So, what did Lupin decide to end with? With an exposition episode. I really expected an epic action-packed episode instead, but this works too, even though it’s a kind of ending that’s very easy to screw up by rushing through things way too much, or turning the story into something completely different.
This episode was slightly rushed, and it actually was completely different from the rest of the series, but it worked. I like the balls of the creators to go with an anti-climax like this: throughout the enitre series we’ve seen it established over and over again that Mine Fujiko was abused and raped as a childBut no, she was just brainwashed at some point and she had always been a thief like she is now. It’s awesome to see that the creators had the balls to go with such a creative ending, rather than going with the most obvious type of ending and I really appreciate this creativity.
So in the end, we still know very little about who Mine Fujiko really is, but she doesn’t have a ham-handed backstory that screams “pity me!”, and instead we’ve got a main villain with one heck of a messed up backstory. The ending was pretty much a “life goes on”-ending with Mine Fujiko getting revenge on the girl that kept her brainwashed for years, her mother is left behind in her own castle without her daughter, Oscar disappeared, and everyone else pretty much ends up doing what they’ve been doing all along. Normally I’m not too fond of these types of endings, but here they strangely fit: Lupin is a series about adventures, and this series was just a small sample of the places that these people go to. Best ending of the season so far? I’d say so.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Indeed. It takes a lot of guts to end it like that and cancel all of the development of the entire season.
But it fits the Lupin franchise. In Lupin Status Quo is King therefore nothing will ever change about the characters.
However unfortunately it was less fun than Lupin usually was.(mainly because we didn’t really get to see Lupin go wild very much except in the first ep and the painted lady ep).
The way this end it nearly (a few continuity issues) puts us just at the start of the original anime where Goemon was Fujikos fiance, they all barely met and didnt trust each other enough to really work together.
Oh and props to the choice of Glados voice, very fitting and made me think it had suddenly become a Portal anime.