Lupin III: Part 6

As a newcomer to the Lupin franchise, I found this anime to be outstandingly entertaining.

While the stories are a bit predictable and chlichéd at times, and eventhough the first ark in particular lacked a satisfying conclusion, there was just too much good stuff going on to make me mind that for any longer than a minute at a time.

With a fantastic jazzy soundtrack, colorful animation, snappy dialogue, great side characters both in design and writing, good side stories and of course the pure chemistry of the main crew, it feels difficult for me not to fall in love with this.

You will probably not change ... your perspective on cinema and life while watching this, but you'll be entertained through and through.

If you are new to Lupin III like I was, this is a fantastic place to start.

This latest installment of the Lupin III franchise appears to go back into the "green jacket" roots with its major characters. Mixing ongoing and episodic story developments, Lupin III: Part 6 dabbles into two ongoing story arcs with the first exploring Lupin and his gang crossing paths with the modern incarnation of Sherlock Holmes connecting him with the murder of his former assistant, Watson, and the second half featuring Lupin trying to gain possession of a diamond stolen from his family years earlier while crossing paths with a group of women thieves going after the same valuable item. Whether episodic or ongoing, all the episodes ... go back to the roots of the "green jacket" style of Lupin III as the characters are more serious and Lupin's gang aren't afraid to take lives if things get serious.

As far as the storytelling goes, the ongoing story arcs have a good deal of plot development and foreshadowing that elude to elements of their situations as things build up. The Holmes arc has its fair share of layers to its plot with Watson's murder seemingly connected to a larger conspiracy that is unraveled as episodes progress and having some element of drama as his murder affected Watson's daughter, Lily, who has repressed memories of the incident. The Witch and Gentlemen arc attempts to add some fleshing out of Lupin's past as the group of women thieves are apparently connected to an old teacher Lupin had in his childhood named Tomoe, though this plot gets a bit convoluted to follow in later episodes as more about these connections get revealed.

The episodic plots in the series either attempt to get experimental exploring different heists or characters within Lupin's gang or providing humor to attempt balancing out the more serious direction of the ongoing story arcs. These stories are a bit hit and miss with their quality, as I tended to lean more favorably for the more comedic episodic plots for the series that include Lupin and his gang attempting a heist against an elaborate security system that longtime Lupin fans may be familiar with from past parts of the series and a young woman misunderstanding the interactions between Lupin and his gang as some sort of complicated romantic developments involving Fujiko.

In short, Lupin III: Part 6 largely offers more of the same in its storytelling structure offered from recent TV installments of the franchise mixing ongoing story arcs with episodic plots, but following more in the tone of "green jacket" installments of it. The quality of the story arcs and episodic plots have their fair share of highs and lows for me personally, making the quality of it overall be down a nudge compared to Part 4 and Part 5. But if you are a longtime Lupin III fan craving more of the "green jacket" tone, Part 6 may be worth a look.

Brief overview: IT's average

Introduction
The story is set in Modern-day United Kingdom. As usual, the infamous Lupin is looking for treasures to steal and flirting with the local ladies. One day Lupin is getting chased by the police and meets a very old acquaintance along the way, which is Sherlock Holmes. At that time she also met a young girl whom Lupin has an important history with. This is where the mysterious story between Sherlock and Lupin begins.

Story 6/10
For part 6 the story is more inconsistent compared to the previous part and it portrays like Arcs rather than a single narrative that is the primary ... focus. There's three arcs that is in the series and the first one is Sherlock, Filler, and Lupin's past. Those are technically not bad stories, but painfully average and sometimes boring. They did capture a lot of the mystery and explosive over-the-top moments very well, but most of the story didn't really capture the magic that it did from the previous season.

Animation 6/10
The animation for this part is a downgrade compared to the previous part. In the previous part since the 2015 remake there aren't many flaws to the animation, but this one had too many flaws and you can definitely notice the frame is very inconsistent from time to time. For the most part it's not bad and it stayed with the animation we are familiar with from the previous part, but there it is a lot more bad quality drawing compare to the previous season.

Characters 5/10
Lupin in part 6 are ruined because they change Lupin's personality so much. What pisses most fans off is that Lupin punched a girl in this series. YES, HE PUNCHED A LADY. Now this may not seem much to the average audience, BUT LUPIN LOVES WOMEN AND HE WOULD NEVER PUNCH A LADY. This is so offensive towards Lupin fan because Lupin is a very smart and mysterious character within the series and his biggest weakness is loving all the women around the world. The only thing he would never do IS TO PUNCH A LADY. However, for the other characters, they are generally good as they have a lot of mysterious background and interesting plot that align to the story. They also added a few characters back from part 4 such as Rebecca and more which adds a nice touch to the series. The characters that do have an interesting story should've been a candidate to Lupin's crew, but all of the time they just serve their purpose and move on.

TLDR
Ever since the 2015 remake this will be my least favourite one as they have changed Lupin's personality too much and the animation flaws that occurred from time to time. The story is a lot more inconsistent and average as they are trying to tell a different story that is not relevant to the current one.