Lupin III: Goodbye Partner

As expected from each Lupin special it doesn't disappoint you in terms of enjoyment and characters. As you know and are familiar in each special there is a focus on a certain main character were they present another side of him rather than the usual one that we are used to see.
In this special the focus is on Jigen and we are shown a more human side of him rather than his cold personality and gun skill as a hitman. The special does a good job at exposing some surprising traits of the main characters especially Fujiko during her piano recital performance or Lupin ... trying to adapt his thief skills using modern technology (computers), Goemon being behind times but always helpful with his Zanketsu for Lupin's gang and finally the unyielding determination of Zenigata to catch Lupin.

The story is the same, someone gives a challenge to our main character Lupin to steal something impossible at first glance but using his magic and craftiness he manages to exceed expectations and provide a lot of enjoyment in making the impossible possible. Praise worthy is how well the main 4 characters work with each other to achieve their initial goal and the plot twists who raise the hurdle for the story.
While there a lot themes the main problem that this special has is that it fails to execute a main theme and we have a mess. Another problem is the villain who this time has some shit reasons for his actions and a childish ambition (world domination).

Nevertheless these two factors don't ruin the enjoyment and emotions that this movie deliver especially through it's catchy music and knowledge about the world of classical music .The visuals are great, and for that thank you TMS, there are still talented people out there who can hand draw a plane and not use cheap cgi like most modern shows abuse of it.
The grills are great and their personality and charisma always makes me love them especially when they help our main character Lupin who is all the time finding himself in a dire situation.

So for the usual Lupin fans i recommend you watch this movie you will be not disappointed and for those who are new to these series start with the old specials from the 90's to get a little hold and knowledge on how Lupin and his gang does his stuff! Bye Bye!

The Lupin III franchise consistently fails at one thing: theme. The manga of the 60’s and the original show of the 70’s consisted entirely of short and simple heists that were on the literary level of pulp. The “gentleman thief” didn’t steal treasures out of any grand Robin Hood ideal, but for the thrill of the sport. It became the perfect format for a long-running franchise: Lupin and his loyal cohorts have a game of wits with cartoonish villains only to have the femme fatale swipe the prize at the end. As the decades wore on, new writers wanted to add some depth to the ... pulp. Out of this we get various pretentious specials and shows that spew philosophy and political screeds under the guise of the franchise. Sometimes it was so ridiculous that it worked, other times it was an irritating hindrance on an otherwise great format. The 2019 special Goodbye Partner achieves the classic format, but stumbles as the writers shoehorn their personal views into the story.

Anyone who watches this special can, without a doubt, tell you three beliefs that the writers hold; they are desperately paranoid about an all-encompassing internet, deeply resentful towards the United States and its most popular politicians, and hold a romantic belief in high-tech Communism. If you make your personal politics that clear through an adventure-comedy show, you are not a good writer. The “treasure” of the special is a diamond which in turn is required to make a super computer which in turn is able to hack every government system and control the global economy. Would such a thing work in real life? Probably not, but I’m quite willing to let anime bullshit be anime bullshit. Amusingly, the antagonist wants the super computer to give the United States the power to “take over the world!” Not to mention, guess what he also exclaims… “America First!” and “Make America Strong Again!” A little on the nose, aren’t we?

Worst of all is the falling action. The super AI has the typical “Destroy humanity to save the earth!” goal which, after learning about the value of humanity from the characters playing piano, transitions to “Create an equitable society by stealing boxes from Amazon and droning them to slums across the world!” By God, is this some sanctimonious shit. Do I need to deconstruct the writers’ fallacious understanding of wealth? You’re stealing those boxes from Amazon, they *exist* because the producers want a profit. Not to mention you’re probably just giving video-games and DVDs to these impoverished villagers. I’m sure they’ve all been saved from poverty because of your benevolent redistribution of Amazon boxes. The writers spew a romantic ideology of inanity, parroting the likes of presidential hopeful Bill De Blasio when he declared, “There is plenty of money in this world, and there's plenty of money in this country, it's just in the wrong hands.” Read a book, fellas.

Despite the nonsense, Goodbye Partner does achieve the classic Lupin III format and style. The opening minutes are brilliant, with a solid jazz score following Lupin escaping a sky-scraper of armed guards with the help of Jigen and Goemon. Indeed, the score is consistently great throughout the special—muted trumpet and upright bass making every heist scene that much groovier. Jigen is given one of his many film-noir-like back-stories of a past romance, Goemon is out to prove his superior swordsmanship, and Fujiko is of course doing her own conniving on the arm of the antagonist. Zenigata, as is typical, allies with Lupin in order to catch the bigger fish. Lupin ends up going for the diamond because he—one, can’t back down from a challenge; and two, wants to fuck with Jigen. All in all the characters are done quite right, making the political nonsense fairly tolerable.

