Pycal is a mysterious figure of unknown background who first showed up in the original Lupin III TV series' second episode, "The Man they call a Magician." He comes across as this blend of legitimate scientist and actual magician—he's engineered a heat-resistant second skin to protect himself from burns, can levitate, and shoots fire from his fingers. When Lupin and Jigen dig into his act, they expose the whole thing as sleight of hand and gadgetry. But then he returns in "Lupin III: Return of Pycal," and things get weird. He comes back from what should've been a certain death, now capable of teleporting and stopping bullets with his mind. So either he's always been the real deal, or something genuinely strange happened to him in between.
What's interesting about Pycal is that he's actually one of the few recurring characters across multiple Lupin III projects—he debuted way back in chapter 7 of the original manga ("The Hand is Quicker than the Spy"), and aside from Lupin's core crew and Inspector Zenigata, he's rare company in that regard. His levitation trick even gets a passing mention in "Lupin III: Mystery of Mamo."
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
