Lupin the Third against Fascism
As the political climate keeps looking more and more apocalyptic every day, I felt the need, if not the duty, to remind our fellow Lupintic folks that our favourite monkey-faced thief would never ally himself with fascists.
This may seem like an obvious, and therefore unnecessary statement, as most of mass media generally goes against political extremes, hopefully for a long time still. Yet, political recuperation is as easy as it is inevitable. Many beloved figures have been co-opted by parties and pressure groups throughout History. Pinocchio’s image was used by Italian fascists under Mussolini’s regime, William Tell is now synonymous with the Swiss far-right, and Pepe the Frog went from beloved meme to MAGA mascot.
The Lupin the Third franchise’s relationship with History’s darker chapters is an ambiguous one, as one would expect considering Japan’s own track record, especially during the last global conflict. The 1969 pilot film does draw parallels between Lupin and Hitler, be it his trademark Walther P38, and Mercedes SSK. Lupin made the Hitlerian salute twice, once in a Part 2 episode revolving around an ex-Nazi hiding in Brazil and in Mystery of Mamo as he stumbles on the alleged clone of ol’ Adolf himself. These two occurrences were mainly played for laughs (sic) and are not to be seen as indicative of any particular allegiance on the part of our beloved thief.
One must remember that, while Hitler is rightfully seen as the devil himself in the West, Japan mostly pictured him as yet another powerful and ambitious conqueror, on par with Alexander the Great or Napoleon. Many plots, from Napoleon’s card deck in Part 1 to the magic gems in the Cat’s Eye crossover, revolve around Lupin and his gang going after precious items suspected to favour the rise of powerful leaders, with Hitler being one among many.
First and foremost, Lupin the Third is the product of post-WW2 Japan. As a new generation, free from the horrors of war came to prominence, manga publishers needed to tap into that new “Seinen” demographic. While these Japanese “baby boomers” enjoyed some of the commodities of Westernisation, they were still politically invested, protesting against the war in Vietnam and American occupation. Monkey Punch and his editor stood right between the young and the old, and Lupin as a character reflects that position.
Neither square nor hippy, Lupin represented a breath of fresh air, bathed in American counter-culture and a subversive, yet impartial attitude. His enemies would come both from the establishment and the rebellious youth. As the 1960’s ended and the flower power movement degenerated into the Tate-LaBianca murders, the original Lupin the Third manga would conclude. The sunflower fields had withered, and the dark clouds were coming down.
The 1970’s were a time of near constant political uproar, to the point they are sometimes known as “the lead years” in Europe, because of the many politically motivated bombings and assassinations. Junichi Ioka and Shunichiro Koyama had written a preliminary treatment for Lupin III: Part 1 that was deemed too serious, even for the then director Masaaki Osumi. In this abandoned version, Lupin III would have been a politically active hippie. Shades of this treatment still lingered in the first animated series, particularly in episode 19, penned by the very same Ioka and Koyama. Let us not forget that co-director Hayao Miyazaki was an ardent communist in his youth and had participated in his fair share of protests.
However, it really is with Part 2 that the franchise would lift elements directly from the headlines. Lupin and his friends would often square off against enemies inspired not just by literature and movies, but also by real life. Dictators, guerrilla groups, terrorists from both sides of the political spectrum, you name it! While most of these stories usually poke fun at real life figures and world conflicts, some do go a bit deeper.
Some of the most powerful stories in the franchise involve Nazis as the main antagonists, laying their flaws bare. It also helps that Nazis were very much into the occult, leading to all sorts of rumours and conspiracy theories from which Lupin the Third regularly draws inspiration from. In most of these scenarios, Nazis are depicted as delusional nutjobs desperately looking for a victory that was never theirs.
Part 2s two-parter (episodes 50-51) sees Lupin re-united with Cornelia, his long-lost love, unwillingly resurrected and turned into a living puppet by her Nazi scientist of a father. The climax reveals the old war criminal transferred his consciousness into a computer, leaving his body as a skeleton in uniform. A grotesque yet accurate allegory of Nazism as an undead boogieman, deserving of death yet still looming over us, ready to shed their own humanity rather than accepting defeat. In our current times plagued with AI and the Transhumanism agenda, this episode sets a chilling precedent.
This episode would also set the template for one of the franchise’s most daring and relevant outings in recent years: The Woman called Fujiko Mine. In both cases, the spectre of an old and powerful man tries to take control of a woman’s will, which, methinks, is an ever-relevant issue.
The Lupin III franchise being a product of the Cold War era, Nazis were only second to the main players that were America and the USSR. The big two’s conflict is front and centre in the movie Mystery of Mamo, with a Henry Kissinger stand-in putting pressure on our favourite characters. Jigen rejects his love for American movie icons after getting a taste of the US government’s brutality. Missiles are fired in the climax, an obvious reminder of the Cuban Missile Crisis back in 1962.
The unfairly maligned Part 3 was produced right as the Cold War seemed ready to heat up, and some episodes put the gang right in the crossfire between the West and the East. Fujiko’s habit of double crossing everyone seemed very fitting in those days filled with double agents. The previously mentioned Fujiko series deals with unethical experiments in the USSR, and Lupin Zero addresses the American occupation of Japan head-on as well as left-wing guerrilla warfare.
Every time Lupin is faced with such powerful enemies, his wits and tenacity represent an ardent desire to remain a free spirit, uninterested by world domination or gathering immense wealth if there is no thrill to it. Lupin has no agenda beyond planning heists and is perfectly content with a modest living, as long as he can taste the finer things in life from time to time.
In other words, Lupin is an epicurean, listening to his desires without sacrificing the well-being of others, at least most of the time. Borders are of no importance to him as he describes himself to inspector Zenigata as a “citizen of the world” in one chapter from Shin Lupin Sansei.
Lupin’s fierce individuality is also reflected in his more heroic moments, as while he helps one side to win against the other, he does so to defend another individual’s right to freedom. In The Castle of Cagliostro, Lupin is less interested in putting the rightful heir back on the throne and more about saving a young woman from the greedy claws of the corrupted count. The rest is a happy set of circumstances.
Lupin’s altruism will sometimes make him take on the role of an avenger, showing a strong sense of justice in spite of his own criminal lifestyle. His beef with Melon Cop in Shin Lupin Sansei originally stems from the latter killing a young delinquent right as he had found redemption. For Lupin, that act of police brutality could not go unpunished.
In the most outwardly political series in the franchise, Part 5, Lupin actively fights against corrupt politicians, mercenary groups, the police state, dark web investors, and the relatively new threat of Tech bros subjugating the masses through social media. Lupin would not like Elon Musk very much, that is for sure.
If Lupin can save the world from total annihilation, he will happily do so, be it in the subpar TV special The Last Job or the well-received The First CGI movie, that also happens to involve Nazis as the main antagonists. Both funnily feature ancient artefacts capable of worse damage than the atom bomb, something that looms large on public consciousness in general and Japanese culture in particular, as we worry over the outbreak of a third world war.
Wherever the menace comes from or whose face currently embodies our worst fears, Lupin, his gang, and even inspector Zenigata stand against tyrants and fearmongers. While we might never see our monkey-faced thief in a protest, throwing Molotov cocktails at cops, his message is one of freedom and perseverance against adversity. If that isn’t a message for our time, I don’t know what is.
If you would like to hear more from Guillaume, why not tune in to Sideburns and Cigarettes, a podcast in which he and friends of the website, Drew, Natalie, Chris, and Emma, help host! If you’re reading this close to its original publication date, then why not check out their recent Holiday cross-over with Austin and Sully of Third Impact Anime?
