Lupin III/Recap/S2 E13

"The Great San Francisco Chase", with the English title "I Left My Mind in San Francisco". Released in 2003 by Geneon on Volume 3: Family Jewels.

Lupin and Jigen are pulling a heist on an artificial diamond manufacturing company. They manage to sneak in and unlock the safe that should contain the microfilm they're looking for, but find that it's gone, meaning someone broke into that safe before.

The next morning, in San Francisco, a manic Zenigata is chasing a phantom image of Lupin. After realizing what he's been running after the whole time, he decides to take a rest and goes back to his apartment. Meanwhile, Lupin and his gang are discussing the matter of the microfilm, which contains the information needed to produce gem-quality diamonds, and the competition that got to it first. Lupin believes that if the company starts producing diamonds of such quality, the diamond market will bomb and all the gems they have ever stolen will be worth as much as a pile of gravel, so his plan is to destroy it one they get it. Fujiko disagrees, however, and actually sees something in having that microfilm for herself.

That same night, two crooks sneak into Zenigata's apartment, sedate him, use dentist tools to hide the microfilm in one of his teeth and return back to their boss. Once there, they debrief on the operation and show a picture of where they have hidden the loot. However, their boss turns out to be Lupin in disguise, but before they can make a run for it, Goemon knocks them both out. Now that Lupin and his gang know of Zenigata's "hidden" treasure, all they have to do is capture Zenigata and get the microfilm out of there. Simple, right?

A very tired Zenigata still thinks he's seeing hallucinations of Lupin everywhere, whilst Lupin is actually just observing Zenigata, so he decides to visit a psychiatrist. After explaining the symptoms, the psychiatrist diagnoses that he's just going under a depression, and all he needs to do is lighten up and forget about Lupin. After some cheering up, Zenigata happily walks the streets and looks for something to eat, when he comes across Lupin. Thinking he's having a relapse, Zenigata tries to ignore him, but it doesn't work, so he runs away, but Lupin goes after him. After this long reverse chase, Zenigata thinks that the Lupin hallucinations are gone, before he's caught by an airplane piloted by Lupin. Lupin accidentally flies the plane against the roof of a barn, dropping Zenigata in a pile of hay in the process.

Zenigata is calmly riding down the road with a tractor into a tunnel. He sees that the tunnel splits off and that one direction is closed for traffic, so he takes the other one. However, Lupin switched the roadblock to lure Zenigata into a watery trap. As Lupin is about to get to Zenigata, the two crooks from before arrive by boat and take the tractor along with Zenigata. Lupin tries an attempt to take Zenigata back, but a roll of dynamite blows him off. As Lupin emerges on the crook's boat, it's revealed that Fujiko hired the crooks to get the microfilm for herself. After Jigen disarms the crooks with a rifle, Fujiko gives in and decides to split the treasure with them. However, their attempt to remove the microfilm from within Zenigata's mouth is botched when Zenigata sneezes it out into the water when he wakes up. Upon seeing the gang together on the boat, Zenigata, seemingly back to his normal self, prepares to arrest them again, just when the gang makes a break for it.

This episode features examples of:

 * Treasure Chest Cavity: The crooks who stole the microfilm hide their loot by surgically inserting it into one of Zenigata's teeth.