A theory on the creation of Anime Goemon and why he is a different person from Manga Goemon
oh boy this is going to be long
First, we must look closely at Chapter 5 of the original manga. It is titled “Suspense Zone” and it is based off of the Arsène Lupin story of the Devil’s Red Ring.
The chapter was originally the 8th Chapter of the manga before being reordered in later publications, and it released in September 28, 1967. I suggest you give it a read for yourself.
The Red Ring functions differently here, however, in that it periodically transforms the victim into somebody else, almost like their opposite. In this chapter, it is Mr. Danshiyaku, the criminal who aims to take over the country by controlling the Yakuza, who transforms into the master hitman, Master Koroshi. In sticking with Monkey Punch’s interest in Western culture contrasting with Eastern culture, we see the Western Danshiyaku become his opposite, the Eastern Koroshi.
Lupin decides to work with Master Koroshi, asking him to kill Danshiyaku to prevent his takeover, but by a cruel fate, Koroshi is killed in a trap created by Danshiyaku. It is then that Lupin reveals they are really the same person.
Master Koroshi’s outfit, long face, hairstyle, sanpaku eyes, the lines beneath the eyes to show age, and his habit of closing one eye resemble that of Anime Goemon’s, don’t they?
Gone are details like the big eyes, thick eyebrows, long eyelashes, the kimono with the cross pattern resembling a student uniform, etc.
This dramatic scene where he walks out is the same too. Also similar to Anime Goemon, Koroshi has moments of shock where he breaks character like here.
That is because Anime Goemon is based off of Master Koroshi, not Manga Goemon!
For that we must look at when planning began for the Pilot. Yasuo Otsuka stated it was in the summer of 1968, with the idea for a Lupin anime being first proposed around July 25 (you’ll see how this lines up with Goemon’s introduction to the manga soon enough). Yutaka Fujioka, however, stated in an interview in 1978 that it was started 12 years ago in the summer of 1967 when he was 39 years old, but these numbers do not line up unless 1967 is changed to 1968. Perhaps it was some kind of mistake with his memory.
After planning, the team would put together a Pilot loosely adapted from the chapter “Triple Play” released in October 3, 1968, and “Camera Tricks” released in October 17 of the same year.
At the time of planning for the Pilot, however, Goemon was not yet a friend to Lupin in the manga. The serial drama that introduced Goemon as an enemy to Lupin ran in 1968 from April 4 to April 25, but the ending 4th chapter to it had not yet resolved the conflict between them. After this series, there was a break before Goemon would appear again.
In fact, Monkey Punch has stated in an interview for Weekly Manga Action on May 20, 2004, that Goemon was originally never going to be a friend to Lupin, remaining an enemy until the very end. For these reasons, Goemon was not planned to appear in the Pilot.
It was only until August 15 to August 29 in the Kobudo series that Monkey Punch had resolved the conflict between Lupin and Goemon, changing his mind to make them instead friends to also help push the oriental feeling of the manga.
Goemon was created to bring a more Japanese-like character into the series. He is first introduced as resentful of Western ideals, and Lupin on the other hand disregards Eastern ideals. It’s until the second series that they both start learning to accept each others’ cultures, and Goemon decides to reject his masters. His masters tell him his idea of mixing together previous fighting techniques into a new one is a terrible idea simply because they do not wish to accept any new cultural ideas, but they also cannot accept Lupin simply being just as strong with his newer techniques either, and so they provide him with arbitrary advice and even try to make him cold-hearted, to which Goemon responds with:
"I appreciate your advice so far.
But all you have is the past that you have experienced. On the contrary, I have the future that I am about to experience. Do you understand? That is the difference between us!!"
tokyopop changed this line for no reason btw
This change of mind was late into planning for the Pilot, and so it was too late. Suddenly, Goemon was now a part of the main 5 and the staff had no idea what to do.
The staff had put together the plan for the Pilot with the focus of highlighting the dynamic between Lupin and his dedicated partner Jigen, but if they were to add Goemon into this dynamic, where would he belong?
Monkey Punch tends to develop his characters further and exemplify specific traits as time goes on, but at the time of the manga, the only dynamic Jigen and Goemon could provide as a trio to Lupin was simply serving to him as a gunman and swordsman. The staff needed to somehow figure out how Goemon would bring something new to the dynamic without interfering with what they had already established for the pilot.
