English Dub Review: Lupin III Part VI “Samurai Collection”

Overview

Gabby, a celebrity fashion designer whose collections are sold through auctions instead of the open market, returns to the spotlight after a five-year hiatus to present a new fashion line. She hires Goemon as a model after she rescues him during one of his training runs in the Arctic. While a complete amateur in the fashion business, Goemon finds new ways of improving his abilities through his modeling exercises, and Gabby becomes inspired by his eccentricities. Meanwhile, Lupin plans to nab Gabby’s latest designs in return for the promise of a romantic night with Fujiko…


Our Take

This time around we have another guest writer by the name of Tomoko Shinozuka best known for writing anime episodes for works such as “Fantasista Doll” and “The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt” at the helm for what’s seemingly a Goemon-focused story which is kinda rare since he’s usually the stoic samurai who usually partakes in of Lupin’s adventures. But now, a fashion designer named “Gabby” has taken an interest in the dude for her upcoming line of fashion designs.

Meanwhile, Lupin and Fujiko were planning on stealing Gabby’s collection during the fashion show. At first, I figured Goemon partaking in this whole thing was all a setup so he could be the inside man to help Lupin steal shit as usual, but as the two separate storylines converge, that clearly isn’t the case when Goemon pieces together their plan after running into Lupin during the show complete with Lupin’s wacky unscripted antics…

Overall this episode somehow had one of the silliest yet entertaining storylines in recent Lupin memory, yet somehow still made it work without coming across as stupid or implausible. The scenes with Goemon having to work as a model did give me a good laugh, and his deadpan miscommunications made it all the more entertaining. And while Jigen was nowhere in this story, there was at least a very nice parallel between Goemon’s path of the sword and Gabby’s path of designing, and the outcome for both of them was much more wholesome than I would’ve expected to happen.