Character · Lupin III
Goemon Ishikawa XIII
He carries a sword that cuts steel, wears traditional robes into modern car chases, and apologises to the objects he destroys.
In Otakana the clue reads: Swordsman who cuts anything with one stroke
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Lupin III
- Letters
- 6 · Hard
Goemon is the thirteenth in a line descending from Ishikawa Goemon, the outlaw of Japanese legend who was boiled alive in 1594. He dresses accordingly, in hakama and sandals, and travels with a gang that drives sports cars and blows up vaults. His blade is Zantetsuken, the iron-cutting sword, and he uses it on tank barrels, helicopter rotors, falling buildings and once, memorably, on a bowl of noodles.
The catchphrase belongs to the aftermath. Having cut something apart, he sheathes the sword and says that once again he has cut a worthless object, which is either monastic humility or the driest brag in anime depending on what he has just destroyed. He meditates, disapproves of the others, and stays anyway.
He entered the manga as an enemy sent to kill Lupin and lost, then joined. Monkey Punch started Lupin III in Weekly Manga Action in 1967, and the 1971 television series set the four-person formula that every later film has used, including Hayao Miyazaki's The Castle of Cagliostro in 1979.
Spelling GOEMON
GOEMON is six letters and the front half breaks in a way English words rarely do. The O and E are separate beats, go-e-mon, so the vowels do not blend into a single sound. Both G's are hard. Two O's sit at positions two and five with the E between them, and the row wants the given name rather than the family name Ishikawa.