Heck yeah folks, let’s get back to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine! This show’s last episode was a spiraling maelstrom of complex gender politics and confining social expectations, with Fujiko and her various associates serving as gleeful foxes in the henhouse of a girls’ private school. Combining this show’s insightful focus on gendered expectations, social performances, and the nature of feminine power with the classic touchstones of a Class S yuri drama was a masterstroke, and resulted in the most thematically complex and generally gripping episode of Fujiko yet.
On a pure aesthetic level, pairing Fujiko Mine’s ornate, richly textured designs with the stylized and detailed sets of a traditional “boarding school flower garden” resulted in an absolute bounty of beautiful compositions, with elaborate backgrounds sharing space with more metaphorically driven layouts rich in shadow and contrast. And on a thematic level, that episode managed to channel Lupin’s classic reversals and counter-reversals through a nested series of adolescent social expectations, with Fujiko’s manipulation of her love-starved students eventually being countered by an opponent eager to use Fujiko’s own favorite trick – telling your enemy exactly what they want to hear.
In the context of a deeply repressed private school, Fujiko reveled in assuming the role of sexual aggressor, while Oscar simultaneously gleefully embraced and harshly judged himself for assuming the role of lusted-over “prey.” Their complex roles served as a clever distillation of the emotional contradictions inherent in both repressed adolescence specifically, and how women are assumed to exist in society more generally. And ultimately, Oscar’s contempt for his own actions seemed to echo the contempt society at large serves towards any expression of feminine agency, be they defined as Madonna or Whore. It was a goddamn searing episode, and also somehow light and playful at the same time. I don’t expect another episode quite like that one, but I’m eager to see whatever these charming thieves get up to next. Let’s get to it!
Episode 7
“Carib Sante detention facility – 3 months earlier”
“Three months earlier” is a sort of cheeky narrative device in this series, since we’ve really had no concept of chronology introduced thus far. Even the show’s framing toys with our expectations like Fujiko herself
Aaand now Fujiko’s getting whipped in a prison cell, in a night gown
She is rescued by an unfamiliar man who refers to her as “princesa”
“Music and Revolution”
Now we’re discussing the Cold War’s Doomsday Clock. I haven’t really watched enough Lupin to know whether it’s usually grounded in a specific real-world context like this, though I do remember the most recent Lupin series opened with some direct commentary on the smartphone surveillance state
Fujiko Mine’s grainy, desaturated visual style neatly echoes the aesthetic of black-and-white Cold War educational videos
“The small nation in Central America named Carib is in flux.” And yeah, we jump from real-world conflicts to a fantasy nation. It’s essentially set dressing to create a setting where Fujiko can serve as the inspiring Madonna of an amalgam of various mid-century political revolutions
Oooor the leader is just called Fiadel Kestro, and this is just Not Cuba specifically
And we get a snapshot of Fujiko as a reporter, even using her own name, before once again jumping “Two Weeks Earlier.” This episode’s overt narrative framing is absolutely intended to echo Fujiko’s usual deceptions
OH SHIT IT’S GOEMON GOEMON IS HERE
I LOVE YOU SAMURAI FRIEND THE HECK ARE YOU DOING IN CUBA
He’s contacting people who want him to assassinate Fiadel
“Assassination isn’t a job, it’s a way of life.” Oh my god you’re such a dork Samurai Friend, I love you so much
“It’s been a while, Mr. Boyfriend.” A playful acknowledgment that she actually heard his line at the end of their last meeting. Goemon is basically a cute puppy to Fujiko
Dear lord, this episode is actually going to be Fujiko Causes the Cuban Missile Crisis. We even get not-JFK here pondering the consequences of the situation
The Doomsday Clock is serving as a sort of organizational device for this episode, ticking down as the drama escalates, and naturally playing into this episode’s general focus on the chronology of these specific weeks
This is such a classically Fujiko situation. You might think she’d be naturally sympathetic to a revolution against a patriarchal world order, which succeeds by pitting two much larger powers against each other, but Fujiko never considers herself much of a political actor – her understanding of both geographic and sexual politics is instead always used to maneuver for greater personal profit. She’s not here to save the world, she’s just trying to live in it
