Lupin III/Recap/S2/E33

"To Who Does Orion's Crown Belong?", with the English title "A Rumble Royale". Released in 2004 by Geneon on Volume 7: Royal Scramble.

An old jeweler appraises the beautiful ornate Orion's Crown at a black market action of jewel thieves. The crown's "owner", Jaguar, assures his guests that the crown was stolen by him personally, his word backed by longtime customer Tatsumaki. The jeweler is insulted, but is promptly put in his place by one each of Jaguar's and Tatsumaki's men, who turn out to be none other that Jigen and Goemon. The bidding starts at ten million, but Tatsukmaki is quickly put into a bidding war with Fujiko Mine, also present at the auction. She helps raise the bid, but loses in the end to Tatsumaki, who wins with thirteen million. As he is a million short, he asks Jaguar to hold the crown for him until the last million arrives the next day.

At the jeweler's shop, the jeweler reveals himself as Lupin. Fujiko, who figured this out earlier, comes visiting and laughs that she's messed up Lupin's plans with the delay caused by her high bidding. Lupin declares that Fujiko beat him this time, especially as he appears to be without his two partners in crime. As soon as she leaves, though, he sighs that it's hard to be lie to the love of his life.

The next day, Jigen visits a local barber shop. The barber, once again a disguised Lupin, has some fun tormenting Jigen for his rough treatment the day before, after which Jigen fills him in: Jaguar has a hand made of metal that he's constantly polishing, and his right-hand man, the ruthless Black Cat, has a similar polishing habit with one of his shoes. Lupin then obtains similar information from a fishing Goemon about Tatsumaki's plans to smuggle the crown out of the country and his own right-hand man, Black Cloud.

That night, at Jaguar's mansion, the final deal is going down; Lupin climbs up the outside of the building to make his own move when everything is interrupted by a raid lead by Inspector Zenigata. In the chaos of smoke bombs and bullets, Lupin is nearly killed, but rescued at the last second by Fujiko, who has managed to sneak in herself and tipped off the officer to create a distraction. Together, the two try to take advantage of the battle to make off with everything, but they are caught, Jaguar shooting needles from the finger of his hand into Lupin's chest. Jaguar, Tatsumaki, and their men escape through a hidden passage while Lupin and Fujiko find a place to hide. Lupin's life was saved from Jaguar's needles by $200,000 he had snuck from Tatsumaki's money before they were caught.

The missing money causes a huge problem; Tatsumaki believes Jaguar should eat the loss as he'd already turned the funds over, but Jaguar wants Tatsumaki to make up the difference. Discussing the situation with Jigen and Goemon, Lupin comes up with a new plan. He has Jigen and Goemon persuade the leaders of the gangs to meet again, but to ensure that they won't be tricked to replace the real items with counterfeits. The two gangs meet that night at a warehouse on the docks, but the handover is interrupted by Lupin-the-Jeweler, who inspects the goods and declares them fakes. Furious, the two gangs are at all out war. Lupin uses the distraction to ransack Jaguar's house and Tatsumaki's boat, but to his dismay, he finds someone's already made off with the goods! Meanwhile, Black Cat and Black Cloud run each other through while Goemon and Jigen beat Jaguar and Tatsumaki.

Fujiko managed to overhear the planning in the barber shop via a bug on her puppy's collar, and she has already snagged the crown and money. She pulls away in a boat just as Zenigata arrives on the scene, tipped off by Lupin this time. Lupin sees her boat zoom by from Tatsumaki's boat, but he also spies Zenigata following her in a police boat. Zenigata, thinking where Fujiko goes Lupin will be, goes after her until he manages to ram the boat, knocking Fujiko, puppy, crown, and money into the water. As he pulls up two exploding dummies of Fujiko and Lupin, the real Lupin arrives to help her, but the crown and money are likely beyond their reach. As they squabble and futilely search, the puppy bobs to the surface, barking and wearing Orion's Crown on his head.

This episode features examples of:

 * Colourful Theme Naming: Black Cat and Black Cloud, hinting at their dark and brutal nature.
 * Defeat by Modesty: Goemon uses this against Jaguar.
 * Femme Fatale: Thy name is Fujiko, who wants the crown and a victory over Lupin.
 * Implausible Fencing Powers: Goemon blocks all of the high-velocity needles shot at him by Jaguar's metal hand.
 * Ridiculous Future Inflation: Avoided. The Japanese subtitles has the bidding start at one million and end at two million. The English dub essentially shifts it up a decimal place and ups the values to ten million and thirteen million.
 * Latex Perfection: Lupin for the jeweler.
 * Mutual Kill: Black Cat and Black Cloud run each other through at the same time.
 * Precious Puppy: Fujiko uses hers as a listening device. And then the puppy gets the crown. Awwwwww!
 * Shoe Phone: In this case, a Shoe Knife, used by Black Cat to take out Black Cloud.