Lupin III: A Woman Called Mine Fujiko – 12

“….HOO, me?“

I had a rough day at work today, but do you know when I write best? I write best when I’m physically tired and/or a little bit shaken. Nothing like a little mishap in life to light a fire under your arse and get you moving again! Turning that into fuel and motivation is what I do best, and that is the stuff I was running on while writing this post. This was a really great episode too, so I can’t wait to get typing about this week’s episode! (P.S. I’m lying to you. I always write my intro paragraph last. All you have lived for has been a rotten joke at your expense.)

Reaction

It’s nice to see Lupin III back in top form. This episode started off a bit slow, but quickly ramped up. I started off sprawled on my couch, but I quickly sat up straight when it shifted from just explanations to a mix of action and insanity. The build-up really paid off. Now everyone is in the same spot, working hard to unravel the mystery of Fujiko’s past. The constant cuts between what Fujiko was doing mixed with everyone else really kept the story moving. All of the different angles actually add up together nicely to give us some pieces of the bigger picture. It’s nice that the finale will involve EVERYONE too, and my guess is they’re all out to stain the walls with owl brains. I can’t wait to see what crazy action we get next week! Swords, guns, special gadgets from Lupin…more guns! Ahh, it looks like a promising finish is in our sights. It won’t be long until Fujiko is smirking like a champ again and spreading her legs for every Larry, Dick and Tom that passes her by.

I often forget that this show is actually supposed to be about Fujiko. I’m more attached to the other characters, because they’ve been doing more work revealing her past while Fujiko has been trying to keep it all hidden. I do care about her past though (really, I do!) so I’m also looking forward to that next week. I feel like this week’s explanation of what she’s been through was a lot more clear than Lupin’s drug-induced, hallucinatory adventure. It was a lot more coherent, which is partially why I was so fond of this episode. No smoke and mirror tricks to try and make a story edgier and more complex just for the sake of some director trying to prove they are clever. I like this more down-to-earth presentation. We even got to know why Fujiko steals! What a sad little creature she is! You would never expect Fujiko to be so vulnerable, but she really has a dark side. Hmm, I wonder if Lupin has such skeletons in his closet too…

The only weird thing this week is…well…owls. Owls and theme parks. Don’t ask me why the owls built a dumb theme park for all this – it was just cool. Forget reasoning, because 5 minutes after they gave the stupid featherface their tickets, I didn’t care at all if an amusement park made sense or not. Everything this owl cult is doing surrounding Fujiko is over the top – from creating tons of dolls to shock her into remembering her past to the whole owl obsession. I never want to see another owl for a week.

Overall, a thrilling episode that coherently explains part of Fujiko’s past and feels like a true penultimate episode.

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Not Dead Quite Yet

I was under the impression that Oscar died a horrible death that robbed him of solace and love because of his mingling with this shady owl cult. It turns out that they weren’t just making his afterlife miserable, but they saved him before death and used him to become a Fujiko prototype. I don’t mind at all that I was wrong. I’m glad he’s alive! As soon as I saw that funky tattoo on the shoulder of a Fuji-clone, I got really excited. It was only a manner of time before they revealed it to be – Oscar! – DUN DUN DUUUNNN!!! He appears to be brainwashed, but I think Zenigata will be able to snap him out of it. Why revive Oscar just to have him killed again a second later, right? That would just be dumb. I doubt Zenigata will give Oscar the love he desires, but maybe he’ll show an ounce of kindness this time? I just really love Oscar because he never gets what he wants in pretty much every area of his life. That, and Kaji Yuki (his seiyuu) actually uses a deeper voice than usual to play him, which is a nice change from his usual whiny male lead voice.

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Fuji-clones

Err, is this homicide or suicide…?

Why make cheap copies of Fujiko? Fujiko doesn’t seem like a failed experiment to me, so why do they need more of her? Furthermore, what kind of slapdash scientists do you have to be to just put a samurai in drag and call it a day? Goemon probably cut them down before they did their brainwashing thing, but wow…they..really don’t care as long as they can get their hands on any living thing that vaguely resembles her. It’s creepy, and makes me wonder what their goal was for Fujiko. Her father says that the experiment was “to make everybody happy” but I have yet to see how shocking, branding and surgically tampering with a little girl leads to this.

We saw a ton of the messed up things this Whack Owl Cult did (yes, that is what it is actually called. Actually) but not WHY they’ve been doing it. We know they’re keeping watch on Fujiko and that they’ve been pulling the strings this entire time to get Lupin, Jigen and Goemon to meet her. We get the feeling that the main villain is purposely arranging these meetings so that Lupin gets curious about her past and causes memories to resurface in Fujiko’s mind. Basically, he has created this whole song and dance to bring Fujiko back to him and have her remember her torture-filled days in the lab. He’s also a perv. Let’s hope the whole reason he’s doing this isn’t so he can finally get laid after years of girls rejecting him because of his owl mask. I guess we shall have to wait a week to say. This stuff’s too cray-cray for me to even take a shot at guessing what’s up.

Bonus Screenshots: Show ▼