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i'm obsessed with the pacing of this page

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Lupin III: Volume 11 Chapter 91 — King Of The Cave

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Lupin VIII: Volume 1 Chapter 6

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Lupin III: Volume 6 Chapter 56

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{VIII bein‘ a lil’ guy with a pretty bow}

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Lupin VIII: Volume 1 Chapter 3

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Lupin VIII Manga: Volume 1 Chapter 1

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Lupin III: Volume 11 Chapter 93

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{Nusutto chapter title cover pages, and a magazine cover}

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{random panels/pages from shin I find amusing.}

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Shin Lupin III: Volume 11 Chapter 124

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Shin Lupin III: Volume 11 Chapter 118

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Yasuo Otsuka, WEEKLY Manga Action (August 18, 2003 issue)

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{finally got my grubby little mitts on some Y hehe}

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Who is melon? :0

thank you for asking anon i made this horrible post all for you. btw if you haven't read the comics before, i'd recommend keeping in mind that they are very different compared to the animes when it comes to characterization and character dynamics.

A Primer on Melon Cop

刑事メロン/Deka-Meron/Detective Melon or Melon Cop is a Lupin manga character who debuted in ’77 in the beginning of the second Lupin comic series, Shin Lupin III (or as Tokyopop ended up calling it in their translation, Lupin III: World's Most Wanted). at the start of the series he was introduced as a younger assisting detective for a very burnt-out Zenigata to help him find a fresh approach to catching Lupin. to me it seems like Melon was basically Monkey Punch's attempt at creating a more permanent supporting character for Zenigata as he’d been mostly operating on his own or with one-off characters in the original comic and never had an assistant in green jacket either (as a note for later, shin lupin was being made in tandem with part 2/red jacket and many red jacket episodes were based on shin lupin)

in the lupin wiki Melon is described as a ”more ruthless cop version of Lupin”, and while i’m not sure if that’s something MP ever explicitly said out loud, i think it’s very good way to describe him. he’s initially portrayed as a straight up villain – he has a background in both the FBI and the CIA, he’s cunning, cocky and even brutal as he shows no mercy towards criminals and has no qualms about killing them. in his debut story Lupin even seeks him out on his own to mouth off at him for having ”killed a poor kid in the middle of confession”.

none of this ever comes up again btw and nor does it really inform Melon’s character which is freaking hilarious. but initially Melon’s essentially the bad cop to Zenigata’s… less bad cop. i guess.

beyond the handcuff tossing and ”freestyle policing”, Melon is also a magician of some prestige, shown to be good at sleight of hand, illusions and being able to breathe fire. he has a camera that reveals Lupin’s latex disguises and he’s shown to be capable of figuring out Lupin’s own tricks and outsmarting him several times. he has a kind of an on-and-off rivalry with Zenigata, sometimes trying to go behind his back to capture Lupin but often working together with him.

this is really how Melon shines as a character too: the point is much less his dynamic with Lupin, and more about how well his cool & contemplative yet overly confident demeanor bounces off of Zenigata’s quick-tempered almost explosive personality. he even goes through a bit of character development as in one of the later stories he actually expresses regret over trying to go behind Zenigata’s back to catch Lupin (if you haven’t read it this is a rarity in the comic so i always wanna point it out).

MP mostly wrote Melon stories at the beginning of shin lupin, but eventually they kinda petered out and in the later chapters he’s gone through a bit of an antagonist decay and he’s not really portrayed as capable as he was originally. i feel like one of the reasons for it might’ve just been that since red jacket was being made at the same time as the comic and Melon was never introduced in the series, MP just kinda lost interest - which is a shame, because the early Melon stories were actually really strong. he was just a good refreshing addition to the series.

but SPEAKING OF RED JACKET: why is this character so obscure, especially in the English speaking fandom? if you've watched pt 2 a lot of this probably sounds or even looks familiar, as for some reason his debut story, birth date and name (kinda) were appropriated for a one-off character in red jacket, the lady detective Melon Ganimard

i haven’t been able to find any info on what lead to this honestly bizarre creative choice, but there actually exists a small piece of official merch from ’78 that suggests that the real Melon was gonna be included in the series at some point, but got written out for whatever reason. as of now Melon has never appeared in the anime and it’s most probably because of detective Ganimard stealing his spotlight, especially now that she’s had a small cameo in pt 5 just to remind people of her existence.

after shin lupin in hte 70s, Melon’s only appeared in a few official releases (as far as i know). some of the chapters he’s in were turned into a voiced motion comic in this weird little shin lupin adaptation for the original playstation where he’s voiced by Hirohiko Kakegawa (also subbed AND dubbed in English!) this is the closest he’s ever come to being animated and apparently the voice actors were chosen by MP himself. he's also been heavily featured in the shin lupin based gag comic Lupin-tic by Sada Taro that was published in the official lupin magazine relatively recently (in the 2010s)

to sum it up: Melon was a Monkey Punch Original who was introduced with a lot of fanfare to the point it seemed like MP’s original plan was for him to join the main cast as a permanent addition but then it just never happened, Melon never got his animated debut and in the end he quietly vanished from the franchise with a few exceptions. honestly if you don’t care about Zenigata you prolly won’t care much about Melon either as i feel like that’s one of the reasons he was just kinda forgotten eventually. the animes are an all Lupin show and Melon didn’t really exist to primarily orbit him like every other recurring character does (and Zenigata is always shoved aside anyways so of course there’s no room for supporting characters intended for him). at least Zenigata now has Yata in the animes, but imo he doesn’t really have the intrigue and personality Melon does, as a kind of a "mirror Lupin" character.

finally, here's the list of the Shin Lupin chapters he appears in that Tokyopop translated (they didn't finish the series so it's missing at least one story)

chapter 3: Melon Cop

chapter 7: Death by Surgery

chapter 8: 186 Lupins

Chapter 15: Melon the Magician

Chapter 16:  Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth!!!

chapter 21: Flipping the Bird (a small appearance)

chapter 60: Melon Cop Madness

chapter 63: Shacking Off!

chapter 65: Zenigata on the Inside