Director: Sayo Yamamoto
Series Composition: Mari Okada
Based on the
characters created by Monkey Punch
Voice Cast: Miyuki Sawashiro as Fujiko Mine; Kanichi
Kurita as Lupin III; Daisuke Namikawa as Goemon Ishikawa; Kiyoshi Kobayashi as
Daisuke Jigen; Kōichi Yamadera as Inspector Zenigata; Yuuki Kaji as Oscar
Viewed in Japanese
with English Subtitles
The Lupin the Third franchise has lasted so long it became an institution. It could also develop time periods as a result. By 2015, we have Lupin the Third Part IV, and Part V (2018) later on, modern day reinterpretations after the Monkey Punch characters have had a long time to be entrenched in popular culture. Between animated television specials, a couple of OVAs and films, over the decades from the seventies when this franchise was first being adapted into animation it grew in significant. The television specials in particular were very regular, between 1989 and 2013 one per year being created, which changed with gaps after that year. One significant entry came in 2012 which is what we are covering here, part of the 40th Anniversary of the Lupin animated series, and the 45th Anniversary of the original manga, feeling in contest like a kick to a very different direction. It could easily be forgotten among all the other entries, but it is in hindsight a visually unique and risky production, with famous characters, directed by a woman, Sayo Yamamoto, with full creative control with another significant figure, as series compositor, also being a woman named Mari Okada. The bigger surprise is that they created a dark, more sexually explicit and adult version that is a return to the Lupin character's origins.
Contextually, whilst I confess to not be comfortably knowledgeable on the Monkey Punch character at all, I am very aware of how this franchise has changed continually. Lupin as an institution, let alone a character, had various forms over the decades, and a more family friendly version became popular as you get to the 2000s and animation TV specials for the franchise were more common. The character could be even boiled down, though likely to be far more complicated than this, to which coloured jacket he wore, a symbology to this colour coding with the two of importance here red and green. Red jacket was the one closest to the original Monkey Punch creation, a far more adult manga in tone. Green jacket was more accessible, and most know this version in the West likely due to The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), arguably the most known property of Lupin for many in the West due to it being Hayao Mizayaki's theatrical debut, his work on this film and the television series before having an influence on this version that toned down the edgier character.
It feels strangely symbolic, when you even had a crossover special with the Detective Conan franchise beforehand, that we got this production, one explicitly meant to look to the later author's original work, a much darker and lewder creation that was even influenced by MAD Magazine from the United States. Here, being with a spoken word musical piece called New Wuthering Heights, the sense of breaking from the trend is immediately set up for its opening credits does not start with the usual J-pop song over a glitzy opening, but a monologue from Fujiko herself (played in the Japanese dub here by Miyuki Sawashiro) about her desire to steal being existential, over highly detailed and surreal imagery, all of which is in monochrome and with Fujiko naked in them all. Directed references to Japanese pop culture from the seventies, Gothic and Western decadent symbolism, Greek statues and doppelgangers aiming guns at each other, all with a jazzy piece that begins the high bar of excellent and eclectic music pieces throughout the series. If you were planning to create a drastic shift in tone for this franchise into the new decade, this was an immediate success in laying your intentions out for the audience.
Having two female voices tackle Fujiko Mine, Sayo Yamamoto's the most in control, a character who has at times (like Twilight of the Twilight Gemini (1996)) been there for merely titillation and other times the femme fatale figure, is such an obvious thing to have done, but is inspired for being common sense. From a figure whose name is literally a pun on having a big bust, it is quite a distinct choice to actually let a female creator or two tackle this figure for their reinterpretation. Sayo Yamamoto is a director still in a minority, as there are still not many female directors in the anime industry. She has also only helmed three productions rather than be only an episode director on many others - they however happen to be this, Michiko & Hatchin (2008), a Brazil set series centred around female characters, and Yuri on Ice (2016), an ice skating drama which blew up as a crossover success and meant she has made an impact in the director's chair. Mari Okada - the series compositor alongside episodes scripted by Dai Sato, Itsuko Miyoshi, Junji Nishimura and Shinsuke Onishi - is a very prolific and well regarded scriptwriter, to the point she is a case (male or female) of a recognised figure too. Not everything has succeeded, as unless The Lost Village (2016) was intentionally a horror parody, but into the 2020s she is still a big figure.
