Lupin III: A Woman Called Mine Fujiko 02-03 (NSFW)
Mine Fujiko says ‘hello’ a little more boldly than most.
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It was Jrow alone who covered the first episode of Lupin III, as most of us had little to no expectations for the series. I’ve personally only seen Castle of Cagliostro, which was a pretty average movie, so I didn’t even plan on watching this, let alone blogging it. However, life likes to throw curve balls every now and then, and I realized that I liked watching Lupin III a whole lot more than Zetman. So, here I am! A woman called Overcooled shall now blog about A woman called Mine Fujiko. |
Episode 2
Mine Fujiko is employed by a woman named Ciccolina to steal the gun of her former bodyguard Jigen, who she claims killed her husband. He’s a quick-draw master who loves his gun, so this is easier said than done. Mine Fujiko manages to get close to the bodyguard’s current employer, which puts her in a excellent position to seduce Jigen and snatch his gun away. However, he’s a little more wary than most, and doesn’t fall for her tricks easily. It’s only after talking a bit about his past history with Ciccolina that he starts to let his guard down. Apparently, she used to constantly attempt suicide, and he would always be there to save her. While fondly remembering her, Mine works some “lovemaking technique” to freeze him and take the gun. Naturally, Jigen gives chase once he’s no longer paralyzed and meets up with Ciccolina in a church. She tries to kill him, but he takes out all of her guards…as well as her. In the end, it turned out that Ciccolina killed her husband herself and Jigen took the blame for her. Jigen was forced to go on the run and stay away from Ciccolina, which made her feel empty and desperate.
Episode 3
Taking on the role of the nanny for some rich kids, Mine Fujiko has to escort a trio of brats on a long train ride with their grandfather. Their parents were killed, leaving the little boy as the heir. Naturally, SOMEONE doesn’t like that, and sends a newbie samurai assassin to make it so they can swoop in and be the new heir. However, the samurai ends up befriending Fujiko and the three kids, which makes his job pretty hard. He gives up on killing the grandfather when he realizes his employer killed the train conductors and sent the train hurtling along the tracks without any way for it to stop. No one would survive that. The samurai, Goemon, teams up with Fujiko to cut one section of the train free to make stopping easier. It means that all the national treasures on board are sent sailing into the ocean but at least everyone is safe! Fujiko’s job as a nanny is at an end…but not before she takes a valuable belt from the family as a parting gift. Goemon asks to team up, unlike episode 2’s Jigen, but she leaves him with nothing but a kiss and some teasing words.
Screencaps:
When Fujiko takes a bath she doesn’t get clean…the water gets DIRTY.
Jigen Daisuke: an excellent Bootyguard.
Would you like some tea? Or maybe sex?
Marco wanted to know everything about samurai. EVERYTHING. o_o
End Thoughts:
Oh man, it’s been a while since I had to write a post with more than one episode in it. Sorry guys, but I didn’t know Zetman would suck so much that I’d beg Kyokai to get me out of it somehow! I usually stick through anime even if I don’t like it anymore (Deadman Wonderland and Fractale *cough*) but given the other impressive choices this season that no one was blogging, I couldn’t help myself. Lupin III was my new anime of choice to blog because of how purely entertaining it was. Mine Fujiko is a sexy and dangerous woman who solves every problem with a combination of seduction and violence. She exists only to be oogled and awed over. Mix a character like this with some crazy heists and action sequences, and you’ve got yourself a wickedly satisfying anime that never cops out on providing thrills of any kind. I love a good action series, and Lupin III definitely delivers. Because of the nature of her job as a thief, she has to be very clever in how she “fights.” I like seeing a little bit of tactical warfare in my fights. Well, okay, most of her tactics involve being a slut and then striking while they’re distracted, but at least it involves some degree of complexity. There’s only so much of head-on dudes beating the crap out of other dudes that you can take before getting bored. The life of a thief is far more entertaining!
Episode 2 was my favourite out of the pair, mostly because I found the subtle twists and turns to be rather interesting. Mine Fujiko has a vague idea of who Jigen and Ciccolina are and what their real story is, and that gradually changes as she talks with them more. I initially thought Ciccolina’s description of Jigen being “weak to women” was wildly inaccurate seeing how quickly he brushed of Fujiko and continued his job. Then he talked about saving Ciccolina, and I realized that Jigen didn’t have a weakness for women…he had a weakness for a woman. This is telling of Ciccolina, who probably wants to make it seem like she was just another girl in Jigen’s life to Fujiko so that she wouldn’t question things. She’s tried to cover up all her affection and feelings of being something special to Jigen in the time she’s been apart from him in order to forget him. In the end, we see just how different she is from how she presented herself at the beginning. It wasn’t shocking, per se, but it was a nice, subtle transition where my opinion of a new character changed in only a single episode.
