#shin lupin

[waddlehekk]

When you take a look at the designs for Jigen, Lupin, and Goemon from the left to the right, the way it goes from the dark to light becomes very clear.

I believe it is a representation of their differing morals. There are some instances where we can see direct contrasts.

In Chapter 61, "A Bundle of Oy!", Lupin is turned into a baby and Jigen and Goemon confront his captors. Notice how Goemon suggests negotiation while Jigen would rather fight.

Jigen ends up leaving the room because he does not believe Lupin really turned into a baby, but Goemon stays because he trusts them.

Then there is the next chapter, Chapter 62, "Chasing Tail", where the gang meets with the Master who is able to cure them of the tails they have grown.

Jigen threatens him...

(this is such a quote

Lupin believes it is a trap...

And Goemon trusts and protects him.

I wonder then if this brings more meaning to when Lupin removes his jacket later in the manga. Is the darkness of his clothing underneath showing his true colors?

[blueparasiteflower]

Lupin chapter cover redraw.

[peaterookie]

Lupin Week 2024 Day 7: Birthday! 🎂🎉

"Today, Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko threw me a surprise birthday party. At first I was confused, I'm sure everyone knew that I didn't have a birthday, until I remembered the time I lied to Fujiko and told a random date so she would stop nagging me about it. If I knew she'd take it that seriously I would've zipped my mouth. I'm unfamiliar with how birthday parties work, but I think this one was more… exciting than the usual. Goemon botched the cake. He put some mystery ingredient that ruined the taste. Fujiko almost stole my gifts, which was foiled when Zenigata and Melon Cop were caught trying to burn the house down. He won't even give me a break on my birthday! After we chased them off, I had to put out the fire. Jigen did not help and kept playing with that stupid blower thing. Normally this would be a failure of a party, but I enjoyed it for some odd reason. I hope they do something like this next year, with a better cake..!" - Lupin

[natade-art]

surprise i promised more shin but it was actually just a ploy to draw more of miss fujiko mine

[l6sadi]

1974 for the tankobon release of the original Lupin III manga, the original chapter covers published in Weekly Manga Action were replaced with completely new drawings by Monkey Punch himself (Most likely due to the poor state of preservation of said covers).

These are my favorites, what are yours?

[thund3randrain]

"So you were talking about that gay ship you like..."

BITCH WHICH ONE

[ohotnig]

40% off on all this goofy anime stuff (and more) until the end of today!

www.inprnt.com/gallery/ohotnig/

[cam0rey]

manga goemon redraw

[sarazanmai]

[tiffany-chan123]

It’s for science I swear

[tsukumo-nya]

There is a legit chapter from the manga where Lupin and Jigen disguise themselves as cats to try to steal a giant "cat eye" shaped gem, and go up against a group of "guard cat's" to steal it!

I NEED THIS TO BE ANIMATED SO BAD!!!

[waddlehekk]

Can you talk a little more about how Goemon is intended to be mixed race? I read the manga but never picked up on this; was it lost to translation, or is it extremely subtle (or just a headcanon)? Also, do you have any idea why his race was changed in the Pilot film (if it was at all)?

Though it is never outright stated, there are clear details in Goemon's design that I believe are included to suggest he is mixed race, being part Asian since he is still the descendant of the original, Japanese, Ishikawa Goemon, and part something else, which I'm thinking is part White. The themes presented in the Lupin manga and in MP's other manga of racial freedom coincide with this too.

It's important to also understand the context of the themes that surround Goemon's character, being raised under strict Eastern culture, but despite being naïve towards Western culture, he does not reject it in the way his masters do and is even curious about it.

Before I begin, I'd like to make it clear that MP is not the most consistent when it comes to his designs, especially in the earlier manga where he is still working out what he wants of the characters. It doesn't help either that he had to rush to meet deadlines for the manga. With that being said though, I will be focusing on Goemon's consistent character traits that become more concrete in Shin Lupin.

