English Dub Review: Lupin the Third Part IV “Welcome to the Haunted Hotel”

It’s a g-g-g-g-GHOST!

Spoilers Below

Hotel Cielo is the castle of the Gautieri family but is better known as the Mansion of the Cursed Bride. 200 years ago they were all brutally murdered in one night. If that doesn’t scream out that a place is haunted, I don’t know what does. Naturally, Lupin is interested in the treasures stored in the hotel. Now I’m no ghost expert, but usually, if something has a ghost that goes a long with it, the ghost follows the item. I’m already thinking this isn’t a good idea. To make things more interesting, a woman who goes by “Mamma”, the head of the Mamma family, is on Lupin’s tail since he “borrowed” an old letter that she owned, describing the treasure inside of the castle.

Their first night in the hotel, Jigen has an encounter with the supernatural, and it actually scares him. This is one of the first times I’ve seen Jigen scared as he usually has nerves of steel. In his defense though, who wouldn’t freak out after seeing a walking suit of armor in the hallway, or the blood covered corpse of a little girl in their closet? All this does though, is convince Lupin that there is most certainly treasure to be found. Also, this convinces Lupin that the ghosts are the employees of the hotel, disguising themselves as the ghosts.

Lupin and Jigen set off to explore the castle in order to find the secret passage that Lupin hypothesizes is where the treasure is stashed. Jigen is pretty rattled and hasn’t stopped drinking since his encounter with the super natural. He is becoming more of a hinderance to Lupin’s search than an aid, so Lupin tells Jigen he should just go back to the room and drink. In his drunken stupor, Jigen decides to take a leak on the way back… in the corner of the hallway that Lupin is currently investigating. Luckily, Lupin notices this before Jigen makes a mess of himself and stops him. Upon doing so, he notices an indention in the ground which Jigen mistook for a urinal. Upon pouring some of the wine Jigen was drinking into this divot, lo and behold, a secret passage way opens up. Jigen heads off on his own as Lupin steps foot into the castle. Unbeknownst to him, the two sons of the Mamma family are just a few steps behind him.

Jigen runs into the two imposters, the hotel manager, and his daughter, and gives them a piece of his mind. As he confronts them, he finds out that the hotel isn’t really haunted and the hotel manager made up the story about ghosts because business was bad. What better way to “scare up” some customers than to book them in a haunted hotel right?

Back in the passageway, Lupin runs into a young girl named Carla. After chatting with Carla for a while, he sets off down the passage way again. Carla warns him not to go down he passage way but Lupin classically brushes her warning off. He should’ve listened to her though because he falls into a trap door where a giant stone roller threatens to crush him. He barely escapes with his life. Upon his near brush with death, he speaks with Carla again, who tells him the treasure isn’t even there. Okay… what is that supposed to mean? I’m getting the feeling that Carla may actually be a spirit. She says she has been waiting to guard the secret treasure ever since her big sister told her to do so. Just as Carla is about to tell Lupin about the treasure, the two sons from the Mamma family show up and hold Lupin and Carla at gun point. Due to some quick thinking, Lupin quickly disarms the two fools and leaves them tied up. Carla then shows Lupin the way to the treasure, but Mamma shows up holding a REALLY big gun. She throws Lupin in a cell and closes the door only to activate another trap as the ceiling starts slowly descending towards the floor, effectively trying to crush Lupin similar to that one scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Mamma turns around to confront Carla, but she is gone. Carla once again helps Lupin escape his date with death.

Lupin confronts the Mamma family once again, having activated a trap of his own this time. The Mamma family has swept away as Lupin jumps out of the passage way, grabbing a chain and taking it to the top of the castle’s tower with Carla. Once Lupin gets to the top of the tower he sees the treasure and a lightbulb goes off in his head. He asks Carla if she’s been waiting there the whole time to protect the treasure. She explains her story to Lupin and Lupin tells her the treasure is safe and Carla disappears. What triggered Lupin to ask Carla how long she had been staying there guarding the treasure you ask? It was the skeleton of a young girl wearing the same outfit as Carla that was laying next to a big sack of treasure. I guess Carla’s spirit finished its unfinished business and was able to finally move on to the next world. Lupin and Jigen pay their respects to Carla at a cemetery and head off on their next adventure.

I have got to say, this episode was pretty interesting but slightly predictable. I knew from the beginning of the episode that the ghosts that all of the guests had seen were hotel staff in disguise. I could even tell that Carla was an actual ghost from the first time seeing her. Even with all that taken into account, that barely effected the enjoyment of this episode. This episode was actually more action packed than I thought it would be, with Lupin nearly losing his life twice. I’m fairly certain that the encounters that Lupin had were the closest I’ve ever seen him coming to actually dying. While this could have been an episode filed with creepy scenes and jump scares, it was actually quite the opposite. Carla’s spirit was a beneficial spirit, just wanting to be able to move on from this world. When you think about it, it’s actually kind of sad. She had been left alone in the tower with the treasure for centuries and had died to believe that her sister would come back to get her. She was completely unaware that the entire family had been killed, or even that she herself had died really. The biggest question of the episode though, is what happened to the treasure? Did Lupin take it or leave it? Did he tell the hotel manager about it or not? I like to think that he left the treasure where he found it out of respect for Carla’s spirit.