What might surprise is that, even next to The Mystery of Mamo (1978), the first theatrical adaptation which was a deliberate throwback to the Monkey Punch version, this television series between them is exceptionally adult and dark even if it still faithfully tackles this world. This means nudity, morally grey versions of Fujiko and Lupin the gentleman thief, antiheroes who still kill people, and as the main narrative of the whole series continues on even tackling dark themes like child abuse and human experimentation inspired by the real life ones that transpired during the Cold War with hallucinogenic like LSD and mind control. The first half of the series waits before the main story fully arrives, a series of one-time stories set before the protagonists were together. This starts with Fujiko, the femme fatale, and then introduces Lupin, the main protagonist of the franchise, Daisuke Jigen, and original figure and expert sharpshooter, Goemon Ishikawa, literally a samurai in the modern day and meant to be an ancestor of real life outlaw hero Ishikawa Goemon, and Koichi Zenigata, meant to be the descendent of fictional Edo era policeman character Zenigata Heiji. In terms of characterisation, it will make some uncomfortable how darkly the characters are depicted even with context of the friendlier versions, but that is as much part of this production's goal, in returning to the template Monkey Punch set down, and adding its own touches.
Lupin himself is still a very clownish but very accomplished thief, but is also however a bit of a horn dog. The series begins with him first encountering Fujiko during their attempt to sneak into a secret island cult who uses a euphoric drug called "Dizzy", marking her leg with the statement, as the grandson of the French thief Arsen Lupin1 who also liked to proclaim his work before committing them, that he plans to steal her. Zenigata in particular is very different from others I have encountered, even in the Secret of Mamo, the Willie Coyote to Lupin's Roadrunner usually treated as a joke character. Now he is liable to being a letch and even cruel despite still possessing an honour in his job as a law enforcer.
One character, who is only found in this story, is Zengata's lieutenant on the force Oscar, explicitly a young male officer who is attracted to Zenegata and, with a very elegant character design, does disguise himself a lot of times as women, even his name a reference to Riyoko Ikeda's The Rose of Versailles, a legendary shoujo manga series. His characterisation dances on a dangerous tight rope, but ultimately it is a tragedy that, immediately hating Fujiko (calling her a "spittoon" with all the gross connotations explicit) when she and Zenegata do have sex at one point. Oscar is a figure in love with someone who will not love him back, and embroiled into a sinister full series narrative about a cabal of owl men watching Fujiko from the sides, they will take advantage of this and lead to Oscar's downfall.
For the first half, this show follows the tradition of Lupin the Third as a series of globetrotting narratives, where (with made up names for some of the countries) you can go from tomb raiding in an Egyptian pyramid to a stand-in for Cuba and Che Guevara, involving an airplane hijack and tensions between the stand in for communist Russia and one for the United States. Notable details come to mind with the show already through these first episodes, the music already mentioned, Naruyoshi Kikuchi with anime director Shinichirō Watanabe as the music producer producing an eclectic soundtrack which can vary between jazz to full blown funk teleported from the seventies. The other most prominent detail is the show's most controversial aspect, the contribution of the third big voice of the show Takeshi Koike through his character designs and style. Koike, student of Yoshiaki Kawajiri and director of the sublime Redline (2009), is connected already in Sayo Yamamoto's history as she worked on Trava: Fist Planet (2001-2), his experiment set in the Redline world originally released as part of a Japanese "DVD magazine". He learnt from his master Kawajiri well, but the art style for The Woman Called Fujiko Mine is very idiosyncratic, with heavy use of dark lines, using the hatching technique and detail, murkier yet very stylish. Everyone still carries their usual appearance, but this probably has some of the most dynamic versions of these legendary characters as a result.
