventures as Sherlock Holmes III, Onabess' bride, a cowboy, and Superman from the Red Jacket series.
- Episodes 21 and 22 have short montages where various one-shot villains from past seasons, such as Ginko Hoshikage from Green Jacket, can be seen using the PeopleLog app. A written post from Catherine Martin, a famous actress Lupin robbed in one Green Jacket episode, can also be seen.
- Goemon flashes back to the various times he fought Lupin in previous series (using actual footage from them) in Episode 22.
- Episode 23 sees Lupin hiding in the catacombs of The Castle of Cagliostro. Additionally, he begins his final plan once he gets a message from Rebecca Rossellini.
- Episode 23 also has a cameo from Detective Melon, a character who was heavily featured in a self-titled Red Jacket episode.
- Episode 24 features a number of female leads from prior series and specials, including Rebecca, and Diana from Lupin III: The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure.
- Lupin has been repeatedly noted in prior parts and manganote to be always wearing masks under masks, that the face he shows to everyone is yet another mask, and that nobody knows what he truly looks like. As his response to Fujiko's question of "What am I to you", he takes off the final mask and shows his true face to her as a sign of trust.
- Counting Bullets: In the first episode Lupin tries to pass himself off as Ami's father, but she sees through him, pulls out a gun and opens fire. After ducking back to avoid being shot, he comes back out into the open stating she has run out of bullets. Ami calls his bluff but sure enough her gun's magazine is empty. When she replays the camera footage of the scene before she fired on him, it's revealed Lupin managed to pull out one of her gun's cartridges when he hugged her and pretty much counted the shots afterwards.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The final two episodes see previous characters from, not just this series, but from the original runs and movies that Lupin and his crew interacted with as they watch Lupin's dilemma against PeopleLog. With some worried for him, some rooting against him, and some cheering him on.
- Cop Killer: Jigen kills a lot of police officers near the end of the series. To be fair, they attempted to kill him first.
- Darker and Edgier: Part 4, while having dark moments, was fairly jovial for the most part with the capers being pretty lighthearted. The first arc (Marco Polo) though, there's a surprisingly sober and more down to Earth tone to this one. Marco Polo is taken very seriously, and Zenigata is oddly calmer and more collected here than his more bumbling yet driven self to capture Lupin. Almost along the lines of his Woman Named Fujiko Mine incarnation. The second arc, involving the black book is also this. And following arc (Black Notebook) has some of the most brutal violence ever seen in a Lupin show.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Ami. She begins as a cold, calculating hacker who just wants to get out of her "cell" to try the outside world, but she ends up going to a school, wishing to live more.
- Disproportionate Retribution: When Enzo refuses to take down Lupin's posts from PeopleLog, all the major countries declare his company a terrorist organization and send their armed forces to bomb his HQ to Kingdom Come without even thinking of the legal ramifications of such military action.
- Dramatic Unmask: As per the franchise tradition, characters in disguise removing their masks is common and played for drama... but the most significant example comes from the final episode where Lupin removes the mask he's always wearing to show his true face to Fujiko, something that he's never done for anybody.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: When Lupin is arrested by Interpol and taken into custody after failing to bust Fujiko out of ShakeHanz's HQ, another inspector claims at a press conference that the arrest was an international collaborative effort. Yata bursts onto the scene and chews out the guy and the press for taking credit away from Zenigata, who had been the most useful policeman on the job. After all, Zenigata has been the best at tracking Lupin without smart technology while all the other cops had to resort to PeopleLog to make their arrests.
- Emotionless Girl: Ami. Being kidnapped as a kid by child porn makers may have to do with that. Though she does show some emotions, like when she's stranded with Lupin and Zenigata in the desert, she shows annoyance at the sun and sand everywhere, and after escaping with her life from an army helicopter, she laughs heartedly.
- Everything Is Online: Bit of a theme in the first arc, the first episode alone has Lupin using advanced tech and being tracked by the public via an online social media-based ARG called "The Lupin Game". Later he's put on a "death pool"-style website called "Happy Deathday" where people bet on when he'll die, which spurs assassins to make bets and go after him.
- PeopleLog is pretty much your go-to online service for verifying facts on people. Unfortunately for Enzo, it appears not to have been installed in the Dukedom of Cagliostro, which explains how Lupin is able to hide there for a full month.
- Exact Words:
- Played for laughs. Two brothers construct a safe that they say only an idiot can open, which gets them booed for obvious reasons. They explain that literally only someone with low IQ (i.e. literally zero) can access the safe, which Lupin can’t because he’s too smart. The crowd immediately turns around and starts cheering, because the safe's actually impregnable to Lupin and the only person stupid enough to actually open the safe is one of the brothers.
