Arséne Lupin III (ルパン三世, Rupan Sansei) is the protagonist in the Studio Ghibli film The Castle of Cagliostro
Arsene Lupin III appears at the beginning of the film when he and Jigen are running from the Monte Carlo Casino with bags of stolen money. He finds the money to be counterfeit and tracks it to the source: the country of Cagliostro. On the way there, he tells Jigen that the castle is a death trap and no one entering it has ever returned; even he barely made it out alive when he tried.
History[]
Lupin and Jigen rob a casino in Monte Carlo, but not before Lupin incapacitates the guards' cars and leaves behind taunting notes.
At first, he enjoys the theft, but is disappointed to find that the bills are counterfeit, so he finds a new objective. He traces the bills to the small country of Cagliostro, the castle of which is known as the "black hole".
Later, their Fiat blows a tire. Waking Jigen from a nap, they play rock paper scissors to decide who will fix it and Jigen loses.
While Jigen is replacing the tire, a woman races by in a Citroen 2CV, with a group of men in pursuit. Their chase takes them to a road along a lakeside cliff. Lupin decides to help the woman, and he and Jigen disable the men's cars. When they catch up to the woman, they find her unconscious and her car heading for a bend. Lupin steps into the Citroen and tries to stop the car, but to no avail; the car goes over, but Lupin manages to hook a branch with a line from his belt. Once he gets a good look at the woman, he recognises, to his astonishment, that the woman is Clarisse, the girl who saved his life ten years before.
When Clarisse comes to, she tries to fight him off, but Lupin urges her to look down. She then decides to trust him. He starts to gently let him and Clarisse down, but the branch snaps and sends them to the bottom of the cliff. The branch hits Lupin on the head, knocking him unconscious.
When he comes to, Jigen is by his side and Clarisse is gone. He heads to the shore to see some men in a boat bringing her to the castle.
He then notices a damp glove, and inside, a ring with an emblem of a goat and ancient writing.
He and Jigen head to the old ruins near the castle, which were destroyed in a fire. Lupin takes a stroll and sits by the lake. There he studies the ring with a wistful smile, thinking about Clarisse. Jigen comes and joins him, and with a playful wrestle, forces Lupin to admit he's hiding something.
As they stand by the wall with an overlooking view of the castle, Lupin admits to Jigen that he did try to break in when he was young and barely made it out alive. They notice the Count's autogyro flying in, and the boat that Clarisse was in entering a tunnel.
At their inn, while having spaghetti, a waitress tells them about Clarisse, and about the womanizing Count. Jigen catches on that Lupin knew about Clarisse.
Lupin decides to take action. In their room, he is making a forgery when strange, armored men break in. During the fight, Lupin discreetly sticks an advance notice to the back of one. He and Jigen escape and he scrapes them off with the Fiat.
Lupin and Jigen then spend the rest of the night in the ruins. While they're staking out the scene, Goemon arrives. Later, Zenigata arrives in a Nissan police car; it turned out Lupin had invited him.
The next night, Lupin and Jigen enter the tunnel in scuba gear. Lupin gets pulled into the gears, but exits mostly unscathed. Dodging Zenigata, he comes out through a fountainhead, and takes off his scuba suit to reveal Zenigata's suit and trenchcoat.
Doing a perfect imitation of the Inspector, Lupin manages to get inside the castle, but stops short of falling into a trap by the front door; Pops isn't so lucky.
While searching the castle, he runs into Fujiko, who he hasn't seen for a year, and give him help with where Clarisse is locked away.
Lupin then scales the castle wall to the roof, then reaches Clarisse's holding place, an isolated tower. He then climbs to the top of the roof he's on and gets out a small rocket. Unfortunately, due to the wind and the cheap lighter he's using, he can't get a light started, and his frustration causes him to drop the rocket. While sliding down to retrieve it, Lupin loses his footing and careens uncontrollably down the roof before jumping off of it and smacking into his target. After getting his grip, he uses the line from his belt to get into the tower.
Lupin meets with Clarisse and gives her back the ring. Unfortunately, he is then surrounded by the Count and his elite bodyguards. The Count sends Lupin down a trap. The tunnel is filled with spikes, but Lupin dodges them and hooks onto one of them with the line. He is then pushed into the catacombs with water.
As Lupin lowers himself down, he finds a lurid sight. Hundreds of corpses, all around him, the victims of the Cagliostro Family's retribution. He is relieved to find Zenigata alive, even though they are both trapped. The two men share a cigarette, then Lupin bids Zenigata goodnight and goes to sleep.
