Today we’re starting off on a new show, as we check out the first episode of The Woman Called Fujiko Mine! This one’s a pretty interesting property in all respects – it’s ostensibly an entry in the Lupin III master thief franchise, but its acclaimed director Sayo Yamamoto decided instead to focus on Fujiko Mine, the femme fatale who generally plays more of a supporting role in Lupin’s stories. My experience with Lupin III is very limited – I’ve essentially just seen a couple scattered episodes and Miyazaki’s Castle of Cagliostro, which I’ve been lead to believe isn’t really representative of the mainline series’ less family-friendly style.

My experience with Yamamoto is a bit less limited, but still pretty far from exhaustive. I watched her breakout hit Yuri on Ice!!!, but didn’t really find it that compelling. I felt the story essentially lost its focus after the excellent first few episodes, that lots of irrelevant skating performances killed its pacing, and that the combination of so-so character writing, a total lack of interest in conveying skating as any sort of tactical competition, and consistent animation issues prevented its big setpieces from really landing with much impact. The show’s success makes sense to me, but as an art object, I wasn’t really that moved.

Outside of that, my experience with Yamamoto is limited to a few of her terrific opening/ending segments, as well as her reasonably solid Space Dandy episode and her other collaborations with Shinichiro Watanabe. As for Fujiko Mine’s writer, Mari Okada is one of the great wildcards of anime, equally capable of stirring character-focused melodrama and godawful character-focused melodrama. She undoubtedly possesses one of the clearest voices in anime writing, but unlike the reliable craft solidity of someone like Gen Urobuchi, her stories’ narrative fundamentals can range from bulletproof to wibbly-wobbly nonsense.

Where these two voices and this particularly property intersect, I don’t really know. Fujiko Mine has a cult reputation, but my experience with Yuri on Ice has left me wondering if Yamamoto is simply not my style of creator, and so I’m interested in checking my own reaction here. Let’s start with the first episode and get to the capers!

Episode 1

Oh wow, that sure is a first ten seconds. Alright, so we open with a wild introduction to this show’s singular art design, an ornate look that seems almost styled after a mixture of renaissance illuminated manuscripts and early print high fashion spreads. Images in this style are accompanied by a narrator demanding “look directly at me,” and explaining the beauty of thievery as a crime. This story is thus immediately and overtly framed as a story, as an embellished narrative that isn’t necessarily the truth

This visual style also directly reminds me of Belladonna of Sadness, and even the narrative seems to echo that reference. Belladonna was a story that turned the scorning of a woman into its own kind of strength, using imagery very like the aggressive sexual acts of these first moments here. Telling a Lupin III story from Fujiko’s perspective is inherently an act of reorienting a masculine franchise, “stealing” it and framing it from a feminine perspective. I really appreciate that this team seems to acknowledge and embrace that fact, essentially thumbing their nose at the expectations of a franchise that is itself already about outracing authority

The very limited animation also echoes Belladonna. Designs like this are meant for panning across, not clear and convincing movement

The narrator references Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, a man utterly consumed by smoldering obsession, whose love story eventually destroyed both its participants as they devoured each other and themselves. Framing thievery as a similar act – an act of romance, an act of seduction, an act of self-destruction. This is some really compelling stuff

Her “sexy prison.” Not the most graceful phrase

Lots of owl imagery in this opening segment, for whatever reason

Talk about “draining” men, and leaving them as shells like herself. Once again framing theft as an act of seduction, reorienting it from a male-perspective concept of “taking a treasure” or “domination,” to a mutual act driven by female power

This is all very interesting, but I’m beginning to think my interests and Yamamoto’s may just not align – her ideas of “cool” reorient men’s aesthetic assumptions to be women’s tools, but those initial aesthetic assumptions don’t really do much for me. And her stuff is very “stylized Americana” in a way that certainly makes sense as a collaborator for Watanabe, but also dials down the aesthetic qualities and priorities I actually go to anime for

That owl even makes it into the show’s logo

An equally stylish post-opening segment, as overbearing church organs accompany the splashed logo as we watch some foreboding royal or religious procession

A nice pan out into depth here, creating a sense of bombast and scale. Then followed by a shot of Lupin looking through his binoculars, a classic image gesturing towards this franchise’s more cartoonish super thief roots

“Now that’s one fine woman. Kind of a shame to waste her on a cult leader.” Feminine beauty and male demands for purity contrasted in the very first conflict here