I felt a little less impressed by episode 3. Fujiko was a nanny the whole episode, and therefore didn’t get much of a chance to do anything cool until the end. Plus, the kids were super annoying. I guess it’s realistic in the sense that kids are annoying in real life too, but mannnn, Marco was just one nuisance after another. I hope Fujiko got paid a lot to look after them. -_- The whole story behind assassinating the grandfather so they could claim a new heir was pretty standard fare as well. Runaway trains aren’t exactly exciting anymore either. We all know they’re just going to cut different cars away to save everyone! It’s too predictable! It was still a good episode, but below par compared to the other Lupin III episodes thus far. The appearance of Goemon saved the day. I really like that he’s such an old-fashioned, traditional kind of guy. Despite being strict, he’s got a good heart and he’s really modest. Unlike Fujiko, he doesn’t like tricking people and probably couldn’t do it even if he wanted to. Fujiko may have purposely taken on the job to steal some valuable stuff, but I think she’s lying when she says she didn’t care about the kids. Her actions say otherwise. She constantly protected them all throughout the train ride, and even when she had safely stolen her prize, she took the time to sweetly say goodbye to Marco. Most thieves wouldn’t waste time talking with an unconscious little brat when they could be spotted any minute. However, I wouldn’t go as far as to call her fondness “motherly” or anything of the sort. She liked them and all, but Fujiko isn’t the sort of women who gets attached to any one thing for too long. She’ll probably forget them in a few weeks.
One more thing I need to talk about before I finish this double-header post is….boobs. I would be remiss to not talk about all the screentime Fujiko’s nipples get, to the point where they’re shown at least once per episode – even if it doesn’t make sense to do so. It may be excessive, but I don’t really care. The whole point of the show is to be over-the-top with just about everything it can. It’s super-stylized, full of violence, and super-sexual. They’re not pretending that Fujiko is a strong, female role model who happens to flash her panties every now and then…she is purely there for titillation. Her reason for existing is the same as Bayonetta – to be drooled over. It’s an interesting kind of fanservice…although the nips just blend in with everything else for me. I’ll talk more about this if we ever see Goemon’s junk. :3
About Overcooled
A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
POWUH: 800-899 and Flying Sage with 856 comments
I’m not surprised you would want to switch from Zetman to Mine Fujiko. Even though episode 3 wasn’t quite as good as the first two episodes, this show is far superior. I really enjoyed the plot twists in the first two episodes. I don’t think there was anything quite as surprising in episode 3.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Yeahhhh, it wasn’t a very hard decision to make. I liked episode 2’s method of storytelling more than 3 too. It was just on the plain side.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
LOL, it’s funny. I had absolutely no interest in Zetman from the get-go but then I began to cave in, considering on giving it a chance but since you said it sucks that bad and you dropped it, I’m so glad I never laid eyes on it.
This show was interesting but I don’t know if I’ll want to continue it. I need more motivation to continue which is hard to do because it’s being interrupted by the other interesting animes this season. One of my favorites goes to Jormungand. I’ve seen two episodes and I’m hooked like a kid at the candy store. Guns, insanity and yanderes. I wonder if you or Karakuri will continue to blog it.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
I’m blogging Jormungand with Zabo~ … we’ve just hit technical difficulties since she’s srs bsns about exams and has no time as of current.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
It’s really not a good show…I hoped it would get better, which is why I stuck around for 3 episodes. It didn’t, so here I am. Don’t waste your time, Briar. XD
Well, if you don’t like it too much now, don’t force yourself. If you’re strapped for time, save it for when all the season shows are ending and there’s a small pause between seasons. Spring has a lot of good shows, so pace yourself to have the best time possible =w= I take my anime-watching habits seriously…lol
Jormungand is awesome! Can’t wait for you guys to tag team it! Miyu and I had our time eaten up with exams too, hence the Tsuritama delay. STUFF HAPPENS!
POWUH: 700-799 and Parkouring Fanboy with 776 comments
I’m not much of one for old school anime, so I haven’t seen any of the old Lupin III works and I had little interest for this one. But it caught my attention right away with its impressive action sequences in the first 2 episodes and the fun characters. Miyuki Sawashiro voicing Mine Fujiko doesn’t hurt, either.