Later, Lupin sets up a trap. The guards prepare to attack who they think are their sleeping forms, but are skeletons dressed in their clothes as decoys. Lupin then captures a fleeing guard and steals his claw. He and Zenigata escape through the underwater tunnel and come across the Count's printing press.
Personality[]
Unlike his sociopathic manga counterpart, Lupin is a mischievous but easy-going gentleman thief, with particular emphasis on the "gentleman". While he steals, he mainly does it for the thrill of it, and just to prove he can. While he can be intimidating, he has a warm and friendly side to him. In The Castle of Cagliostro, he's older, wiser, and regrets his actions of his past, seeing his young self as a "punk" and a "greenhorn".
His chivalry is a quality that carries over from the anime; he has a weakness for a pretty girl in distress. But while he's a self-admitted womanizer, he views Clarisse as the same little girl he knew years ago.
He can be a little accident-prone and has a tendency to say "Ay-yi-yi" whenever things go wrong.
He can be incredibly stubborn. When he's recuperating from his wounds, he literally bites off more than he can chew and ends up nearly sick from indigestion.
Appearance[]
Lupin is tall and skinny with neatly styled short black hair that never falls out of place, and large black eyes. Despite the fact that he's older than he is in the series, he has the same boyish appearance as before. He wears the outfit he wore in the first anime: a green jacket, a black shirt and pants and a yellow tie.
Abilities[]
Physically, Lupin is a man of average strength, but he can throw a surprisingly good punch. He is incredibly flexible and fast, and his manual dexterity is catlike in precision and quickness. Despite his average strength, he's able to jump impossible lengths and cling to the tower Clarisse is held captive in.
His talent in the art of disguise borders on the superhuman, with him being able to flawlessly impersonate any man or woman in face, voice and costume after minimal observation of them. At one point in the film, he enters the castle by impersonating his favorite person: Inspector Zenigata. Incredibly, he's able to do this without needing a latex mask.
Later in the film he perfectly impersonates the Archbishop.
Lupin has a near-endless array of skills, including forgery, as shown when he makes a copy of the ring to taunt the Count with.
Relationships[]
Jigen[]
Lupin and Jigen are an inseparable pair who know each other inside out. They spend time casually chatting and playfully teasing each other, but they spend most of the film separated, as Lupin got pulled into the castle's waterworks while Jigen stayed behind and provided backup with his Magnum and an anti-tank rifle.
Zenigata[]
Lupin loves Zenigata like the bumbling but well-meaning uncle he never had. Though he uses Zenigata as a pawn in his plan, he treats him with magnanimity, and views him as a friend in the direst situations.
Clarisse[]
Unlike with most other women, Lupin sees Clarisse as the same little girl who saved him years ago, and is indebted to her and treats her with respect. At the end, when Clarisse embraces Lupin and tells him she wants to run away and become a thief, he becomes uncomfortable. Believing he's become a bad influence on her, he refuses to embrace her back, instead tenderly kissing her on the head before taking his leave.
Fujiko[]
Although Lupin and Fujiko have a past, their relationship is not as much in focus as in other entries in the franchise. Although Lupin treats Fujiko with affection, he's very hands-off around her and lets her do her work while he goes to save Clarisse. He does, however, show interest when he sees her riding off with the counterfeit plates she retrieved from the raid and asks if they can be friends.
Trivia[]
- Due to copyright disputes with Maurice LeBlanc's estate, he was known as "Wolf" in the Streamline dub.
- In the manga, Lupin was a cold-blooded murderer who forced himself on any woman he wanted. His personality was softened in the anime, where he only (mostly) killed in self-defense and was a hapless womaniser, but was in general a good person at heart and protected the vulnerable. Essentially, in the anime he was a goofier version of Sean Connery's Bond.
- In the early stages of The Castle of Cagliostro's development, Miyazaki did a sketch of what he thought Lupin would look like in his early middle age. This was rejected in favor of Lupin's regular design, and so the thief simply ended up looking younger than he actually was.
Name[]
Lupin's name is taken from the famous thief Arsene Lupin of Maurice Leblanc's novels. "Arsène" means "male, virile", befitting a man with a healthy sex drive.
Quotes[]
Arséne: Clarisse... Don't talk stupid. Do you want to go back into the darkness again? You've come out into the sun at last. Hey... your life begins now. Don't become filthy like me. I'll tell you what - if you're ever in trouble, I'll fly straight to you no matter when, even if I'm on the other side of the world.