The Lupin the Third franchise created by Monkey Punch follows the crimes of thief Lupin III, the grandson of Arsène Lupin. He often teams up with the skilled marksman Daisuke Jigen, the beautiful female thief Fujiko Mine, and the modern-day samurai Goemon Ishikawa XIII, while typically pursued across the globe by Inspector Koichi Zenigata.

Monkey Punch's original manga differs significantly in both characterization and content compared to most anime adaptations. While the manga features explicit depictions of sex and violence, anime iterations tend to be more family-friendly.

Lupin III (Japanese: ルパン三世, Hepburn: Rupan Sansei) is the grandson of gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. He is the world's most wanted thief and a genius criminal mastermind. He is an expert in making schemes and plots to steal precious objects that are heavily guarded and seemingly impossible to be stolen. He sometimes appears incompetent, but mostly as a charade to catch his opponents off guard. While he has been arrested and thrown in jail on a number of occasions, he has always managed to break out. He also has a fondness for fancy gadgets from time to time. His infatuation with women, and Fujiko Mine in particular, is perhaps his biggest weakness, as it often lands him in undesirable situations.

Daisuke Jigen (次元 大介, Jigen Daisuke) is Lupin's marksman. He can perform a 0.3-second quick-draw and shoots with amazing accuracy. He is often seen having a used cigarette clenched in between his teeth. His weapons of choice are revolvers and pistols, but he is also proficient in the use of other firearms, such as machine guns, sniper rifles, and anti-tank rifles. In the opening of the PlayStation 2 video game, Treasure of the Sorcerer King, Jigen assembles his handgun from composite parts and fires a shot through a door with 100% accuracy before an enemy can finish turning the doorknob.

Fujiko Mine (峰 不二子, Mine Fujiko) is an intelligent and crafty thief who will use her feminine charms to get what she wants from any man. She is also an expert when it comes to firearms and even rivals Lupin when it comes to her burglary and disguise skills. Fujiko is sometimes an associate in his schemes, sometimes a rival, knowing full well that his infatuation with her will mean that he will forgive her for double-crossing him at times. She will also routinely make deals with Zenigata or Lupin's current enemy in an attempt to gain her freedom or to hopefully gain a piece of the loot he is after.

Goemon Ishikawa XIII (十三代目 石川 五ェ門, Jūsan-daime Ishikawa Goemon) is a thirteenth generation descendant of the renegade samurai Ishikawa Goemon. He has a sword called Ryusei (流星, Ryūsei), known in the anime as Zantetsuken (斬鉄剣), which can cut through almost anything. The Zantetsuken is usually used to cut inanimate objects, which Goemon considers unworthy of his blade. Objects cut by Zantetsuken will fall apart a couple of seconds after he sweeps through them with his blade. He is usually quiet and participates in Lupin's exploits less frequently than Jigen.

Inspector Zenigata (銭形警部, Zenigata-keibu), full name Koichi Zenigata (銭形 幸一, Zenigata Kōichi), is a police inspector working for the ICPO. He has made it his mission in life to arrest Lupin. Zenigata is based on a famous Japanese crime fighting character named Zenigata Heiji. While usually portrayed as competent but slow at deductions in the various anime, Zenigata's character in the manga is a very clever and crafty adversary to Lupin. In addition, despite trying to kill each other in the manga on numerous occasions, Lupin and Zenigata never take these opportunities in the anime, even saving each other's life on more than one occasion.

The following shows the timeline of current actors for each character, either live or animated.