The staff was very dedicated to sticking to the source material, but they could not bring in Manga Goemon as he was, so they proposed an idea, what if they instead modeled Goemon off of Koroshi? He would still be a character based off of Monkey Punch’s manga, and his interactions with Lupin are strong enough to bring over. The planning team may have been under stress due to this, and so this seemed like an easy solution.
Also, considering that Koroshi as a character helps represent the Eastern vs Western clash, like Goemon, it would be reasonable to think that he may be MP’s prototype to Goemon. Given how MP fleshes out his characters over time, the staff would tend to try to predict these by exaggerating specific character traits, so perhaps by exaggerating Goemon’s samurai-like qualities and aging him up, he would serve as a greater contrast to Lupin and perhaps become as how MP would develop him later on. Obviously that was not the case in the manga, as MP would stick with Goemon representing a theme of acceptance of both past and future.
It is due to this that in the anime, Goemon sticks with his culture completely, and so it is him who is rejected by his master, who tries to kill him. The staff created Goemon with the intent of him never changing his mind about cultural values, and so although Goemon does join Lupin regardless, the theme originally told in the manga of acceptance is left incomplete.
The anime does try to toy with this idea of Goemon accepting other culture, such as when he is first introduced he secretly listens to the radio when he doesn’t think his master is there, or those few times in Part 2 where he is willing to try something new, but it tends to be dropped immediately in favor of far more moments where he is instead stubborn.
There are other ambiguities that the anime and pilot would seek to resolve too. Goemon’s sword is made to be the Zantetsuken, the iron cutting sword, before his sword is later to be explained in the manga as the Takemitsu, a bamboo sword his family passed down, and in Shin Lupin it is the Ryusei, the sword of a shooting star. Due to Zantetsuken’s creation as this sword capable of cutting nearly everything, maybe done as to provide more emphasis on the alchemy formula Lupin wishes to steal and to simplify Goemon’s ability, there became more focus on Goemon’s sword itself, with his character in many adaptations only existing to cut things, but the manga focuses more on it being his sheer strength that allows him to cut steel with bamboo, and even tear a person apart in hand to hand combat. I mentioned in the past too that in Shin Lupin, there is even a moment where he cuts steel without Ryusei but with an ordinary sword.
Additionally, the manga only makes it clear that Goemon is the descendant to the legendary thief Ishikawa Goemon, but the pilot adds that he is the 13th of his family to hold the name.
Now, let’s look at the unique relationship that Koroshi provides for Anime Goemon to model.
In the anime, Goemon tends to work on his own, leaving Lupin if he does not agree with a plan. The pilot also describes him as a lonely, wandering man. This is pulled from details from Koroshi such as here, where Lupin describes Koroshi as a “recluse.”
what happened to lupin’s face oh my god
There is also here where Koroshi refuses to follow Lupin because he believes it is nonsense. Unlike Jigen, he serves as a partner who only acts in his own interests.
He’s just as irritable as in the anime, where Lupin describes him in the opening as someone who is scary when angry. This irritability works well with his disdain for Western culture.
In the pilot, there is a detail where when Lupin is made aware that his wine was poisoned, and he states that Goemon would not be the kind of person to do such a thing. Goemon is portrayed as wanting a fair 1 on 1 duel with Lupin, which is also reflective of Koroshi, who wants a fair 1 on 1 duel with Danshiyaku.
It could also be thought by the staff that Koroshi and Lupin would work well together because of the respect and similarities they share, which would also help explain them not fighting anymore.
They both leave behind written challenges as dignified criminals, and in the anime, Goemon insists on challenging Lupin in such a formal manner, unlike in the manga where he just appears constantly to attack by surprise when Lupin would rather not.
Lupin also pities him throughout the chapter, and in the anime when Goemon is introduced, Lupin looks down upon him and his belief in his sword technique.
Also, the anime frequently has moments where Goemon seemingly appears from nowhere to rescue Lupin when he is about to die, and Koroshi does the same too.
Yes, Danshiyaku wielded a gun in the manga, but to make him more samurai-like for Goemon they gave him the sword. In general, you can see that the anime, even in its adaptation of when Goemon is first introduced, changed his manner of speech significantly and added certain lines to give Goemon a more hostile, but samurai-like feel.
There exists a scene only in the anime in the episode in which Goemon is first introduced, where Fujiko lies to Lupin saying that Goemon took advantage of her. This is actually the opposite as Goemon is naive and gets nervous around women.
This is a scene and character trait pulled from Danshiyaku, and given that he exists as the opposite to Koroshi, the staff figured how Koroshi would act towards women and applied this to Anime Goemon, which is unlike that of Manga Goemon who keeps his composure.
