Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. So just out of curiosity when was the last time I reviewed something related to Lupin III?
*Nitsuj searches the archives*
Oh my goodness I have really fallen off the wagon. Time to fix this. Despite the original anime run coming to an end in the mid-80s, Lupin enjoyed a relatively quiet success thanks to its yearly specials/movies. They were fun to watch and always felt special. The specials would continue into the new millennium. After the success of $1 Money Wars the team behind Lupin would give us the Alcatraz Connection. Released in 2001 this was the 13th special and the first special to use digital animation completely from beginning to end and was influenced by the San Francisco arc from the New Lupin III manga. I have to admit this is another special I haven’t seen so I’m excited to finally give it a watch. Let’s head toward the big house island. This is the Alcatraz Connection.
We begin out at sea in the San Franciso Bay on the casino/luxury cruise Machine Gun Kelly (fun fact, they actually misspelled the ship’s name in the first shot only to correct it in the second shot). The ship is being followed by the police along with Zenigata who land on the ship via helicopter to inform the ship’s operator Andy that Lupin intends to rob them. Andy laughs off Lupin’s warning but then the ship gets attacked by a sea monster (and all this time we were looking for the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland. It’s been in the Bay this whole time) while everyone is busy panicking and handling the monster, Lupin makes his presence known and gives us honestly the best opening to these specials (scene here: https://youtu.be/5i51hQxtViE?si=yvihgGjserhvjCGb. This opening was amazing. First off, the animation is spectacular here. It is fluid and makes every moment count. Second, the music goes hard. The Lupin series has always had great music and they really outdid themselves here). After the group meets up they break into the vault while Lupin steals some data from the ship. As they make their escape, Zenigata manages to stop them from taking the money but Lupin got what he really wanted with the data he stole from the ship.
The next day Lupin explains that the luxury cruise had two functions. First, an illegal casino (because it was the 80s and outside of Nevada, the other states weren’t too big on casinos and gambling). It’s second function was to study the seabed. The Bay is home to a lot of sunken ships and most of those ships were carrying gold. The biggest one being the Yankee Slade which carried enough gold to fund a small country. However, no one has been able to find it since it’s 6,000 meters below the water (not even our U.S Navy can go that deep) but with this data can finally pinpoint it. Just then the mafia shows up where they capture Lupin and bring him to an underground facility led by this mafia organization known as the Secret 7. With the help of Jigen, Lupin is able to escape only to find that he was on Alcatraz this whole time (well we found Alcatraz, now where’s the connection?). Once they make it back to San Francisco they get chased by these men in black who may be working for the FBI or CIA (they also might the Blues Brothers based on their attire and body type). They steal a trolly and start running around all over San Francisco figuring out the identities of the Secret 7 thanks to Lupin marking the money they were trying to steal. At the end of the chase Lupin gets captured by Zenigata and San Francisco cop named Larry (who is obviously corrupted).
That night, Terry attempts to kill Lupin in prison where it gets exposed that he’s the boss of the Secret 7 (ironic, a corrupted cop is controlling the mafia. Usually it’s the other way around). He shoots Lupin and makes it look like a suicide but Lupin survived (not sure how he faked a headshot) telling Zenigata who Terry really is and getting him on his side. Zenigata helps Lupin escape but Terry put a bomb in the car. Lupin and Zenigata managed to escape and then make it to Alcatraz where the Secret 7 have just found the location of the ship thanks to Fujiko who sided with them and they have a sub that can dive 6,000 meters. Their plan is to use that money to become the next president of the USA and rule the country as each one of them is the child of a criminal who was locked up in Alcatraz (and there’s the connection). After Jigen and Goemon dispatch two members of the Secret 7, they reach the island and meet back up with Lupin who shows them the underground city beneath Alcatraz. On the outside, Alcatraz was seen as a prison, but the prisoners saw it as a paradise they didn’t want to escape. However, the Kennedys found out about the island’s secret and shut the place down. The mafia retaliated by assassinating both of them within five years of each other (man, the conspiracy hole goes deep in this movie. Funny enough, the leaders of San Francisco tried to turn Alcatraz into a casino back in 1988 to fix the city’s financial problems. However, Alcatraz was considered a national park and no gambling is allowed within the national park system. On top of that citizens didn’t want guys like Capone and Kelly running businesses in their state). The FBI and CIA were also involved in Alcatraz’s secret so now they’re trying to cover up their tracks and erase everyone who has a connection to the island and assassinations. The gold holds the evidence they need to expose the truth about Kennedy’s assassination and Lupin wants it more than anything. The men in black set off the bombs within the base resulting in the death of Terry and Kelly got taken out by Jigen. The group gets saved by Fujiko who was only able to bring back one gold bar which isn’t gold at all it’s the evidence of Kennedy’s assassination. As the credits roll, we see that the reason Lupin wanted this evidence was to impress a woman who was writing a thesis on the Kennedy assassination. However, she’s no longer interested in the thesis as she’s getting married. Lupin throws the evidence back into the Bay and the group goes back on the run to end the movie on a high note.
Final Thoughts
This special was pretty good. I do love how deep they go down the conspiracy hole in this special. Not only is it well done but it’s totally something I could see being real. It’s like something I would expect to see from Inside Job (damn you Netflix for canceling that show). I do like how the villains are related to past criminals who were locked up in Alcatraz. While they’re not the biggest threat Lupin has faced this does make them a little more memorable and creative than some of the villains Lupin has faced up until that point. Speaking of Lupin, I do like that he’s not much of a simp for Fujiko in this special and was doing this to impress another lady and because it’s another fun challenge for him. The animation is good here. That opening alone is worth the price of admission and they do a good job of capturing early 2000s San Francisco. The only downside is I wish the whole special was fluid with the animation just like the opening. The jokes are funny, the chase scenes inventive and fun, and the music goes hard in this special.
Final Score
My final score for Alcatraz Connection is a 7/10. A good special in the Lupin library and worth checking out if you’re a fan of conspiracies and Lupin in general. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.