- Fujiko tells Ami that nothing separated her from Lupin in the past, and that nothing broke them up. She literally means nothing; that without any danger, risk or rivalry to keep them going, there was no passion in their relationship, and it fell apart.
- Eye Catch: There's a set that features Lupin opening a wardrobe. Inside will either be Zenigata who takes pursuit only to be routed by Lupin, or by revealing a backwards-facing Fujiko who turns to reveal a machine gun. However, a few episodes, especially the ones that are tributes to earlier seasons, will have custom eye catches.
- Eye Scream:
- Twice over in the finale in the second arc. Goemon defeats the fanged woman by using the nails he chipped off her during their fight and throwing them into her eyes before going in for the kill. And Albert defeats the spear throwing girl by throwing her spear right into her good eye.
- When Jigen stops the prisoner transport convoy in the final arc, he shoots many officers straight through their bullet-resistant face plates with a PTRS-41. Bloody stains on the bullet-resistant glass show what happened.
- Forgets to Eat: Ami, to the point that she can barely stand when Lupin first finds her. While on the run with Lupin, she prefers energy drinks to actual meals because it's "more efficient".
- Four Is Death: Done at the end of the fourth episode when Lupin is seemingly shot, although the episode following reveals he lived.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: Averted here during the "Smart Safe" episode, which features a rare moment of Jigen and Fujiko actually getting along... whilst whaling on Lupin to make him stupid enough to open the titular vault.
- From Dress to Dressing: Lupin uses his necktie as a bandage quite frequently.
- Girl's Night Out Episode: Episode 13 seems to be playing with this. The episode heavily focuses on Ami and Fujiko, working together to stop a terrorist plot at the former's boarding school. However, it isn't a typical "day in the limelight" side story, but rather it's the start of a new main story arc.
- Both were absent from the previous main story arc, so this may be the production team's way of making up for that.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: The end credits sequence has Zenigata drinking with the gang at a bar (with Fujiko as the bartender).
- High-Class Glass: As seen on the poster, Lupin wears one during heists which acts as a portable hacking tool. It's also a webcam.
- Hopeless with Tech: Goemon's good with a sword, but smart tech? Not so much.
- In the first arc, Lupin offers some tourists to take a picture with him and has Goemon take the photo. Only to end up having the camera face the wrong way until Lupin corrects him.
- During the second arc, Lupin calls in Goemon for help but he's coming off meditation from under a waterfall. So Goemon doesn't understand his finger is too wet for the touchscreen to register and receive the call, causing him to throw the phone down in frustration. Later while walking through a village, he gets a text message but doesn't know how to answer it and has to have some local kids help him.
- When PeopleLog's entry on him calls Goemon a "lackey of Lupin", he takes it as a true fact and has a crisis of faith about his relationship with Lupin. Lupin has to point out that the app's own reliability rating for this factoid is near the bottom of its scale, making it total nonsense.
- Ho Yay: In-universe example.
- People believe Lupin and Jigen are lovers, as well as Lupin and Goemon. Neither Jigen nor Goemon are happy with these rumors while Lupin has a ball teasing them.
- Later on, Ami thinks the reason why Zenigata is so determined to apprehend Lupin is because he's in love with him. Zenigata takes this as well as you'd expect.
- Hypocritical Humor: Goemon, a samurai who dresses like he's from the 1500's, calls Lupin's gas-powered Fiat anachronistic. Lupin calls him out on this.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: In one episode where Zenigata has amnesia, it turns out that due to his career of chasing Lupin, Zenigata has subconsciously learned all the skills and methods of his foe; he turns into a Gentleman Thief that beats Lupin to the punch multiple times and is on his level as a criminal, and could possibly be better than Lupin. The only thing that stops Zenigata from becoming He Who Fights Monsters is his own moral compass and dedication to his job.
- Idiot Ball: Unusually, it serves as a MacGuffin in a filler episode. A safe is programmed so that only an idiot can open it. Lupin tries to reduce his intelligence, but instead settles for overriding the safe controls.
- Latex Perfection:
- Lupin uses this to impersonate Fujiko, as well as several minor characters.
- Jigen disguised himself as several other people, including Lupin.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Lupin wants to live his life as the hero of a TV show, where everyone is excited to see what he will do next... something that he's been for real-life decades.
- Le Film Artistique: The closing credits are done in this manner, seen here
. - Loophole Abuse:
- Lupin hides out in Bwanda, a country out of Interpol jurisdiction. As a member of Interpol, Zenigata can't go there for official police business, so he just files for vacation leave and "coincidentally" goes on a trip to Bwanda.
- Lupin opens a safe that measures intelligence from 0-300 by boosting his IQ to 301.
- Mistaken for Romance: During the Lupin game many of the fans thought that Lupin, Jigen and Goemon are in a relationship with one another.