An obvious detail to Manga Goemon's design is his cleft chin. This is usually drawn in more western-like characters (for instance, he draws Yankee from Bakumatsu Yankee with a cleft chin but not Okita), so it's really interesting how MP chooses to show it in Goemon. MP drew it more obvious as time went on, but it did exist since his first appearance.

Also, notice how Goemon's hair is not fully inked black as MP does with other characters. Generally, aside from artwork for promotion of the anime, anime ost album covers, and artwork made after the manga's completion, MP would color Goemon's hair as blonde-ish brown. I've seen people refer to it as possibly being ash blonde, or dirty blonde, but I'm not sure.

I'll post examples below. If you've seen them before, please read the rest of the post! I have a lot more to show.

It's a shame though that in some instances, publishers tried to hide this by recoloring MP's artwork, even if it wasn't meant tor the anime at all. Likely this was done to appeal to the larger amount of fans for the anime, and much of MP's later artwork after the manga's completion would alter other parts of Goemon's design to resemble it too, such as by changing his facial features and removing the pattern on his kimono. If you look closely below, you can see how the publishers weren't perfect at covering it up.

You may have seen how in my other post, with the artwork of the English Conversation book, or in a small amount of MP's other drawings, that Goemon's hair is instead colored as grey, silver, or not colored at all. I think MP tends to do this to save on color, and you can even see this in how his clothing is colored only white and grey.

That's also why though Fujiko appears blonde in the covers of that same book, she is also colored with grey hair in its pages inside of the book. Notice how the color of her dress changed too to save on color.

There's a similar case of Fujiko's hair originally being portrayed as blonde in the manga, but MP coloring it as brown or red in some artwork to match the anime. It didn't seem to be as much of an issue though considering how inconsistent Fujiko's design already was in the anime and early manga, and with how the changing hair color does not suggest as much about Fujiko as it does for Goemon and his race.

Goemon's manga design already does not resemble his anime design, so to make it even more different by having a different hair color would certainly bring more confusion from the anime audience. Goemon in the anime is strongly associated with being Japanese in comparison to the others, so it makes sense why his hair color is not a blonde-brown when MP draws for the anime.

Unlike fully blonde characters like Fujiko though, MP tends to draw Goemon's hair with many lines. I notice that when MP isn't rushing to draw Goemon, he draws certain areas of his hair having more lines condensed together and other areas having empty space.

(This is kind of hard to explain so I hope the drawing below makes it clear)

My own interpretation for why he draws his hair this way is to show areas with more denser lines being a darker brown, while the less dense areas show the lighter blonde parts of his hair.

It's worth noting Jigen's hair gets drawn with lines too, but there are more lines to show how much darker it is, and it also lacks any lighter areas. Perhaps Jigen's hair is still meant to be black, with the lines added to show detail in the strands of his straight hair, but what if it was meant to show color in his hair too?

Part 3, the Lupin anime with character designs that resemble Shin Lupin's the most, makes the decision to color Jigen's hair dark brown to show this, despite it always having been depicted as black in the anime.

But back to Goemon, I've seen a few people believe that maybe his hair is dyed/bleached. I can understand this notion, given that when he is first introduced he is dating Fujiko who seems more knowledgeable in this, and we do know that Goemon is an open-minded person when it comes to new things despite his old-fashioned upbringing. I disagree though, in part because some of the more detailed color drawings of him give me the impression it is natural. His sideburns also appear to have color in some close-ups of them.

There is something that he cannot change, however, and that is his eye color. It also happens to share the same color as his hair, more proof that his hair color is natural.

If you look at this magazine cover, you can see everyone's eyes colored in as black, but MP specifically did not do that for Goemon. Perhaps he wanted this detail about Goemon to stand out to readers.

There are many smaller details too, like his fluffy hair that curls at the ends, and his body hair.

And I can't forget the sideburns either. Though having sideburns obviously isn't a genetic trait, it's more western-like design that MP uses. The point of Goemon having sideburns may be to help you picture a more western person from him.

