#shin lupin

[blueparasiteflower]

Lupin chapter cover redraw.

[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?

[therealraewest]

Lupin said fake news before it was cool

[zenigataneedsabreak]

Finally a manga that gets me

[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.

[waddlehekk]

there’s something sweet about how lupin and jigen are always hunched over or bending their legs to be eye to eye with goemon

[waddlehekk]

some spoilers!!!!!!!! about the untranslated/later parts of the shin lupin iii manga

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Goemon Prison is a chapter I really like from the stories of Sherdog’s appearance in the manga, and it’s really interesting in how we see this conversation between Goemon and Zenigata after having seen Zenigata have to put up with Lupin’s and Jigen’s antics in trying to escape from prison. It isn’t very often that the manga gives the characters a chance to just talk without many other things going on.

A detail I like is the crooked smile that Goemon forces out while “laughing” as Zenigata speaks with him.

I think Zenigata really is concerned for Goemon’s well-being here, and I’m sure he sees through this smile too. Goemon should have been locked away in the normal, high-security prison, wearing prisoner clothes like Lupin and Jigen, but Zenigata goes out of his way, and I’m sure he had to really argue his way with other officials, to make him a prison outdoors where he can still wear his kimono. 

When he first visits him, he shows pity for Goemon when he sees him attempt to use the key he stole to get out, and he visits him with the intention of just talking with him. As he looks up at the birds in the sky, he says “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

There is so much symbolism with birds, and you can see below a direct callback to the original manga when Goemon’s masters killed a bird in front of Goemon to show him he has to be more cold-hearted as a murderer. Goemon is beginning to realize that despite his kindness, with how he has no intent of hurting this poor bird who he lets onto his head, he’s forced to lead this immoral life his masters wanted of him, and thus the bird cries out despite his intent.

Goemon has been through so much after having been tortured by the Rat Clan and then going on a murderous rampage for the kid with Gene Rosen’s disease, and his cheerful nature is beginning to go away because he can’t help but feel sorrow, but at the same time, his kindness still lingers. It has always been a characteristic of his despite his growth between the 3 manga, and even as he silently took in the pressure of his masters after each failure to kill Lupin, he chooses only to speak up when he sees the bird be hurt (and of course after he pauses and decides to leave them for Lupin).

I think at this point he’s beginning to realize how protective Lupin and Jigen have become over him, and when he sees the empathy Zenigata shows him, he feels that he doesn’t want anyone to have to feel bad for him anymore.

This chapter starts Goemon trying to pretend being cheerful like he used to be, so he really forces this smile because he realizes that Zenigata cares about him. Goemon wants to put himself down for the sake of others, such as with all the killings he does to protect them, and so he would rather not have others feel bad for him because of this. It’s a combination of all the trauma he’s faced with his kindness that causes such a self-destructive behavior.

Another hint that this cheerfulness is fake, unlike how genuinely cheerful he used to be, is how very commonly he laughs in his speech in many of the chapters after this one, but they are never as genuine as his laughter in the first chapter. (The masked man is the real Goemon)

In the ending of Shin Lupin, Goemon finally confesses to the feelings he’s felt all along, and for the first time since the first chapter, he laughs for real.

And although his forcing of emotions was never to this degree in the past, there are still many hints of this behavior earlier on in the manga.

In Shooting Goemon, which wasn’t too long after he was tortured in Strange Bedfellows, I thought the shifting between his emotions when talking to the girl were interesting, and he “laughs” here too.

He becomes so serious from here on.

In Chasing Tail he tries to cheer up Lupin when he realizes they are both stuck with the issue of having tails. There is more “laughing” here.

In Hardened Steel, though, he’s too heartbroken to even put on a single smile for the boy, who is soon to pass away. It’s interesting how the boy is so happy throughout this chapter in contrast to Goemon, who I believe has reached his breaking point here.

But back to Goemon Prison. There is this moment where Goemon asks Zenigata why he’s following the orders of the Watson machine, which he later finds out instructed Zenigata to take advantage of how he would risk himself to save Zenigata’s life. Zenigata argues he is the one instructing the computer, but in a way, he gives an actual reason why in the ending of the chapter.

It’s out of character for Zenigata to follow the orders of someone else, a machine of all things, given how he insists on capturing Lupin himself and under his own methods, but the reason why he trusts the computer, he reveals, is because he knows that what it has predicted of Goemon’s character has been true of him all along.

“That’s the kind of guy you are... Goemon...”

[waddlehekk]

i want to buy the collection of unpublished lupin iii works solely because monkey punch drew a scene where jigen and goemon are playing a game of chess pieces vs shogi pieces on the same board and they end up getting into an argument because the game kinda makes no sense lol.