Summary
With this week’s installment, Lupin Zero delivers another entertaining episode focusing on Lupin and Jigen’s back-and-forth relationship.
We recap the HiDive anime series Lupin Zero Season 1 Episode 4, “Claim the Whiskey Pipe,” which contains spoilers.
While the antics between Lupin (voiced by Tasuku Hatanaka) and his family are as crazy as they are compelling, this week’s episode was all about another one of Lupin’s most important relationships: his friendship with Jigen (voiced by Shunsuke Takeuchi). It’s never been unusual to see these two butt heads, but something always brings them back to the same side in the end. It’s almost as if Lupin and Jigen are at their best when they’re together. If nothing else, that’s definitely when they’re the most fun to watch. With this week’s episode of Lupin Zero, fans get another look at how Lupin and Jigen came together to form the infamous pair they remember from the franchise.
Lupin Zero Season 1 Episode 4 recap
In the mood for some fireworks, Lupin and Jigen set off an explosion at the fireworks factory. The explosion ruins Jigen’s lighter, but before Lupin can say anything, his housekeeper Shinobu catches them and scolds Lupin for leaving the mansion without permission.
At school, the other kids seem surprised to b seen so much of Jigen these days. He receives a note from Lupin asking to meet on the roof, where Lupin admits he wants to run away from home. Even since seeing his grandfather, he’s been on strict lockdown. Jigen asks where Lupin intends to live, which seems to spark an idea in the thief as he suggests they build a secret base right at the school. Since it would be the perfect place to hide from his family and slack off from school, Jigen agrees.
With some effort and construction, Lupin creates and secures a hideout space right on campus. However, he can’t escape the feeling that something is missing. He decides his hideout needs a bathtub,b but when he begins drilling to construct one, he ends up accidentally flooding an entire classroom instead. This forces him and Jigen to find a new secure location under the staircase.
As the two try to figure out their new space, Jigen lights a cigarette using matches, which Lupin immediately calls unusual. Jigen blames Lupin for ruining his lighter just before a group of wrestlers comes barreling down the stairs, ruining their new hideout and forcing them to try a new location in the basement.
When the basement doesn’t work out, they try a trash chute and a utility close before Jigen finally grows frustrated and forces Lupin to at least try organizing his ideas on paper first. While most of them are ridiculous, Jigen notices a pipe in the drawing that seems to be for flowing liquor into their new base. Lupin explains that while casing the school for locations, he found a secret pipe underground that seems to be smuggling whiskey for the US military to sell on the side. “So we’re going to steal it from the US army?” Jigen asks, to which Lupin is enthusiastically sure of their abilities.
To his surprise, though, Jigen doesn’t seem to have much faith in the idea. He says he’s just trying to look at it for Lupin since his ideas often crash and burn, which causes the two to get into an argument. When Lupin arrives home in a tizzy that night, he vows to get the job done himself. At his own home, we see Jigen is equally upset as he tries to repair the lighter Lupin previously damaged.
Later that night, Jigen is smoking by the river when he overhears two US soldiers speaking. He follows them to the sewer to find they’re going to get a glass of whiskey from the pipe but overhears their confusion when the soldiers see a note scribbled onto the pipe that says “for Lupin and Jigen only”. While they wonder what it could mean, Jigen sneaks away while berating Lupin’s stupidity.
The next day, Jigen searches for Lupin at school to no avail until Lupin sends him a note that says to stop complaining and start searching. We see Lupin watching Jigen from his new hideout, which seems to be somewhere in the gym. All he has left to do is get his whiskey faucet connected to the pipe so that he can smuggle liquor into the space as planned.
That night, Lupin takes some tools down to try and connect his hideout to the whiskey pipe when the US soldiers find him. They plan to kill him, but Lupin manages to escape by attacking them with his tools and running off. Unfortunately for him, the soldiers have already called for backup. He tries to sneak away, only to get caught, but then suddenly gunshots ring through the sewer hitting the soldiers, showing Jigen has come to save his life.
Ending Explained
As Lupin and Jigen attempt to run away down a narrow hallway, they begin arguing again over why this is a bad idea. The fighting turns physical, and as they scuffle, the gun accidentally goes off, hitting the whiskey pipe and causing it to sprout a leak that hits them both in the face, intoxicating them.
The soldiers chase after the boys. Thinking they’ve found Lupin, they open fire on him, hitting the whiskey pipe and causing multiple leaks. However, it isn’t Lupin running away, but his jacket that the boys have rigged on a stick and string rapidly moving the trick them. The soldiers shoot more, only causing more breaks in the pipe as Lupin and Jigen begin throwing whatever they can grab at them to escape.
One of the soldiers accidentally breaks the pipe, causing whiskey to begin flooding the sewer. Lupin and Jigen escape by riding the whiskey wave all the way out.
Back at the hideout, Lupin and Jigen lament their failed mission, joking that maybe they should’ve waited until they were a bit older. Jigen is pleased to see his lighter is working again as Lupin falls asleep near the heater in front of them.
Much like the previous few, this was another fun episode of Lupin. Even in the more serious moments, the series always manages to find a great moment for some ridiculous comic relief to lighten the mood. Today’s installment focused on the relationship between Lupin and Jigen, which is one of the series’s most interesting aspects, as they’ve always felt like a mix between the best of buds and frenemies. I was hoping to see more of Jigen’s backstory, mainly because they keep giving us hints about his life, but I do appreciate the little looks into his background that we have gotten. Maybe we’ll get more about his and Lupin’s father’s in the final few episodes.
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