"The Sweet Trap of ICPO" note with the English title of "Happy Betrayals to You". Released by Geneon in 2005 on Volume 8: Sweet Betrayals.
At ICPO headquarters in Paris, Zenigata is getting some target practice in when he is told to report to the Japanese division's office. Much to his disbelief, the Director of the department tells Zenigata that he is being taken off the Lupin case since he's repeatedly failed to catch the master thief. Even worse, the detective's replacement is none other thank Fujiko Mine! In exchange for clearing the charges against her for her own long thieving career, she has to catch Lupin; since no one knows Lupin better than her, ICPO believes she will succeed where Zenigata has failed.
Soon after, Lupin sits on a boat, awaiting Fujiko's arrival for a date. While she distracts him, ICPO attempts to move in for the capture. However, Fujiko and Lupin's date is instead interrupted by Zenigata, poorly disguised as a waiter, who warns Lupin that the meeting is a set-up by Fujiko. Her scheme given away, she flees so the authorities can move in. But, Lupin's already making plans. As the boat passes under a bridge, Lupin vanishes, Zenigata apparently looking around on deck for him. However, Fujiko knows exactly where the thief has vanished to and easily shoots him out from where he was braced beneath the bridge. The police recover him from the water, only to find they've caught Zenigata instead! A motorboat promptly speeds away, containing Lupin in a Zenigata disguise. Fujiko, already ready for this, blows up a nearby bridge, blocking off the river. Forced to steer towards the ICPO raid, Lupin loses control of the boat after Fujiko shoots the engine and crashes into the nearby river bank, exploding. Zenigata is horrified that his long-time enemy is dead thanks to ICPO's recklessness.
However, when the remains of the boat are pulled from the river, Lupin's body is nowhere to be found. Fujiko spots the entrance to a sewer near the crash site and realizes how Lupin escaped. As Zenigata chuckles at the Director and Fujiko's failed attempts, Fujiko decides the next place they should target is Lupin's hideout. She leads the police to a remote mountain house, lamenting to herself that Lupin should just give up instead of risking his life to escape. Zenigata also trails behind, determined not to be left out of Lupin's capture.
At the hideout, Lupin tries to appeal to Jigen and Goemon to help him with his dilemma, but his two friends are reluctant to get involved as it involves Fujiko. As ICPO fills the house with bullets, the gunman and samurai flee while Lupin attempts to make a stand. Lupin gains the upper hand in the ensuing stand-off, meanwhile, as the violence increases, the Director tells Fujiko if Lupin is taken alive, they have a special underground jail cell waiting for the thief, sure to counter any of his famous tricks. With this knowledge, Fujiko decides to go herself to tackle Lupin since the police can't get near him. Leading a squad, she enters the hideout and finds the thief in one of his secret passages. The police drive him through, while Fujiko herself waits at the exit, cornering him. As Lupin is captured and lead away in cuffs, Zenigata suddenly drives past and snatches his longtime foe out from under his own employers! He's waited far too long... no one is going to arrest and take Lupin in but him!
Not wanting to lose out on her own deal, Fujiko follows in a helicopter and shoots out the tire on Zenigata's jeep, causing him to lose control and sending him and Lupin over a nearby cliff side. Zenigata ends up going for a nice swim in the sea while Lupin scales the cliff, grumbling about how he needs to have a talk with Fujiko. At the top, she awaits him with her helicopter. The two have a standoff, and Fujiko shoots Lupin in the chest, subduing him and winning the confrontation.
Not long after, the Director, Zenigata, and Fujiko tour Lupin's new prison, only for the Director to turn on Fujiko as he planned; he is sending her back to Japan with Lupin to face charges. Zenigata escorts her into the underground cell with Lupin, where she reveals she only shot Lupin with a tranquilizer that knocked him out for several hours. As Zenigata leaves, Lupin promptly springs to life, laughing at his foe. Turns out that Lupin and Fujiko were working together to infiltrate ICPO to steal a diamond, the Star of Antarctica, that was hidden there by another thief once held at the same prison. Sure enough, a search of their cell reveals the diamond stashed in the toilet's cistern.
As the Director and Zenigata talk about the case outside of the plane transporting Zenigata, Lupin and Fujiko back to Japan, Fujiko warns the director that deception goes both ways. Zenigata boards the plane, the pilots of which are none other than Jigen and Goemon; Zenigata is, of course, really Lupin in disguise, and the thieves celebrate a successful heist as the Director fumes on the runway, and they airdrop a Bound and Gagged Zenigata out of the plane and back to his bosses.
This episode features examples of:
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
- Although he's shown gleefully shooting Lupin cardboard cutouts at the beginning of the episode, Zenigata is horrified when it appears that the ICPO and Fujiko have accidentally killed Lupin instead of capturing him, even jumping in the water to try and rescue his rival.
- She acts cold-blooded, but Fujiko also does not want to see Lupin killed. Partially because she cares for him, but especially because it turns out she and Lupin are actually working together.
- Bookcase Passage: Lupin uses a variant to escape the police: a flipping toilet!
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Fujiko pulls a big one on Lupin, willing to turn him into ICPO for clemency for herself. Played with, because the Director of ICPO is willing to break his deal once Lupin is captured and throw Fujiko in prison with him. And then goes up to eleven when it turns out Fujiko was deceiving the director with Lupin's help just to get their hands on a missing diamond.
- Crazy-Prepared: Fujiko knows almost every trick in Lupin's book and has plans to counter all of them. Averted later, as the two of them were actually working together to infiltrate ICPO's prison.
- Dartboard of Hate: Zenigata spends the beginning of the episode target shooting a series of Lupin cutouts, and nailing every single one of them.
- Easily Forgiven: Zenigata doesn't get in trouble from his boss for interfering with his attempts to capture Lupin.
- Eat the Evidence: The thief who stole the Star of Antarctica swallowed it before he was captured, so the police couldn't find it. While incarcerated, he, er... got it back and stashed it in the toilet cistern, but never got the chance to return and retrieve it.
- Hidden Weapons: Fujiko has one tucked in her stockings to help her take down Lupin in the end. She tries to use it against the Director to escape later, only to have it shot out of her hand.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Zenigata is so angry at being pulled off the Lupin case that when Lupin is actually captured, Zenigata grabs him away from his own boss, ranting on how no one will capture Lupin but the detective himself!
- Latex Perfection: Lupin's favorite disguise, none other than Zenigata himself, on two occasions.
- Loves Me Not: Lupin plays a variation, speculating, "She's coming, she's not coming" as he picks the petals and waits for Fujiko to show up for their date.
- Offstage Waiting Room: Jigen and Goemon opt out of getting in-between Fujiko and Lupin's violent feud in this episode, though they do turn up at the very end to help their two friends escape.
- Pop the Tires: Fujiko shoots out Zenigata's tire to keep him from getting away with the prize they're both fighting over: Lupin himself!
- Second-Face Smoke: The Director does this to Zenigata while dressing him down for failing to catch Lupin.
- Thinking Out Loud: In the English dub, as Zenigata grumbles that he won't let ICPO capture Lupin without him, then asks himself who he's talking to anyway.
- Welcome to My World: Zenigata says this word-for-word in the English dub to the disbelieving director of ICPO when it turns out the detective was caught in Lupin's place during the first capture attempt.
