The Watches of Lupin the Third

Anime watches

The original series gives Lupin a recognizable Yema and Jigen a Zenith dial that did not exist. Their later retail descendants follow two different paths back to the drawings.

ByIMWDb Editorial25 October 2026

Jigen’s pale Zenith dial supplies the second of the two animated designs later adapted by the watchmaker.

In the first episode of Lupin the Third, Lupin’s Yema Meangraf Super appears in a wrist close-up. Its two dark registers, bright hands and black tachymeter surround remain distinct within the pale dial. Jigen’s chronograph, meanwhile, puts a conspicuous Zenith name above three registers. The Yema follows an existing design; Jigen’s Zenith uses an invented dial.

These two watches from the 1971 series later became the subjects of separate revivals. The comparisons below follow Yema’s 2021 revival and Zenith’s original three-edition sequence. Yema changed the mechanism while retaining the look; Zenith put Jigen’s imagined dial into production.

Lupin’s Yema, with a change inside

Lupin wears the Meangraf Super while posing as a racing driver. Impress Watch’s 2021 report locates the watch around 10:40 in the opening episode and identifies it in its account of Yema’s revival. The tachymeter scale and twin counters suit the racing scene, although the animators’ reason for choosing the Yema is undocumented.

Lupin’s Meangraf Super design is shown in a wrist close-up in the original series.

The later revival preserves the older chronograph’s appearance while changing its mechanism. Impress Watch describes the original as mechanical and the 2021 watches as quartz. The quartz specification belongs to the 2021 product, rather than the older design shown in the anime.

Jigen’s Zenith was ahead of the catalog

Jigen’s first-episode watch borrows the A384’s case design and gives it a black, grey and gilt dial. A later appearance supplies a second version with a pale dial and dark registers. Both were fictional dial executions when drawn, according to Zenith’s retrospective on the collaboration. The recognizable case did not make either one a production reference.

This composite places Jigen beside the first episode’s invented dark Zenith dial.

Zenith eventually manufactured the dark design. Its December 2019 announcement introduced a Japan-exclusive edition of 50 watches, the A384 Revival Lupin The Third Edition. It arrived nearly five decades after Jigen’s animated watch.

The 2019 edition translates Jigen’s dark dial into a production watch.

A second edition followed in 2020 with the pale “panda” dial.

The second edition follows the pale dial shown in the article’s opening still.

The Final Edition, announced globally in January 2022, combined the two versions in one asymmetrically divided dial. Its 250-piece run made a new composition from the two screen designs. Neither of Jigen’s original watches had that split face.

The Final Edition combines the two earlier dial treatments. Its divided face is a retail design, not a third animated watch.

Browse the catalog: Watches in anime.

Sources