The Big Golden Showdown Is Peak Part 1

The Big Golden Showdown is Peak Part 1

I have been a long time Part 1 fan but I always had a few episodes I never finished. Back in November or December of last year, I embarked on a rewatch of the Part 1 episodes I had already seen as well as watching the ones remaining, primarily the last 3. It took a while due to personal issues, but I completed the last 3, and I especially enjoyed the final episode (#23), The Big Golden Showdown. So I wrote an essay on it! Read it below!

Hayao Miyazaki has always had a thing for raising the stakes to the utmost degree in his finales. Though I have not yet completed Part 2, I have watched the finale of which he was the director of and you can see that there especially, in which the usually low-stakes silly Part 2 builds a level of tension and terror in the air through its sheer scope. Part 1 however differs, because at face value there is nothing particularly different about the Part 1 finale. It’s a pretty standard Lupin caper, and it ends as most Lupin capers do. They get the treasure, end up losing it somehow anyway but just barely make it out while Zenigata chases after in an attempt to apprehend them. But it’s on a character level I think this episode captures my heart.

Most evidently, Zenigata is at his literal wits’ end. It’s important to note this episode solidifies one of my favorite aspects of Part 1, its continuity. Zenigata acknowledges by now he has captured Lupin twice in the series, and has twice lost him, and after continually failing to get and keep him behind bars, even with the help of a supercomputer, he seems to have given up when he admits to the Police Commissioner that even if he was at the bank when they were transferring the gold coins over, Lupin would’ve been able to steal it anyway. This appears to be a far cry from the Zenigata we’ve previously seen who stuck it through thick and thin. Goemon even remarks that Zenigata is acting differently, though Lupin stubbornly denies it (this underestimation becomes his crucial flaw at the end of the episode). But now he says that if he’s unsuccessful, he’ll resign. This already adds serious weight to this episode. You can observe this in the general tone. 

Additionally, while Part 1’s soundtrack is often ridiculed I find it incredibly fitting for how it’s used. The somber tones of the songs set an overture of finality to this episode, and it really makes things seem like this is the end. And historically speaking, this show failed to meet rating expectations, so to the staff at the time, for all they knew, it WAS. This would be the last time Lupin would ever be animated and the manga was already over, so I believe knowing this, they made this episode as a somber farewell to the characters. It is a bittersweet goodbye.

I think another facet of this is how the characters act. Even though for a majority of it, we see Lupin and the gang act on usual business, they sense something is different, as Goemon says. When Lupin goes to his old hideout, he carelessly wrecks tons of his family heirlooms saying they’re junk and he doesn’t need them. As if he’s ready to move on. Everything seems like it’s going to culminate in this heist, and though I don’t think this was ever going to be their last heist, it’s the climax of their careers (at least up to that point) in a way.

And on that note, it’s in the episode’s climax that these themes come together. Lupin the entire series is always very brash and though it always works out for him, it is here where his crucial flaw comes in. He makes a grave error in this episode and ends up leading the police and Zenigata to him and the gang. Now LUPIN is at his wits’ end. Even though at first it seems like Lupin was just bluffing to Zenigata about not wanting to live anymore after making such a screw-up, I think in a way he was being genuine. As we saw in Episode 4, Lupin takes it hard when he loses to Zenigata. That's why he was willing to fake his death rather than just be taken into custody. There's no doubt he would have escaped, but the idea he could be arrested over such an oversight, he'd rather fake his own death in a dramatic explosion. A true finale.

But that's when the beautiful ending comes in. Lupin thinks he's finally won once and for all, that he successfully faked his death, and the viewers then likely thought that this would be the end of the adventures of Lupin III, once and for all. But then, Zenigata comes back unexpectedly, and in that moment where Lupin and Zenigata look into each other’s eyes, under the water, I think both them and the viewer realize something. It will never be over. And though "the chase will never end" is an easy thing for people to say in a world where this show has been running for 50+ years, back then, that meant something truly special.

Once again, it is the perfect bittersweet ending, and I think the episode’s character writing and exploration in how these characters deal with such heavy stakes make it a personal favorite of mine. Part 1 was so good, only an ending like this could top it off.