Compare all this to Anime Goemon, who has straight black hair and smaller eyes with black pupils, no sideburns, no body hair, and a regular chin. There is a very different intention between what the 2 characters are attempting to portray, and it's obvious when you look at them side to side. These different intentions are the reason why the anime is so stubborn when it comes to incorporating parts of Manga Goemon's design.

You may be wondering, is it unusual that Monkey Punch would make a character like this?

Not at all!

We know for sure Lupin is mixed too.

"I don't need a passport because the whole Earth is my country!!"

"Everywhere on this Earth is my home, even the middle of the ocean."

The character Inspector John Starmow, who admits to Fujiko that his childhood memories are filled with him being bullied by both other children and adults because he has Indian blood in him.

MP's other work, "Western Samurai"

And of course, MP's "Bakumatsu Yankee"

Looking at the designs of the two friends, it almost seems like Goemon is a hybrid of the two that each represent the East and the West. Okita's fully inked in hair and Yankee's hair with hardly any lines, while Goemon has hair drawn with many lines. Also, Goemon's face resembles Okita's, but he has a chin like Yankee. A little off-topic but I've always thought that Goemon's personality was a mesh between the two: Okita's cheerful attitude and Yankee's calm demeanor.

Now onto the rest of your question, why was this not carried into the Pilot?

If you haven't read my old post, please do read it as it explains my theory on why Manga Goemon was not adapted to the anime, and how Anime Goemon was created: https://www.tumblr.com/waddlehekk/711176903837483008/a-theory-on-the-creation-of-anime-goemon-and-why?source=share

Essentially though, the Pilot and Part 1 very clearly wanted a fully Japanese character out of Goemon to clash with the rest of the cast who are very American.

In the Pilot, Goemon is portrayed with a much darker skin tone rather than being very pale like he is in the Part 1 and nearly every portrayal onwards. Additionally, Mystery of Mamo pushes against Part 1's famously established design, bringing back Goemon's original skin tone and also changing the color of his hair to a dark brown.

At first I thought this dark color was chosen so that the artists could show lighting in Goemon's hair and give it detail, and that therefore it was still meant to be black, but even looking closer his eyebrows were colored too. Fujiko, the only other member of the gang that doesn't have black hair in this movie, is also the only other one to have colored eyebrows.

I read a post recently saying that he's mixed because of this, but to be honest, I disagree. There are many people in Japan with the standards that being very fair-skinned and having black hair is what makes you beautiful, but that doesn't mean all Japanese people are just born like this, and some even try to hide it. If anything, I think the reason why Goemon is depicted like this to go against these beauty standards and show that Goemon is still just as much a good representation of a Japanese samurai. The teams still wanted to depict a message about racial freedom in Goemon, and I think this is in part why the Pilot and Mamo understand the tone of the manga much better than other adaptations.

On a final note, I'd like to add that if Manga Goemon is supposedly mixed, and these themes do exist throughout MP's manga, why not then see characters like Jigen, Fujiko, and Zenigata as being just as racially ambiguous? For all we know, Lupin and Goemon could be a combination of more than what I've said here. I'd love to hear any headcanons.

[hellcatinnc]

These are some of my favorite men in otome..... who agrees?

[peaterookie]

Lupin Week 2024 Day 4: AUs and Mythology

Goemon's face looks like he's seen a ghost.

ahhhh god ok my stupid stupid silly au i made a year ago.... this will be a bit long so get ready

tldr: lupin died, the gang is alive. goemon finds lupin but he's a shark merman!? and lupin remembers nothing!!!

long version:

so this AU follows upon the story of shin lupin, which basically, the gang gets killed off by zenigata because he rigged an island full of explosives.

instead of them all dying however, lupin decides to knock the gang unconscious and find a way for them to escape off the island safely, leaving only him in the island to die.

the rest of the gang had no idea how they escaped and assumed that lupin had sacrificed himself for them. they woke up adrifted on the ocean until they eventually got picked up by a ship where the invisible captain from new adventures returns. but ah ill spare the details for another day

---

2 years have passed and the gang just kinda separated to do their own thing. we'll only focus on goemon cuz he's the featured character of this comic.

goemon decided to escape the life of crime that has burdened him for years living as a part of the lupgang. he's mostly a wanderer now and tries to do good and help people along the way

funnily enough, goemon is not the first person to find lupin, but I'll talk about this later. but goemon is definitely very mixed about seeing his friend who he thought was dead for years. he doesn't know whether to be happy or worried.