Especially Fujiko Mine. She is not central for parts of the series, and a lot of nudity does transpires, even one with her bound to a bed after being caught, but she is the future everyone, the cast and us, are obsessed over. It says so much how Mari Okada and Sayo Yamamoto wanted to pay tribute to this stereotypical femme fatale and amplify it, pulling off a subversive feminist streak here. She is a manipulator - she has morals occasionally, when it involves the Che Guevara stand-in or the children of a country's leader when she poses as their governess, but Fujiko thinks for herself usually only, for wealth and pretty (stolen) trinkets. She is an extreme of seductive femininity, based on what was clearly Monkey Punch wanting to draw the ultimate sexy woman who uses her allure always, but added with a spike to her personality here which is compelling and strong.
[Major Spoiler Warning]
The series starts to splice in, and been putting the pieces in already from the first episode, an over looking narrative that is "the story of Fujiko Mine". Then by the final episode, the series dismisses this as entire wrong pulls the rug out under the viewer. This series was still stuck with the issue that, with these characters existing for so long, unless they had the right to make a controversial alternative world version they could not include a drastic change to these characters. Instead, the production pulled off something more subversive, taking advantage of this flaw as a virtue in terms of gender politics. Namely that it targets the stereotype of the damaged but strong woman of fiction by suggesting Fujiko is such a figure, as ultra creepy and surreal memories plagued her eventually with the idea of her being a child who was tortured by owl men. Even the end credits plays a subversive game that, over highly eroticised still images of who we presume was Fujiko as a young teen, as we learn that this probably not her.
A trope which is problematic is that for a heroine to be created, a female character must have entered their adult hood or changed due to abuse. An extreme example, which is not used here, is which rape is part of a simplistic explanation for a female character becoming a powerful woman. We are given an extreme and even blasphemous change to Fujiko Mine near the end, to the point inside a theme park built around her she is distressed and no longer the powerful femme fatale as she is become vulnerable due to these memories...only for all of them and her back-story to be a lie. We will never know the true Fujiko Mine, and as she herself states, with a little help from Lupin, she is selfish figure who is remote from such vulnerability, only leading to this here due to a deeply weird of mind manipulating circumstances.
[Major Spoilers Finished]
The show still, in spite of the fact it has to still be part of the Lupin the Third canon, and thus cannot change anything drastic, manages a lot of brave risks. Taking so many that, when the main plot slowly bleeds in, The Woman Named Fujiko Mine gets weird. The entire production team, even the people responsible behind the eerie electronic noises signalling Fumiko's strange series of memories, are the MVP collectively, when a Lupin story gets into drug induced hallucinations of owl people and butterflies, to metaphors and pure hyper erotic content. In knowledge that director Sayo Yamamoto had full control, and her work outside of her own projects, it would not be a surprise if some of the more idiosyncratic details are entirely her own creative choices. Even when the show is subdued early on, you have an episode very early on set at an all girls' school, explicitly playing up to a yuri romance drama, with Fujiko pretending to be a teacher all her students are crushing on as she quotes Goethe in class, with a lot of Gothic aesthetic influences as a lot of the one-shot stories are set in a Europe of this world. When the show fully embraces the strange, you have a perversion of Disneyland attraction of cute Fujiko dolls singing how everyone loves her and topless women turned into her armed with knives; it is bizarre, even in a structurally conventional series, even in mind that the pink shirt era of Lupin, which I have not brought up from the eighties, was a deeply controversial era that included actually real magic and aliens.
This show, in hindsight, was a noble experiment which paid off. The interesting thing is that, in the aftermath, as Mari Okada even went on to direct an animated film herself, alongside still writing scripts, and Sayo Yamamoto has continued and created the success that was Yuri on Ice, Takeshi Koike's career through the 2010s was more Lupin III titles based on his work here, creating a trio of OVAs based within this same version. In terms of women having a higher position in the anime industry since this series, we have a long way to go, but this was a big moment that should be looked to more and be available, entirely because of the fact that it was such a noble, edgy gem.
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1) To the uninitiated, Lupin III was in continuity a descendant from Maurice Leblan's French pulp creation. That was an issue in the West for copyright reasons until they finally expired.
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