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Mar. 4th, 2024 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavso i finished Lupin III: The Woman Named Fujiko Mine
overall: great for a classic caper anime, worthwhile to watch and entertaining in a way that's not too demanding. fantastic art direction. subversive queer/feminist themes for its time that certian slices of tumblr would go nuts over. not quite as "classic/brain screwy' as Utena but vaguely in that direction. i was legit on the edge of my seat for the first half of the finale; there were some neat twists and sets being pulled out.
but the second half of the finale was kinda .... (imo) badly fumbled in a few ways. naturally this had me asking myself how i would have done it.
the tl;dr of the setup is there's this lady thief named Fujiko Mine (who was usually the sidekick/titty fanservice to Lupin III, the main guy, much like Catwoman to Batman). the whole arc of the show is deconstructing, essentially, just how a "blank slate" of such a fanservice character could actually work in principle.
* i was SO here for the 'was medically experimented on as a kid along with a bunch of other girls selected/modified to look like clones of her'. dude, medical horror's so underrated esp. because it's so common as an experience versus some other crazy traumatic origin stories. BUT.....
* the whole appearance of the samurai boyfriend in the second half felt. ehhhh. kind of a weird joke that fell flat on its face? he appears by being kidnapped by the owl cult, they experimented on him real fast to make him look like a clone of fujiko and... baaaasically he was treated as a transvestite-y gag the rest of the time? while the show plays fast and loose with realism, i felt like it did a massive dissaservice to the whole 'yo the medical experimental side is straight up real horror' especially when there was not a few shots in the same episode dedicated to fujiko like, screaming in pain on the table. would have just cut him from the episode; he served his role just fine in the last few.
* the whole 'owl dude was actually aisha's mom' felt ass pulled out of nowhere like if the writer suddenly realized to be femininst they couldn't just fridge... the mom... lol. worse, the 'fujiko herself was actually a maid/thief instead of one of aisha's created clones haha psych' completely undid any tension of 'oh shit fujiko's a modified clone'. like why bother even bringing up that plot twist loooool. why do i give a shit about aisha + her mom if i'm only watching for fujiko + lupin hijinks.
* i did not particularly care for how the show ended aisha's whole plot thread. like either mercy kill her (cementing how thief!fujiko's ruthless), or commit to the bit with the issue of caretaking for somebody reliant, but don't just... half ass it by taking her away from the machines and then having her """usefully"" die like 5 minutes after only for fujiko + lupin to go frolicking off into the sunset lol.
* the way i would have fixed aisha + fujiko's real history + her mom's plot is... have all of them be fujiko clones. aisha still is who she is (let's call her prime!fujiko). thief!fujiko would have all the experimentation shit go down still, but she's the sole runaway/escapee and still gets up to her thief and sex hijinks. owl-man is ...let's call her caretaker!fujiko is another exact clone; also has the experimentation but is kinda groomed to be the caretaker to prime!fujiko who's bedridden and calling the shots. basically a parasitic/fucked up symbiotic sort of relationship, and it'd still serve as some pretty incisive commentary on the hidden abuses of caretaking dynamics. i would have had prime!fujiko be the one to say 'yeah this is fucked up i'm gonna go out with this whole castle to prevent it happening again' and kind of last-minute own that, along with caretaker!fujiko being the one to set the explosive charges or some shit.
you could even be pretentious and easily weave in the whole 'virgin/mother/hag' trifecta of archetypes that women tend to be slotted into, and half that second half be a commentary on those roles and how those three fujikos struggled with the roles and whether they broke freely successfully from them or not with all the brainwashing (and how hard it is to do that). i honest to god thought that was what they were going for!!!! IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH STRONGER??? aaaa.
even with that said i think i'd generally rec the show, just don't expect a flawless execution of the end.
overall: great for a classic caper anime, worthwhile to watch and entertaining in a way that's not too demanding. fantastic art direction. subversive queer/feminist themes for its time that certian slices of tumblr would go nuts over. not quite as "classic/brain screwy' as Utena but vaguely in that direction. i was legit on the edge of my seat for the first half of the finale; there were some neat twists and sets being pulled out.
but the second half of the finale was kinda .... (imo) badly fumbled in a few ways. naturally this had me asking myself how i would have done it.
the tl;dr of the setup is there's this lady thief named Fujiko Mine (who was usually the sidekick/titty fanservice to Lupin III, the main guy, much like Catwoman to Batman). the whole arc of the show is deconstructing, essentially, just how a "blank slate" of such a fanservice character could actually work in principle.
* i was SO here for the 'was medically experimented on as a kid along with a bunch of other girls selected/modified to look like clones of her'. dude, medical horror's so underrated esp. because it's so common as an experience versus some other crazy traumatic origin stories. BUT.....
* the whole appearance of the samurai boyfriend in the second half felt. ehhhh. kind of a weird joke that fell flat on its face? he appears by being kidnapped by the owl cult, they experimented on him real fast to make him look like a clone of fujiko and... baaaasically he was treated as a transvestite-y gag the rest of the time? while the show plays fast and loose with realism, i felt like it did a massive dissaservice to the whole 'yo the medical experimental side is straight up real horror' especially when there was not a few shots in the same episode dedicated to fujiko like, screaming in pain on the table. would have just cut him from the episode; he served his role just fine in the last few.
* the whole 'owl dude was actually aisha's mom' felt ass pulled out of nowhere like if the writer suddenly realized to be femininst they couldn't just fridge... the mom... lol. worse, the 'fujiko herself was actually a maid/thief instead of one of aisha's created clones haha psych' completely undid any tension of 'oh shit fujiko's a modified clone'. like why bother even bringing up that plot twist loooool. why do i give a shit about aisha + her mom if i'm only watching for fujiko + lupin hijinks.
* i did not particularly care for how the show ended aisha's whole plot thread. like either mercy kill her (cementing how thief!fujiko's ruthless), or commit to the bit with the issue of caretaking for somebody reliant, but don't just... half ass it by taking her away from the machines and then having her """usefully"" die like 5 minutes after only for fujiko + lupin to go frolicking off into the sunset lol.
* the way i would have fixed aisha + fujiko's real history + her mom's plot is... have all of them be fujiko clones. aisha still is who she is (let's call her prime!fujiko). thief!fujiko would have all the experimentation shit go down still, but she's the sole runaway/escapee and still gets up to her thief and sex hijinks. owl-man is ...let's call her caretaker!fujiko is another exact clone; also has the experimentation but is kinda groomed to be the caretaker to prime!fujiko who's bedridden and calling the shots. basically a parasitic/fucked up symbiotic sort of relationship, and it'd still serve as some pretty incisive commentary on the hidden abuses of caretaking dynamics. i would have had prime!fujiko be the one to say 'yeah this is fucked up i'm gonna go out with this whole castle to prevent it happening again' and kind of last-minute own that, along with caretaker!fujiko being the one to set the explosive charges or some shit.
you could even be pretentious and easily weave in the whole 'virgin/mother/hag' trifecta of archetypes that women tend to be slotted into, and half that second half be a commentary on those roles and how those three fujikos struggled with the roles and whether they broke freely successfully from them or not with all the brainwashing (and how hard it is to do that). i honest to god thought that was what they were going for!!!! IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH STRONGER??? aaaa.
even with that said i think i'd generally rec the show, just don't expect a flawless execution of the end.
