Category: Lupin III – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna

I suspect that from now on we will get a closer look at Mine Fujiko’s past. This episode wasn’t exactly about that, but it did confirm that she was abused at a young age for who knows how many times. This episode was probably the catalyst that triggered her looking at her past again.

What stands out about this episode was how subdued it was, in a good way I mean. There was no nudity whatsoever, but the creators still captured Mine Fujiko in one of her most restrained performances so far. With Mari Okada behind the script (good lord, she’s writing three awesome scripts this season; all at the same time; again!), it’s bound to become interesting, especially with such an excellent director as Sayo Yamamoto. She really showed how well she can create an atmosphere and went into her own direction, while at the same time doing great justice to the Lupin Franchise.

What also made this episode interesting was how it was about predicting death days using this lithograph. The fortuneteller in this episode was great, both as a catalyst for Mine Fujiko, but also as a villain
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Unlike the previous episode this again was a fairly straight-forward episode centered around just one of the members of the side-cast. But it really made upfor that with the backdrop it chose: a very loose version of Cuba’s role in the cold war. I’ve said before that I love it when anime takes place in a place other than Japan, and even though this episode was full of Japanese references with taht samurai, it’s still very refreshing to see a country like Cuba pop up here.

This episode was this weird thriller about this over the top prevention of World War 3. It’s obviously heavily simplified with a lot of creative liberties taken, but the suspense for this episode was really well done Mine Fujiko again had some great interplay with the people around her, which overall again lead to a very enjoyable episode.

At this point of the series though, we should start seeing more things about the overarching plot, mostly about Mine Fujiko’s issues. The creators do have some sort of ending planned, but the only hints about that that we’ve seen so far are about her troubled past. We’ve entered the second half now, so it’s time for this show to evolve.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Yeah. This was awesome. Lupin III just got better again.

This looked like your average Lupin episode, this time paying a homage to the catholic school genre. I was really reminded of Oniisama he for some reason. In any case things looked to be a fairly standard heist episode that had Mine Fujiko pretend to be a female teacher, while we follow some students around her, in particular one girl with braids who I remember noting had a really out of place voice actress. And then he took his wig off.

What followed was a wonderful battle of wits between Mine Fujiko and that one cop assistant with a little assistance of Lupin, and it was really well done. The acting was awesome, the camera work really managed to capture the characters this time, and I also love how well this episode made use of the tiny details that the previous episodes built up on. I loved how Mine Fujiko completely pwned that cop assistant and the wit with which she did it. And the guy had some nice tricks up his sleeve as well. I did not expect the gun-wielding schoolgirls.

Those bits around Fujiko’s past are also pretty surreal and very artistic. This episode indeed revealed that she had to endure a lot of abuse when she was a kid, which pretty much shaped her to what she is now. I like how subtle the portrayal of how she remembers those times is: it’s obviously a trauma, but we never see heavy emotions from her around thsoe flashbacks, unlike how she usually behaves.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

This episode had more room for its animation compared to the previous weeks, and the result shows as Lupin heads into Indiana Jones. The direction in this episode in particular was excellent, making the dungeon crawling really fun and artistic to watch; the characters were also more expressive this time, both with the voice acting and facial expressions. Along with a nice script, this altogether was an excellent episode.

The first three episodes all showed Mine Fujiko with one major side character. The past two episodes however we see her along with two of them, which brings in a much different dynamic, especially with Lupin in the picture again. This episode made good use of that, and I liked the interplay between all three characters, especially how everyone was trying to wait for everyone because they couldn’t progress further.

One particularly interesting part of this episode was when the Egyptian afterworld came into play. you know, the myth of where everyone’s sins would have to be weighed. I liked how Lupin played with the definition of “sins” in order to get past the trap.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

This episode revolves around the Phantom of the Opera, with Lupin making a return as people run around a theater while a performance is going on in order to steal the mask of the lead actress who has been hiding her face ever since it got scarred. It was quite a strange episode, but I like how the creators got actual opera singers for this.

This episode also showed how hard it is to animate people singing. And I don’t mean the cheesy J-pop idols that you see everywhere, but actually well sung songs. But especially with Opera in which singers have to hold high notes: that must take a lot of effort, and actually portraying that in animation is something that I have no idea on how to actually do, making the singing in this episode look a bit weird.