The show is happy to extend beyond its already distinctive art design into some wild mixed media choices here, letting the existing aesthetic looseness make tricks like these CG lights or oddly textured falling petals feel relatively natural

The show’s art designs carry a bit of the angular beauty of the original Garo, which also used its stylized approach to evoke an old-fashioned era. But the clearest visual touchstone remains Belladonna of Sadness

The music remains menacing and unusual all through this segment

And now Fujiko uses her femininity as an overt weapon, hiding a pill in her kiss

God, all the incidental designs in this show are so ornate and wonderful. The shading is also terrific, and amplifies the sense of us watching a living tapestry – instead of simple full blocks of shadow that are relatively easy to move, this show actually uses hatcheted shading that perfectly matches the ornate character art

Also some repeated and interesting use of Kunihiko Ikuhara’s signature shot, the black figures against a fully red background. In a show like this, that already feels so much like a comic brought to light, shots like that seemed designed to occupy the places where stark two-tone profile shots would be in a comic

Interesting seeing the rare sparks of classic cartoonishness from Lupin in this otherwise very different narrative

The villain here reveling in his power over women as he orders the deaths of Fujiko and Lupin

Wait what the crap, Fujiko is played by Miyuki Sawashiro in this? Damnit, she’s got the most sultry voice in anime, this isn’t fair

So I guess this is an origin story, then? Not that Lupin has any real coherent chronology

Oh wow, I love this shot of Fujiko’s wedding dress splayed out across the cell. It really emphasizes how she’s attempting to use her own unique weapons to utterly overwhelm Lupin

This show’s wipe cuts are so garish yet appropriate. The overall show has an incredibly ornate, theatrical style, so big showy transitions feel a lot more at home here than they would in most stories

Apparently the dust this cult leader emits puts his followers into some kind of high

“Thieving is more fun with a rival. Do you have anything in your bag of tricks besides seduction to make you a match for me?” Lupin immediately starts demeaning Fujiko, implying her success is based entirely in her appearance. I appreciate that they’re willing to make Lupin an asshole

And Fujiko responds by leaning into that, and abusing his horny simplicity. God, Yamamoto sure does feel like a tonic to the male-perspective assumptions of so much work in this genre

She gets the guards to think Lupin attacked her and then seduces one of the guards. Fujiko has got this shit down

Hah, another absurd perspective-shifting shot, as the show pans up over foreground fences into the courtyard where our leads will be executed

The shading only gets more and more stylized – a very interesting shot of Fujiko half in shadow, where the darkness clearly isn’t supposed to represent the actual contours of her body, but instead just creates the loosest illusion of shadow possible

Lupin seems to be having an altogether wonderful time, a nice carryover of his usual personality that carries a unique hint of madness in this much heavier universe

Both Lupin’s competency and his comedy are carried over, but this show’s perspective makes him come off as a real asshole

Man, this eyecatch is great. Seems like they may be ripping on some classic James Bond imagery, too. Though obviously Bond does not have a monopoly on pistols held in profile

“She’s so off the rails she’s willing to kill. She so masochistic she doesn’t care how far she falls. I kinda like it.” Lupin represents a classic type, simultaneously vilifying Fujiko for how she masters her environment and also lusting after her for it

This secret island is a good setting for a Lupin tale. Lots of trap doors and hidden parlors and secret dungeons and whatnot

“A fine woman like you shouldn’t resort to desperate measures.” Man, again and again. Lupin is such a specific and believable cad

Great sequence where the show’s unique shading facilitates a battle through inconsistent lighting. Because of the consistent texture of the shading, the show is again able to maintain a sense of visual congruity through what could theoretically be a very disruptive segment

And there’s Zenigata, who allowed this drug ring to flourish just to attract Lupin

I also appreciate that in spite of his sexism and bravado, this episode is making it clear that Lupin is just a better thief than Fujiko. Sometimes assholes are very good at what they do

The show’s aesthetic ambitions finally stretch a little outside its reach here – this sequence of the statue surfing down the palace looks glaringly artificial

“Let’s all trip out together!” And the episode ends on their god melting in the sea and getting everyone high as fuck. This is quite a show

And Done

That was terrific! An utterly satisfying episodic caper that also served as a stark statement of purpose, spinning Lupin III in a nastier direction and stringing up this genre’s general framing of female characters. Both Fujiko and Lupin felt totally convincing here, and already feel like characters with utterly different but both compelling ideologies. On top of that, the show has style for days, and made terrific use of its unique art design while also showing off with all manner of beautiful layouts. This seems like it’d be a fantastic ride.

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