Thursday 12 April 2012

Lupin III: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna - Episode 2

Having introduced us to its titular pair of characters and set up the rivalry between Lupin and Fujiko quite nicely, the former goes missing entirely for this second instalment of Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna - not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as it turns out.

This week's episode beings in a particularly high stakes game of roulette, with a female casino owner betting her entire establishment in return for Fujiko quite literally betting her life away.  No matter whatt tricks you try to pull, you're never going to get one over on a casino owner, and so Mine finds herself under the ownership of Cicciolina - a ownership which soon turns into a job for our expert thief and seductress as she's tasked with stealing the gun of a particular bodyguard.


Although Daisuke Jigen, the man in question, doesn't exactly hold the weakness towards the fairer sex that Cicciolina suggests he does (far from it in fact), that doesn't stop Fujiko from trying to get one up on him to steal that all-important gun.  As she manages to push herself closer to her quarry, so we finally begin to learn the real story behind Jigen's actions both past and present, as well as the importance of the gun he carries everywhere with him.  In the twists and turns that follow, Fujiko completes her task, but the wreckage of human life left behind proves that her lot is not an easy one.

If the first episode of Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna entertained me, then this week's instalment of the series practically blew me away.  In isolation, no single thing that it does is incredibly noteworthy, whether it's in terms of plot, characters or the progression of the story, but add these various facets together and package them up in this show's ever-striking, eye-catching animation and somehow it becomes more than a sum of its parts.  Perhaps more precisely, the tone of this standalone episode is perfectly judged and applied from beginning to end, fitting perfectly with its aesthetic and story to create a small, simple but nonetheless noteworthy little masterpiece.  If the series can continue in this vein, then it could prove to be something very special indeed.

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