The shading on this CG plane actually keeps it from looking too out of place here
“Once again, two weeks earlier.” Now even the language of these establishing cards is getting a little sarcastic
Fiadel speaks of ideals and justice, which Fujiko finds just the cutest. Then he likens himself to a samurai, which seems to make her a bit more sympathetic. Fujiko is proudly apolitical, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about individual people, and it seems she actually respects Goemon, even if she also likes to toy with him
Man, this Fujiko is such a good friggin’ character. I love how proud she is of her ability to generally stay unattached to the morality and consequences of her actions, and the confidence with which she maneuvers around the more rigid and self-assured positions of the people around her. She feels like a fully realized person who really was born to be a thief, or at least destined to be a thief in a world like this
The planes are looking a bit more awkward now, contrasted against a bright blue sky, since their shading isn’t actively matched to the environments around them
One of the old regime members who’s taken Fiadel hostage demands the location of the oil fields, but he says they don’t exist
This is a smart choice for a Fujiko episode concept – Fujiko’s methods of self-preservation in a patriarchal society dovetail nicely with Fiadel’s efforts to preserve his country in a world defined by patriarchal superpowers. Fiadel manipulates expectations and hides his true weapons much like Fujiko does
I love this eyecatch of Fujiko idly playing with two toy fighter jets. Her read on this geopolitical conflict that may well spark World War III: “boys and their toys”
We jump two months earlier, because why not
“Only baseball and music give them a chance at living in this country.” More natural parallels between the first world’s treatment of less privileged countries and Fujiko’s navigation of society – you succeed by performing for society’s overt powers, and martial your own power in the dark
And Fiadel only has power so long as he can dangle the promise of Carib’s oil fields in front of the global superpowers, just as Fujiko maintains power through denial of her body
“Is revolution what you’re after? Or is it chaos?” “I want to dance as I wish. That is all.”
“It’s boring to dance just as a puppet state of major powers, don’t you think?” I’m sure Fujiko finds this hopelessly idealistic
Fiadel knows exactly what she is, and he’s honestly fascinated with her. He’s truly living by his ideals, and granting Fujiko the same respect he wants for himself
Fiadel finds the Cold War standoff just as childish as Fujiko does, but he’s likewise willing to use these two great nations’ great egos against them
His belief in Fujiko is realized through him granting her the secret of the oil fields
Goemon shows up on a twin prop and literally cuts Russia’s missiles out of the sky. He’s a goddamn superhero, but he’s just too straight-laced to actually abuse that fact
“He’s my boyfriend. I asked him to come get me.” Amazing
“Politics isn’t a play or a concert.” Fujiko has nothing but disdain for these weak pawns who only wish to be remembered, and don’t care about actually getting to live
Fujiko actually was contracted to assassinate Fiadel – but she ended up liking him too much, and so abandoned her task. And she ends the episode by revealing her true name to Goemon, along with the fact that Fiadel’s “oil fields” were merely the beautiful beaches that made him fall in love with this country
And Done
That episode was so much fun! In spite of being pretty tightly constrained in terms of its overt “action,” and largely taking place over a series of straightforward conversations, its playful manipulation of time and strong central dynamic between Fujiko and Fiadel made for an incredibly enjoyable ride. On a thematic level, Fujiko’s thoroughly established personal philosophy naturally paralleled Fiadel’s manipulation of geopolitics, illustrating how hierarchies of societal control create similar dynamics in both gender and national relations. And on a personal level, it was easy to see why Fujiko would gain such genuine respect for a man like Fiadel, acting as a natural payoff for how well this show has developed her rich personality. It’s also just great to see Fujiko interact happily with genuine friends, as opposed to deceitful, lustful rivals like Lupin. Fujiko genuinely likes both Fiadel and Goemon, and for massively different reasons – she sees a lot of herself in Fiadel, but also finds Goemon’s incredibly straightforward outlook endearing in its own way. This show is full of riches.
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