Goodbye Partner is worth the watch—not for Lupin newbies or for Lupin elitists, but for those who can always enjoy the franchise as long as they get the basics right. There is an utter joy to be had in watching Lupin and friends simply take pleasure in the sport of the heist, no matter how convoluted and high-stakes the heist may be. Dismiss the politics of the special as the pent-up frustration of lonely writers, and enjoy the show.

This movie had a LOT of problems...

SETTING: I don’t really understand the setting. Traditionally, Lupin has traveled all over the world instead of sticking to one location. Real places and real people have always been used and expanded on; for instance, da Vinci was made into a psychic super villain once. However, in this movie we have scenes in places like Area 61 and Las Vegas Arizona. In other words, very slightly off. We also had a Snowden knockoff for some reason (he’s in the movie for all of 30 seconds). And on top of that, the evil Big Bad is named Emilika. She’s supposed ... to be Chopin’s sister, Emilia, but it sounds so similar to how America is pronounced in Japanese, that it’s hard NOT to think that this isn’t some poorly veiled jab at America. Everyone seems over the top mean, cruel, and stupid. You have characters thinking attack drones are delivering pizza, texting while driving, and just being completely oblivious. The president is a self-centered, greedy woman whose solution to a problem is to bomb it. At one point Lupin openly complains about America using brute force. And it’s all set in America. Frankly, the movie seemed passively aggressively hostile towards America.

SOUND: Typical great voice acting and jazz music! However, the addition of Chopin as a main piece seemed random.

ART: I love Lupin art because it’s so atypical anime style. There’s a lot of heavy Western influence, especially in some of the 70s and 80s Lupin anime. This is not one of them. This one fully embraces its Japanese origins while still placing the anime mostly in America, which just came across as culturally odd and somewhat discordant. The 3D animation, specifically EVERY SINGLE TIME someone played a piano, was absolutely terrible and jarringly different from the rest of the art style. Some animations were cute, some shots were typical Lupin flavor, while others felt overly done and unnecessary just for the sake of the shot, as if the director and art coordinators got in an argument about the reasoning behind a scene and ended with, “Just do it for the Gram!”

STORY: All Lupin III franchise specials and movies have a pretty specific formula. And that formula has worked since the 1960s, most of the time. This is one of those rare times it didn’t work. It’s like the production team just didn’t understand Lupin. They sat down and thought, “Ok, we need a teenage girl in danger. We need Fujiko to betray Lupin and side with a bad guy, but turns out she’s probably on his side and being selfish, or IS SHE?!?! We need a possible break up between Lupin and his partners. Don’t forget Zenigata! Give him some ridiculous mini subplot. And make sure the Big Bad wants to do something EXTRA EVIL that might actually be magic, but is also something Lupin would steal, ok?”

I was disappointed in this one for a lot of reasons. (1) The Lupin franchise has been traditionally hard to detail the timeline, canon, and even character backgrounds. But this one will just make your head hurt in the first 5 minutes. We have Area 61, Las Vegas Arizona, etc. But very specific on piano details. Things that are wrong just for the sake of confusion. I’m still unclear on Jigen’s subplot and Zenigata’s minor entanglement. (2) There was too much going on. I’m still not sure what happened. Just overall too much happened. (3) There are many different Lupin anime, OVAs, specials, movies, live action, absolutely everything. Heck I just found a Lupin board game at a flea market, and I have the PS2 game. That said, the franchise has struggled with what it wants to be. In one, you have a goofy Zenigata who walks around yelling “crap crap crap!” While in another he’s the epitome of overly dedicated, straight laced cop, and in yet another he’s hooking up with Fujiko and acting a bit shady. Some of those can pass for PG-13 easily while others are a hard R. The original manga series had a very dark Lupin, definitely not innocent and pc. This movie though?? It seemed like it was trying to pass itself as PG. No smoking from the Good Guys. No blood. No deaths. When someone did die, you saw it in silhouette. Surprise! Everyone that’s a Good Guy is Completely Pure and Innocent. And honestly that’s not what Lupin is, so ruins a bit of the enjoyment.