I also like how pretty much everyone was trolled in this episode at the end. It was quite an elaborate plan set up by two lovebirds who didn’t seem to care about anything. It was a great anti-climax to a fun chase sequence, made even more interesting with everyone attempting to just make the show go on, even though a horse randomly walked off the stage and a light just fell. Imagine how Sengoku Basara would be when Date Masamune’s horse from out of nowhere dropped its owner and took off with that ninja woman.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

So this was a shout-out to train stories. And was I the only one reminded of the Sound of Music here?

Overall, again it was a very neat little episode with a ton of style that used its characters really well, ranging from the Samurai that stood central in this story to the king and his children he was supposed to assassinate to Mine Fujiko pretending to be a female tutor. It had a lot of elements that could have been overdone, but it was again the acting that made it great. Although it was probably the least interesting episode of this series so far.

Still, with this third episode this series focuses again on something completely different, and I have to say that this show uses its side-characters very well here: Lupin, Goemon and that other guy from last episode are all very different, and with this, all of them give a different flavor to each episode. If I had to compare the characterization here to what I saw in the Castle of Cagliostro, I think I’d prefer it here if I have to be really honest. At the very least this show caught my attention much more here.
Rating: *+ (Great)

So when I made my preview for this season, I was convinced that in terms of promising staff, nothing could beat Sakamichi no Apollon, which would reunite Shinichiro Watanabe with Yoko Kanno alongside Madhouse’s top department going solo. And then this got announced: Sayo Yamamoto of Michiko e Hatchin fame, Takeshi Koike directing the animation, Mari Okada writing the series, Dai Sato doing some of the scripts, and Shinichiro Watanabe producing the music. I think that it’s fair to say that we’ve got ourselves the biggest dream-team of the year here. And it shows, with what is by far the most artistic series of the year.

This show just oozes retro, and it’s great to finally see another series that has its own visual direction. This is really common amongst remakes for some reason beyond me: these kinds of series are often made by big fans, who don’t just try to remake their series, but also try to make them better by putting a lot of their own influences into them. The result is often glorious, just look at Hi no Tori, Metropolis, Casshern Sins, Dororon Enma-kun Meera Meera, Tetsujin 28-Go, the new Mazinger, et cetera.

And to be honest, I’m not even a fan of Lupin III. the only thing I watched of it is the Castle of Cagliostro. The reason why there isn’t a review of it on this site is because I only had one thought on my mind after completing it: “that’s it?” Granted, that was because of Hayao Miyazaki’s influence and how there were a lot of people claiming that it was amongst his best works; it probably would have been at least a decent movie if that didn’t cloud my expectations, but because of that I never really had anything with this franchise. However, this series really caught my eye, and these two episodes were made with the intention of reaching new audiences.

With this episode, it’s also clear that this will be an episodic series, which means that the creators can get much more variety in than if this were a continuous story. This episode already demonstrates this by being very different from the first episode. Lupin is nowhere to be seen, and instead this focuses on the bearded bodyguard. The film noir style remains, but instead of a fun adventure it’s much more sober, and tries to tell a serious story. Overall, it works well together. The soundtrack also looks to be huge, and it felt completely different from what I heard last week. That’s Shinichiro Watanabe’s influence for you. He may not have composed the soundtrack, but like with Bee-Train you can really hear that he knows how to guide his composers to what he wants.

The one disadvantage of this series is that with such graphics, it becomes hard to properly animate everything. I think that it’s here where TMS’s inexperience seeps through: they really tried something different this season, and pretty much are the boldest studio of the year for me at this point, combining this with what they’ve done with Zetman. However, this episode again was not animated as well as its predecessor, and some movements were rather jerky at times. The show still looked gorgeous, but the difference remains. What I really hope is that they will take chances, and really push their animation despite their graphical limitations. They really have it in them: both Zetman and this series’ first episodes didn’t just look great because they had a slightly higher budget: they also were stunning because of how expressive they were. You can get that too with a talented animator on a short budget.
Rating: ** (Excellent)