- Mythology Gag:
- Lupin's spy lens is a monocle, which is part of the original Arsène Lupin's Iconic Outfit.
- The assassins from Episodes 2 and 3 are almost all minor villains from the manga.
- Inspector Zenigata's subordinate in this series, ICPO detective Goro Yadagarasu, is named after Zenigata's most famous voice actor Gorō Naya.
- Lupin's rival in this series is named Albert D'Andresy. In the Maurice Leblanc Arsene Lupin novels that inspired Lupin III, the original Arsene Lupin's mother is named Henriette D'Andresy; this marks Albert as a blood rival of Lupin.
- In Episode 17, Lupin disguises himself as a private eye named "Jim Barnett III". Lupin author Maurice Leblanc also wrote an anthology novel - "The Barnett & Co. Agency" which was about the eponymous detective Jim Barnett solving cases in the same 'verse as Arséne Lupin... and turns out to be none other than Lupin himself.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Zenigata, by seemingly rescuing Lupin from being assassinated by Fujiko actually nearly kills him, since the plan is to use Fujiko to fake his assassination. Instead, they are forced to cross the desert, be chased by a Bwandan army helicopter, and nearly die from thirst. Lupin still manages to pull off the plan anyway, but it threw a massive wedge in it.
- No Social Skills: Ami has no understanding of the outside world since she was kidnapped at a young age and spent years in isolation. Because of this, Lupin takes it on himself to keep Ami safe. Played very darkly as she can’t understand when a bunch of thugs are trying to corner and rape her, and later she misinterprets Lupin's concern and propositions him for sex. Lupin takes this as well as you'd expect.
- Now That's Using Your Teeth!: One of Jose's henchmen is a woman with sharpened claws and fangs made of metal. At one point she goes close range on Lupin who counters with a pipe when he has an opening. Only for her to catch it with her teeth. So does it again in the following episode only this time against Goemon's sword.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Lupin, Jigen and Goemon think they're in the clear after escaping with Ami in the first episode. But they soon find out that they're being tracked via the internet and people using social accounts to spot him. Meaning virtually the whole world is after him now.
- Happens again in Episode 4 where Lupin and Jigen find out that everyone is watching their every move via PeopleLog.
- Once more happens with Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon in Episode 21 where PeopleLog has been upgraded enough that the AI in charge of it can pinpoint the gang's location if they're photographed (and I.D. them on the spot), predict the Lupin Gang's likely escape routes, and where their hideout is.
- Once per Episode: Once per arc Lupin gets a near life threatening injury and spends the next episode recovering.
- One-Man Army:
- In the 23rd episode, Jigen single-handily stops the convey that transporting Lupin to prison with nothing more than an armory's worth of guns on him, including his trusty revolver.
- In the final episode, Goemon and Jigen prevent the army trying to get into the building to stop Lupin with nothing more than their personal weapons. Even the American general supervising things and the internet watching through Lupin's monocle are in disbelief that two men are managing to keep them at bay.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: When Lupin appears to be cornered in Bwanda, Zenigata comes roaring by in a car to get him away, so that he can arrest Lupin past the border.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Everyone points out the fact Lupin isn't throwing himself at Fujiko and seems to have become completely indifferent to her. They also express concern that Fujiko isn't with the gang on the regular and that she's apparently uninterested if he's okay or not.
- Any mention of Albert causes Lupin to get focused and furious, which draws notice from Jigen and Goemon.
- Outgambitted: Several times this happens.
- Did you really think that the Marco Polo group could outsmart Lupin and get him killed? By the time he'd gotten to Bwanda, he already has a plan to fake his death!
- Surprisingly happens to Lupin in the second arc. After finding out the person who sent him on his "job" was actually an old rival from his starting days, Lupin manages to track him down and had hoped to get the drop on him by infiltrating his security office, finding out who his lover is, disguising himself as said lover (Albert's gay by the way), and switching out the gun in his jacket with one full of blanks. When Lupin confronts Albert at their rendezvous point, he expects Albert to shoot him... only to find out the gun's magazine was switched with another one carrying live cartridges, Lupin is mortally wounded and loses the Black Book as a result. What's more, when he tries for a backup plan with a bomb he implanted in Albert's car, the bomb explodes in the river and Albert reveals he was pretty much expecting that too.
- Lupin does this to Enzo by hiding in a place where PeopleLog probably wasn't installed by the local government (Cagliostro). After a month of hiding, the latter's own app gets used to leak dirty government secrets from around the world, leading the majority of the countries to declare Enzo's firm a terrorist organization for refusing to stop Lupin's posts.
- Overt Rendezvous: Lupin and the head of the DGSE have one in episode 7. The latter make sure everyone in the café they were in is also a DGSE agent. Too bad Lupin was actually expecting the double cross.