In a way, this would create an interesting dynamic for him between Lupin, who is a womanizer, and Jigen, who dislikes women.
They also based the relationship off of Koroshi because they were unsure of how to explain Manga Goemon suddenly becoming friends with Lupin. In the original manga it’s not explained very well and played off as a joke as to why Lupin went from being very annoyed of Goemon’s antics to taking him in, and it doesn’t help either that Lupin had murdered Goemon’s friend, Majin. Goemon obviously wanted to learn from someone new, but it seems strange that he would forgive so easily, and Lupin doesn’t exactly have much going for him working with Goemon either.
One could say that MP focuses more on the fun of a concept rather than the explanation for it. Many of his stories simply exist as what-if situations, but given how this story is meant to be treated as canon, the staff insisted on something more logical, and with the other reasons for adding Koroshi in, he seems to also provide his own explanation for working with Lupin, with it being a mutual respect. Manga Goemon is younger than Lupin, and so their friendship begins at first as instead him respecting Lupin like he is his master.
To portray this older Anime Goemon, the staff picked a voice actor that would sound older and more mature to fit the samurai tone, with Goemon even sounding older than Lupin.
To quote Monkey Punch on Anime Goemon in comparison to the original:
“In the anime, he's changed a lot, but he's really more like a young boy.“
The truth, however, is that Koroshi was never even MP’s prototype for Goemon. The real prototype was Nitenzi Ondo of Western Samurai.
He looks and acts much closer to the bright and cheerful Manga Goemon, who seeks out justice for others and hates needless killing, and unlike Koroshi, these two both speak in a tone that is very un-samurai like. The theme of this work was that of a young samurai stumbling upon Western society, making friends and enemies in the process as he got accustomed to this new life while also bringing a part of his old life. The focus is on how Western and Eastern cultures clash and work together, and it is also the precursor to Bakumatsu Yankee.
Monkey Punch had wanted a more Japanese feeling to his Lupin manga, and given that Western Samurai had been released only 3 months prior to Goemon’s introduction, Monkey Punch had decided to bring Nitenzi Ondo to the world of Lupin under a new name, Ishikawa Goemon.
Monkey Punch contemplated between a the names of famous Japanese thieves such as Nezumi Kozo, of which the Nezumi clan would later become a frequent villain group in the manga, or Ishikawa Goemon, and it was decided on Goemon because there was another famous manga at the time using the name Nezumi.
Notice how Manga Goemon’s design was not actually based on the original Ishikawa Goemon, and rather that influence is by name only. Manga Goemon’s real influence is of the film Moeyo Ken and its character, the young Okita Souji, who Monkey Punch would later portray in Bakumatsu Yankee. Nitenzi Ondo’s sword was also changed to appear more like a cane for Goemon, reflective of the film Zatoichi that also helped inspire him.
So, if this mistake occurred with the Pilot, why is it that the anime simply did not correct itself? Well the issue lies in that Part 1′s production was based around using the Pilot and whatever extra work that staff may have also left behind as their primary base for the Anime rather than the manga. The style of the Pilot was changed to that of Part 1, and so the new staff was reinterpreting Pilot Goemon, thus pushing him further away from the Manga original.
When Part 1 later became popular, it would be difficult for the Part 2 team to move away from this. Early Part 3 interestingly tries to combine the two, perhaps in an effort to slowly push him back to the source material, but over time his design began to lose the traits of his Manga version until it became like the more popular Part 2, which tends to be used for inspiration more.
Most Lupin adaptations, out of fear of him not being recognized by the audience as Goemon, simply avoid using the manga as a reference. Given that the anime also titles Goemon as a samurai, which the manga does not, there is also more push for him to act as one.
Personally, I think Anime Goemon is a very fun character to have around in the franchise, but it does upset me as someone who really likes his Manga counterpart more. I wish the Anime version’s existence wouldn’t prevent the Manga version from existing in an adaptation at all. When there is any influence from the manga, there always seems to be bias from the previous anime, but it’s very apparent that they are 2 completely different people, rather than just different interpretations of the same person. I feel that it’s also important when looking at his Manga character to not see it with the bias of the Anime because it seems then as if his character is very inconsistent, when it really isn’t. I hope someday he’ll be properly animated.
I used these sources:
https://ameblo.jp/moromorokerro/entry-11914894998.html (this explained most of it already and was a huge help)
http://lupinthepunch.web.fc2.com/monkey/
http://typerlpn3.web.fc2.com/sub1_1.htm
