Daisuke Jigen

is a fictional character created by Monkey Punch for his manga series Lupin III, which debuted in Weekly Manga Action on August 10, 1967. Jigen is the marksman, aide-de-camp and best friend of Arsène Lupin III. Along with colleague Goemon Ishikawa XIII, he joins Lupin in pursuit of riches acquired typically by theft. Traveling across the globe, Jigen has garnered fame as a gunman with a wildly capable speed and accuracy. Creation and conception According to Monkey Punch, Jigen was created as a New York raised American gangster based on actor James Coburn, especially his role in The Magnificent Seven. When the series was adapted into animation, the role was portrayed by Kiyoshi Kobayashi, the voice actor responsible for dubbing many of Coburn's roles into Japanese. The character's name comes from Monkey Punch's love for the word "dimension," which translates to "jigen" in Japanese. In an interview with Mainichi Shimbun, he stated the name is a corruption of the Japanese phrase . Skills Jigen is master thief Arsène Lupin III's right-hand man and sharpshooter. He can perform a 0.3-second quick-draw, providing accuracy that borders on superhuman. With ease he can shoot skeet with a handgun, explode a missile before it hits by targeting the warhead, and deflect another bullet by shooting it in mid-flight. Known by his trademark broad-brimmed fedora pulled over his eyes and short chin curtain beard, Jigen's favorite ploy is the trick shot. Jolting a large object into the air with gunfire and using it to clobber an enemy or shooting overhanging deco such as a chandelier to drop and encumber a group are just two of his many non-lethal tactics. In the second anime series, a non-canonic story implies he uses a notch on the hat for aiming; actually he can fire accurately without the hat and has done so several times.