- Papa Wolf: Lupin gets very pissed when three young men harass Ami. All of his actions concerning Ami's wellbeing make her view the thief as a better father figure than her actual father.
- Paper Tiger: The Marco Polo leaders are this: they're great at running criminal enterprises or ordering death from a computer, but when it comes to actually risking their lives they're too cowardly and ineffectual to fight back. Lupin points out to Chuck Glay that a criminal who can't face risks of failure or death isn't worth the money he steals for himself. Chuck has Lupin at gunpoint several times during the same conversation, but he's too scared to even try pulling the trigger and make an attempt to fight.
- Parental Substitute: The relationship between Lupin and Ami has strong parental overtones.
- Ranked by I.Q.: "Lupin vs. the Smart Safe" involves Lupin III trying to crack a safe that measures intelligence on a scale from 0 to 300, and the safe opens when it's at 0. Lupin's a 300, and the gang basically just kick the shit out of him to give him enough brain damage to open it. They can only get it to 1, so instead, Lupin just uses his normal intelligence and eats enough fish to make him smarter, so it overflows to 301 and opens.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: An eyecatch for has Lupin attempt to pull this off. During the first arc, it instead backfires in his face, but in the arcs after he successfully does it and causes a screen shatter effect.
- Sequel Hook: In the final episode, Albert ends up taking Enzo's partner into custody and proclaims he'll need him for his plans in the future, which involve abandoning the organization the latter worked for. Also, after Enzo is defeated and apparently think he knows Lupin's true secret, he proclaims he'll make a better version of his PeopleLog app. Though Lupin counters by saying he has more secrets Enzo doesn't know about.
- Shout-Out:
- The digital mask-making machine shown in Episode 14 is a nod to a similar device featured in Mission: Impossible III.
- An Ashley cosplayer briefly appears in episode 12.
- Shown Their Work: The solution Lupin does to break into the safe in episode 6 (the one that measures intelligence and only opens at 0), is an actual thing called an "integer overflow" that can be used as an exploit against systems not protected against it.
- Sixth Ranger: Ami, much like Rebecca from Part 4.
- Smart People Play Chess: The theme of Episode 19, which had Lupin and a "friendly" rival play chess while their gunmen have a sniper battle above them. The rival apparently challenges Lupin to this sort of duel every so often, with both chess players having the threat of the opponent's gunman shooting them if their partner falls in the gun duel above.
- Sniper Duel: Jigen gets into one against the daughter of an old flame of his named Mirage in Episode 19.
- Spanner in the Works:
- Zenigata appears to save Lupin from Fujiko when she tries to kill him for the bounty, but it turns out Fujiko and Lupin had schemed to have his death faked and Zenigata has instead caused a complication.
- Fujiko is once again this when terrorists take over Ami and Dolma's boarding school, where her presence almost single-handedly thwarts their plans. Though she's hit with this when it turns out that one of the other teachers is actually a CIA agent sent to take custody of Dolma.
- Special Edition Title: The Series Finale title “Viva Lupin III” appears at the end of the episode, as a proclamation.
- Spy Fiction: The second arc has shades of this. Specifically, the Dirty Martini kind.
- Surveillance Drone: One is following Lupin and feeding visuals to the Lupin Game website. Turns out that Lupin and his gang are the ones controlling it, using it to help set up Lupin's fake death to end the game; this is why the Gang ignores it and take no moves to counter it.
- The Syndicate: Marco Polo for the dark web, or more specifically, Silk Road.
- Taking You with Me: After Jose is defeated and fatally shot, he activates an explosive in his coat and tries to take Lupin and Albert with him. Lupin manages to pull Albert away just in time.
- Take a Third Option: In the Smart Safe caper, Lupin can't access a safe due to needing the I.Q of an idiot to open it. So, Fujiko, Jigen and Goemon all use methods to drop his intelligence to do so. Problem is 1) being stupid will leave him vulnerable to getting captured and 2) it wasn't enough to open the vault when they tried again. So, what does Lupin do? He decides to boost his intelligence by eating fish that can put him just over the vault's cap of 300 to 301 to override the system and get it to open. So ironically being smarter than the vault could handle allows him to win.
- The Reveal: Ami is Enzo's daughter
- More significantly, Fujiko and Lupin were briefly married.
- Tricked-Out Shoes: In one episode Lupin has a shoe with a gun hidden in it.
- Wham Episode: Episode 22. Ami reveals she knows Enzo is her father.
- Working with the Ex: Lupin working with Fujiko is, surprisingly enough, treated as this in the show. The former talks about getting the latter's help in faking his death as "strictly business", though there's a subtle amount of Unresolved Sexual Tension in the conversation, as if they both wish they could go back to how things were before but can no longer do so.
- A literal case of this, with the reveal above. And it’s affected Fujiko that she has to ask Lupin how things are between them.
