Ishikawa Goemon XIII and Lupin: How Goemon Was Revived in the Twentieth Century

August 1967, the inaugural issue of Futabasha's 'Weekly Manga Action.' Monkey Punch (real name Katō Kazuhiko) began the new serial 'Lupin III.

' Along with the protagonist Lupin III, set up as the grandson of the French phantom thief Lupin, the character 'Ishikawa Goemon XIII' appears as one of the main characters, together with Jigen Daisuke, Mine Fujiko, and Inspector Zenigata.

Set up as the thirteenth-generation descendant of the Edo-period great thief Ishikawa Goemon.

For more than half a century thereafter, Ishikawa Goemon XIII has continued to be depicted as the Japanese samurai swordsman character representing the Lupin III series.

The Ishikawa Goemon XIII that Monkey Punch depicts breaks away from the traditional ninja-thief image and emphasizes his character as a samurai swordsman.

His beloved sword 'Zantetsuken' literally cuts through iron, and he is reconstructed as a contemporary character fusing samurai, ninja, and sword-master elements.

The 'thief' element of the traditional Goemon image is inherited in the setting of him being a member of Lupin's thief band, while the aspect as swordsman comes to the fore.

The Lupin III series has been made into anime since 1971, and new series and theatrical films have continued to be produced over the decades.

In the 1970s and 80s it was broadcast in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, and formed a persistent overseas fan base as Lupin III / Rupan Sansei.

Ishikawa Goemon XIII became a name known in the English-speaking world too as Goemon Ishikawa XIII.

A path of cultural inheritance without equal — an Edo-period great thief of doubtful actual existence reaching the world as a samurai swordsman character symbolizing Japan through late twentieth-century anime.

The lineage of Ishikawa Goemon — from the execution of a Kyoto thief around 1594, through narrative-making by Edo-period kabuki, through amplification in Meiji-Shōwa kōdan and novels, to internationalization by late twentieth-century anime — symbolizes the dynamics of Japanese cultural inheritance.

A figure thin in historical fact was reinterpreted across various media over four hundred years and eventually grew into an international icon.

Goemon lives on in culture not as a figure of historical fact but as the composite image of 'samurai, ninja, thief' that Japanese people want to keep telling.