Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna

7.0/10 ~ Highly recommend this one just on the art style

Man this one was quite the treat to watch for the visuals alone. They really just made it feal like an oldschool manga or art book from the 70's come alive in animated form. The amount of work that went into each scene, every set piece, every episode is crazy to think of much akin to watching something like Red line, I wouldnt be surprised if there is overlapping staff there to be honest.

I may have grown up watching some Lupin iii, but I really do not have much love for it, that being ... said this did not have to be nostalgic to be good. Which I am always here for, as I can truly view this without some rose tinted glasses unlike so many.

The charecters were written to the T of how they are through out Lupin's series but here you get a diffrent taste of how they theoretically could have met as the cannon of this seems to be a bit murky. That being said we dont watch lupin for extremely deep charecters or deep plots, so nothing new here. You also just have to be prepared for it being episodic with fairly independent stories, a bit of a thing from the past that most people are not use to in this day in age.

The sound track is spectacular, this has to be up there with Cowboybebop or Shamploo for how good it was consistently.

My biggest complaint is the show was a bit too sexual, I wouldnt be surprised by stats if Fujiko had her tits out for almost 50% of all screen time she was actually on. And this is coming from someone who quite enjoys such things... made the moments feel less special if you know what I mean. All that being this is show is so good that you can just kinda ignore the titties and its still quite good.

6.5 and above is where I start to actually personally recommend shows, and remember 5/10 is average so this is well above that. Cheers

At first I thought this series would be really boring because Fujiko’s never been a very interesting character before, but this show made me like the character a lot more than I expected.

The other Lupin characters are mostly great, especially Goemon. Zenigata, however…too much of his character is spent dealing with his adoptive son/sidekick Oscar, an incredibly obnoxious character.

The series is at its weakest when it tries to be philosophical. Lupin III is all about romance and adventure, and I feel like the overarching plot of the show misses the mark slightly. The Egyptian episode and the train episode are the highlights for me.

Let my preface this review by saying that there are facts that make me biased in the case of The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. I have watched many Lupin releases including the original Miyazaki TV series, also know as "green jacket" Lupin, as well as the 155 episode Part II, variably known as "red jacket" Lupin, as well as many of the movies and specials.

I have not finished Part III, a.k.a. "pink jacket" Lupin, because the ugly art has given me trouble in caring about it, and I have completed Part IV, a.k.a. Lupin (2015) or "blue jacket" Lupin, so I am a pretty ... well-versed fan of the Lupin franchise. I know that Fujiko Mine is supposed to an alternate retelling of the original series, but this series is a disgrace and is disgusting in every possible way.

Another point that makes me dislike this show is that I think Sayo Yamamoto's projects are horrendous and trashy. In my opinion, the only good thing that she worked on is Texhnolyze, but she wasn't the lead director on that project. Michiko to Hatchin and Yuri on Ice are both awful series that don't have a direction with narrative and depend on artsy, pretentious-ness and "socially aware" messages to cushion the fall of their failures.

Despite what Tumblr leads you to believe, just because something is representative of other cultures/ethnicities or has the first homosexual marriage announced in it (even though, not true, technically Kyou Kara Maou had a homosexual proposal before), doesn't make it a good series. I often find that people are victims to internet communities and hype, so much so that they refuse to see any of the flaws in something, because there are moments that they like. Moments don't make a story, something called a cohesive narrative does.

Allow me to begin by saying that the characters are nothing like the original series and are portrayed in crude and offensive ways. Lupin probably is the most accurate portrayal, that was passable.

Jigen being seduced by Fujiko is a big no. In the original continuity, Jigen doesn't like women and especially hates Fujiko with a passion, treating Lupin like an idiot for falling for her. It's completely ludicrous him fall in love with her in this, something in the guise of a prequel.

Goemon isn't believable either, the original series DOES state that he has a weakness for women, and that's practically his Achilles heel, but Goemon has a type. In all of the other variations, he has always gone for the traditional, sweet, and pure type of woman.

In the original continuity, Goemon has even shown disdain for Fujiko being such a vulgar woman, but no, apparently in Yamamoto's brain baby, that just means he wants to sleep with her. Apparently, the show wants you to believe that before Lupin even befriended his gang, before that became a thing, heck, even before Lupin and Jigen's iconic bromance came into fruition, they were all just trying to bang Fujiko? What… the… hell?

And the worse one of them all was Zenigata. In the original, there were a couple of times that Zenigata was tricked because he thought Fujiko was pretty, but the Zenigata I know would never have time for that. In Lupin III Part II, the series makes a substantial deal of letting us know that Zenigata is so obsessed with catching Lupin that that's the only thing he makes time for, he even says that he doesn't have time to bathe or brush his teeth because of his pursuit of Lupin.

And yet he has time to have sex with Fujiko? No, no, no! No! Fujiko has always been the femme fatal, but this portrayal of her and everyone else casts her only as an object to be lusted after, but what the series advertises itself to be is a feminist, "women's empowerment" fantasy (this is feminist in the same way that Twilight is “empowering” for women). The opening is stupid, it’s called "New Wuthering Heights," and has the narrator droning out precocious phrases that try to make this series 3deep5u.

There's nothing that even really indicates that Fujiko is her usual backstabbing self, except for maybe the first couple of episodes. They even write the offensive, psychopathic gay guy (Oscar) to obsessively lust after Fuji-cakes like she's a piece of meat. Even though it originally portrays him as having a thing for Zenigata; it gets mixed up, like all of the other plot points and becomes art for art's sake.

Everyone has sex with her, wants to have sex with her, or wants to be her. Simultaneously, they shame her for having sex. And, I got tired of even hearing her name by the last 4 episodes. If you want to be indoctrinated to believe that being facetious suddenly makes you self-aware then I suppose you would like this hunk of indispensable garbage. Fujiko's personal story isn't even concluded in the end, though heavily alluded to throughout the series.

I wouldn't want this to be anyone's introduction to Lupin, preferably I would want that spot to go to Part I, II, IV, Jigen's Gravestone, or Castle of Cagliostro. I can't even convey how much I hate this series; I would never be friends with anyone who thought this was high art. I give it a 2/10, because the art and animation are superb and I'm a fair critic, but otherwise I would have rated it in the negatives. I wish that The Woman Called Fujiko Mine would have never been added to the Lupin franchise.