The old school visuals are distracting at times, but I think they did a good job making it work with modern high tech techniques.
Of course, Cowboy Bebop was heavily influenced by the earlier Lupin III works, and I can see that this show is doing many of the same things as Cowboy Bebop, except well.
And the tits. Can’t say they bother me much. Fits right in with the underground noir- ish crime thriller style of the show. Definitely a surprise hit for me.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Same here. I only watched it after seeing some hype building up on Twitter. I don’t even plan on watching the old Lupin stuff either – I’m fine with just this.
I do find myself focusing on the shadows instead of what is happening or the entire picture sometimes, but I’d say it’s an overall plus for the show. It looks better than Zetman, that’s for sure (ah yes, the bitterness has not yet faded…).
Wow, not a Bebop fan? I see the similarities between the two, but I’m a fan of both. Mine Fujiko is more like a fun romp compared to Bebop though.
Yeah, they don’t get in the way, which is nice. Half of the time, no one even blinks when she’s naked. They’ve got some nice casual nudity going on, and I definitely agree that it goes hand-in-hand with the show’s style.
POWUH: 800-899 and Flying Sage with 856 comments
With all the stylized shadows, this show is literally “darker” than Zetman, despite the fact that Zetman is supposed to be “dark” in tone, and this one, as you say, is more of a “romp”.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 243 comments
I’m loving this too! Castle of Cagliostro is my only previous experience of Lupin III as well, but if this can keep up the high quality then I might be setting off on a DVD hunt for older series once this is done. Anyway, I’m looking forward to whatever crazy stuff is going to be thrown at us now that the character intros are out of the way.
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
I recommend the most recent special Blood Seal that [sage] subbed. I watched that almost right after covering ep. 1 and it was a fun watch. It has the same voice cast that’s in this series, and Akira Ishida as the bad guy.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I’m really enjoying it, but I’m not sure I can be bothered with any other Lupin stuff other than Mine Fujiko. Although if Jrow suggests something, I may have to change my mind about that…
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 192 comments
Mine Fujiko may seem like a kick-ass thief, but I bet that she has her own share of demons as well. The show only hints at it, but I’d like them delve deeper into this. Been some time since I’ve seen an anime with a strong female lead though, so she’s a nice surprise this spring. I don’t really care about her flashing every episode, I mean, she is a seductress after all.
Out of all the characters, I like Lupin and Goemon the best. Lupin steals the scene thanks to his grand schemes (a jet-powered Buddha statue? Really?) and his cheeky demeanor. I like Goemon for his sense of honor and his occasional innocence and naivete. His sword skills help, along with that catchphrase: “I’ve cut something worthless again.” Who’s your favorite so far, Overcooled?
Looking forward to another caper next week, hope it’s a good one. =)
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I don’t think they will, because they seem so keen as depicting her as this perfect, deceptive little vixen who isn’t attached to anyone. I won’t mind it if they do, but it goes against the over-the-top “kickass woman” I have in my mind thus far.
Oh man, it’s hard to pick a favourite. I really like Lupin and Goemon too…Hmm…I would have to say Lupin and Jigen are my favourite though. I love Jigen’s pokerface…it’s so satisfying to see it slip off every now and then too. As for Lupin, well, you can’t NOT love a cheeky guy like him. He’s got talent!
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 192 comments
Perhaps, but it’d be a shame. I like characters with multiple sides to them, it makes them all the more unpredictable and human.
I initially thought Jigen would be fast favourite, but I can’t seem to warm up to him somehow. I think his tragic past blew up my initial view of him (thanks a lot, Cagliostro…). Still, his gun skills and poker face might make him a favourite too in the future.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 99 comments
I’m glad you’ve switched to this from Zetman. Now, I don’t have to watch it anymore.
I-I liked the third episode more than the second. I thought the second was more technically impressive and Jigen is pretty awesome, but I like the streamlined story a bit more in the third one.
Glad to see that you’re blogging this! That’s probably the best comment I’ve read about the tits. Lies somewhere between oohh boobs and ~deep~ social commentary, which sounds about right.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Awww, don’t watch shows if you don’t like them XD
That’s the thing, I prefer more complex, non-chronological order storytelling. Even if things get messy, I generally prefer that to a simple story that follows a very specific path.
Haha, never thought I’d thank someone for liking what I had to say about boobs. I didn’t want to go very far in meaningful commentary because I feel like this show is just for FUN. Any sort of statement about feminism or what have you feels either accidental or like an afterthought.