---

lupin, at the brink of death after the explosion, plummets down the ocean and wakes up one day, feeling like he's been rebirthed!

essentially, lupin became a merman because right before he could die, his body (i mean what's left of it 💀) interacted with a magic crystal that has the ability to grant life to a living being.

It's really rare, but it exists in clusters deep in the ocean floor or- deep under the rocks of an island :) you can say im bullshitting, which i am but i dont think exploding an entire island down to every rock has happened before, so it can kinda make sense why something so coincidental about these crystals could happen. (I AM TOTALLY MAKING EXCUSES I JUST WANTED TO MAKE LUPIN A MERMAN.)

and so these crystals used whats left of lupins body and reassembled him back, and idk other essences of the ocean to make him a merman!

the memories of his past life have definitely been buried deep inside his brain to the point he can't remember any of it though, so he thinks that he was born under the ocean and has lived there for his entire life. other than that he retains almost everything about himself, down to stealing stupid shit and messing with humans just for the fucks of it. he's kinda seen as like a nessie.

---

anyways, y'know how i said goemon wasn't the first one to meet lupin? that's because lupin has met zenigata before!

living a life with only fishes around means lupin's kinda lonely and likes to stalk humans sometimes. the interaction with him and zenigata did not end well though, and lupin has no idea why zeni wants him dead so much.

after that he's way more cautious around people that look like zenigata- hatted big men with guns. its gonna be fun once he sees jigen.

ok what else... i think that's all i want to reveal now. will i do more of this? maybe. maybe not. kinda embarrassed of this because of how silly it is but i hope you people find this interesting! byebye

[mine-fujiko]

As for the style of the character design I’m under the impression that the manga Shin Lupin and the anime part 2 influenced each other. The manga was released during the airing of part 2, meaning between 1977 and 1980/81.

It’s obvious both the manga and part 2 went into a different style for the characters. Apart from the fact that a huge portion of part 2 was, can I say it? just badly drawn and even worse animated to the point that some panels don’t even seem to have reached the final stage of a drawing but looked like the first raw sketches were directly sent to print, (either they were under pressure and had to go with quantity in place of quality or I have to believe a deliberate bad job in order to obtain… what?) see the difference between the first bunch of episodes up until 100 ca and the better quality from there on, not to mention when A Production aka Miyazaki and co. returned and gave us those final episodes that were masterpieces if compared to the previous episodes and the characters regained their normal look.

As I was saying though it looked like part 2 had an influence on Monkey Punch’s style as well. I’m not sure I actually prefer Shin Lupin to the first series, talking stylewise not storywise.

[l6sadi]

Monkey Punch about his time working on the Lupin III Manga:

“I was really busy back then, I wish I could sleep three days in a week. It was so much so that the black ink started to look red”

—Quote taken from an interview with Mr.Katō on June 5, 2007—

Link to the Full interview

I want you all to think about this:

•His only registered assistant was his brother, who after the first manga went on to work on his own.

•None of the 3 Lupin mangas had any breaks/hiatus, totally weekly without fail.

~Lupin III 1967-1969

~Lupin III New Adventures 1971-1972

~Shin Lupin III 1977-1981

I've always felt that in these discussions about mangakas working themselves to the bone they're missing the point that it's not just editorial pressure, it's also pure love for art.

We're not going to change too much by just ask artist to just don't do it, it's something that you feel you have to do. The same applies to all the professions that we may be passionate about.

But please, take care of your bodies and your mind, and know how to rest.