Lupin III: L'unione fa la forza

Lupin the Third, is one of those crews where the charm of the characters does the majority of the heavy lifting in the story department. The main crew of Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, Fujiko and Inspector Zenigata can work together in any situation. This particular adventure is light on Goemon and Jigen but is heavy on Zenigata. He and the new girl, Maria, get the lion's share of the screentime.

The con of having so much time on Zenigata is that there isn't much done with the villain and his evil plan. In fact, let's talk about the story on this one. Because it is all over the place. The main McGuffin consists of two photos which combine to make a map to 22 billion dollars. That right there is a typical Lupin type heist set up. That is then sidetracked by Maria's physic powers. Maria works as a reporter, where Fujiko is working as the editor. Maria's father was a scientist who was mysteriously killed when she was a child. The villain wants her blood in order to create an army of psychic soldiers. He then orchestrates a phony terrorist attack where he is taken hostage... why? He already has the money, girl and PR, what does he have to gain with this fake ninja attack? The villain does this at his amusement park, which by the way has roller coasters designed to murder people. There is a beat where Lupin says they had his DNA, despite them never having a scene where that happened. There's some fake out deaths that don't add up, attempted murders, firing from Interpol and blue roses.

So yeah, the story has a lot of plot points that don't make a lot of sense. But I undeniably had a good time while watching this craziness. I was grinning from ear to ear as this crazy storyline unraveled. Much like Zenigata, anytime I see Lupin III, I'm going to go see it.