English Dub Review: Lupin the Third: Part V “The Killers Gather in the Wasteland”

You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead, and out of this world.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The rogues’ gallery continues to pursue Lupin who decides he needs to either kill or be killed. After a semi-sexual comment that confuses everyone—especially Ami, who feels it was directed at her—Lupin shoots at and explodes a trio of assassins. With the taste of death fresh on his lips, he leads more hired guns to a factory where Ami hacks their night-vision goggles. During their high-speed getaway, just as everything is working in their favor, Ami gets shot!

It’s a mere flesh wound that the Lupin gang patches up quickly. However, while she’s on the table, Ami becomes retrospective, maybe even scared, and tells the boys her story. At six-years-old, she was abducted by child pornographers and would’ve been sold into sex slavery if she hadn’t created a video game in a single night. For years, the kidnappers profited from her technical prowess, forcing her to code or get beaten. At fourteen she escaped to that underground government base where she was still treated like crap, but without the beatings.

Sympathetic of Ami’s struggle, Lupin messages the assassins—who were unwinding at the Mos Eisley Cantina—and invites them to a final showdown at Bwana’s ruins. They show up in a massive group, confident there’s no tech in such an isolated spot for Ami to corrupt—they are incorrect. Ami hacks into the Lupin Game’s betting parlor and discovers a major flaw: all the assassins are playing the game and each one bet on a different day. So if she can find the current day’s bettor and dox them, Lupin and company would no longer be the primary targets.

She can’t actually hack into the mainframe, but a simple bluff leads to an epic bloodbath—assassins killing assassins everywhere. When almost everyone is dead, Jigen and Goemon emerge to finish the A-listers, and crazy-ass Goemon even slices some poor fool’s hands clean off.

Meanwhile, Ami and Lupin are talking about the birds and the bees again, and our hero reiterates his sexual indifference toward her. Interrupting their tender moment, mega-assassin, the Rat King challenges Lupin to a duel. Lupin, getting in touch with his inner Maxwell Smart, shoots Ratty with a shoe gun and eliminates the final threat—for now.

Our Take

Welcome back, Fujicakes! After a few weeks of teasing it, our favorite redhead finally got in on the action. This time she brought along a lot of repressed anger toward Lupin that wasn’t mentioned much in Part IV. It appears Fujiko will be playing for the other side this go around to make Lupin pay for jilting her. She might shoot him and ruthlessly collect that bounty. Except we all know she won’t be doing that. Nice try, Cliff Hanger. Hell, she didn’t even place a bet. No way is she going to kill her former lover for less than 50 million.

With Fujicakes out of the way, let’s get back to the episode. This was another fantastic outing. So far Lupin is bowling/pitching a perfect game. Each installment brings the action, and the plot is unfolding methodically with a few twists and turns to keep things sharp and interesting. For eighteen seconds, I worried that despite being a dynamite presence, Ami’s development would be as introverted as her personality. What a wasteful eighteen seconds that was, because this girl has layers on top of layers. Sure, she data-dumped a lot of her backstory, but she’s an odd duck and her sudden talkativeness fits her character.

While Lupin is generally a thinking man’s show about thievery, their shift to an action movie format was flawless and remained clever. Since the assassins were bad people by nature, their deaths didn’t make Lupin’s gang unlikable even after Goemon went medieval on a few unlucky souls—RIP Confused Fisherman and Hat-wearing Blondie. Plus, Ami’s doxing fake-out showed just how similar she and Lupin are despite coming from two different places. They’ve both seen some unsettling stuff in their lives which is more than enough to establish a bond.

Zenigata’s plane wasn’t nearly as fast as Fujiko’s private jet, so even though he’s taken an impromptu vacation to beautiful Bwana, we won’t get to see his antics until next week at the earliest. With everybody already after Lupin in a big way, it’ll be interesting to witness how the great Inspector will stand out in such a crowded field. Goemon probably won’t slice his hands off, but who knows, that samurai be crazy!