"Today, Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko threw me a surprise birthday party.
At first I was confused, I'm sure everyone knew that I didn't have a birthday, until I remembered the time I lied to Fujiko and told a random date so she would stop nagging me about it. If I knew she'd take it that seriously I would've zipped my mouth.
I'm unfamiliar with how birthday parties work, but I think this one was more… exciting than the usual. Goemon botched the cake. He put some mystery ingredient that ruined the taste. Fujiko almost stole my gifts, which was foiled when Zenigata and Melon Cop were caught trying to burn the house down. He won't even give me a break on my birthday!
After we chased them off, I had to put out the fire. Jigen did not help and kept playing with that stupid blower thing.
Normally this would be a failure of a party, but I enjoyed it for some odd reason. I hope they do something like this next year, with a better cake..!"
- Lupin
Restoring the balans by giving you Goemon being comforted by Lupin :)
Episode 112 will always be my favorite! It was so well-written, so emotional and it most certainly shaped the way i perceive Goemon and especially his relationships with Lupin and Jigen. For me the short dialogue in the end between Lupin and Goemon when they finally meet will always be iconic because its one of the greatest depictions of just how much they care for eachother. And thats why i chose this screencap for my redraw - because this is something dear to me
ahhhh god ok my stupid stupid silly au i made a year ago.... this will be a bit long so get ready
tldr: lupin died, the gang is alive. goemon finds lupin but he's a shark merman!? and lupin remembers nothing!!!
long version:
so this AU follows upon the story of shin lupin, which basically, the gang gets killed off by zenigata because he rigged an island full of explosives.
instead of them all dying however, lupin decides to knock the gang unconscious and find a way for them to escape off the island safely, leaving only him in the island to die.
the rest of the gang had no idea how they escaped and assumed that lupin had sacrificed himself for them. they woke up adrifted on the ocean until they eventually got picked up by a ship where the invisible captain from new adventures returns. but ah ill spare the details for another day
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2 years have passed and the gang just kinda separated to do their own thing. we'll only focus on goemon cuz he's the featured character of this comic.
goemon decided to escape the life of crime that has burdened him for years living as a part of the lupgang. he's mostly a wanderer now and tries to do good and help people along the way
funnily enough, goemon is not the first person to find lupin, but I'll talk about this later. but goemon is definitely very mixed about seeing his friend who he thought was dead for years. he doesn't know whether to be happy or worried.
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lupin, at the brink of death after the explosion, plummets down the ocean and wakes up one day, feeling like he's been rebirthed!
essentially, lupin became a merman because right before he could die, his body (i mean what's left of it 💀) interacted with a magic crystal that has the ability to grant life to a living being.
It's really rare, but it exists in clusters deep in the ocean floor or- deep under the rocks of an island :) you can say im bullshitting, which i am but i dont think exploding an entire island down to every rock has happened before, so it can kinda make sense why something so coincidental about these crystals could happen. (I AM TOTALLY MAKING EXCUSES I JUST WANTED TO MAKE LUPIN A MERMAN.)
and so these crystals used whats left of lupins body and reassembled him back, and idk other essences of the ocean to make him a merman!
the memories of his past life have definitely been buried deep inside his brain to the point he can't remember any of it though, so he thinks that he was born under the ocean and has lived there for his entire life. other than that he retains almost everything about himself, down to stealing stupid shit and messing with humans just for the fucks of it. he's kinda seen as like a nessie.
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anyways, y'know how i said goemon wasn't the first one to meet lupin? that's because lupin has met zenigata before!
living a life with only fishes around means lupin's kinda lonely and likes to stalk humans sometimes. the interaction with him and zenigata did not end well though, and lupin has no idea why zeni wants him dead so much.
after that he's way more cautious around people that look like zenigata- hatted big men with guns. its gonna be fun once he sees jigen.
ok what else... i think that's all i want to reveal now. will i do more of this? maybe. maybe not. kinda embarrassed of this because of how silly it is but i hope you people find this interesting! byebye