LUPIN III: A WOMAN CALLED FUJIKO MINE (2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*

What determines any individual's identity? Is each person just the sum total of his experiences and influences, or is there something more, a tertium quid that transcends experience and influence? Most of us would like to think that we are more than the sum of our parts. But then, why do we so often feel as if we can only know people-- real or fictional-- if they are given an "origin story," a chronicle of who the character is and how he/she came to be?

Most anime-adaptations of Monkey Punch's famed "Lupin III" manga emphasize either daredevil adventure or raucous comedy, with only touches of drama or irony. The emphasis surely arose from the context of Lupin's genesis in seinen manga, aimed at the interests of young men. Most if not all manga-adventures concentrate on the wild criminal activities of a trio of super-thieves, Lupin and his uneasy allies, gunslinger Jigen and samurai Goemon. Yet their boys' club is occasionally invaded by the elusive enchantress Fujiko Mine, a super-thief in her own right. Sometimes she works with the Lupin gang, but she's just as likely to double-cross the guys and steal their loot away. Lupin, usually a canny thinker who can outmaneuver any other opponent, often gets rooked by Fujiko because he's besotted with her, and this often results in his having quarrels with his more practical-minded partners. 

As my knowledge of the manga is spotty I don't know whether or not there were ever any "origin stories" for how all four characters met one another. However, one of the aims of showrunner Sayo Yamamoto for this thirteen-episode TV show, A WOMAN NAMED FUJIKO MINE, was that of depicting how each of the Lupin gang-members separately encountered Fujiko before they even became a gang. Thus Yamamoto and his crew sought to invert the normal structure of a Lupin III adventure. This time Fujiko is in all of the episodes and the three men come and go as needed to tell her story. All three men, as well as their nemesis Inspector Zenigata, fall victim to the femme fatale's charms.

Prior to WOMAN, Fujiko seems to have had even less background than the Lupin gang. She's the epitome of feminine allure, as skilled with guns and karate as with the art of seduction, but she must have been a child before she was any sort of woman. What experiences, what influences, proved the crucible of Fujiko?

Though the final episode of the series undermines all apparent revelations, Yamamoto crafts an origin-story of which any heroine (or villainess) could be proud. In the first episode, Fujiko meets Lupin for the first time when both of them are trying to rip off a cult that uses a bizarre memory-drug to enslave its adherents. But the agents of the cult, led by the mysterious Count Almeida, insinuate themselves into Fujiko's life, and it seems as if the Count may have some quasi-paternal interest in her. The drug, which manifests as crystalline tear-shaped droplets, foments hallucinations in the minds of Fujiko and all the nascent Lupin gang-members, so that none of them entirely know what's real. The apparent revelations of Almeida, who wears a creepy owl-mask (as do some of his chief aides), suggest that Fujiko's good-but-weak real father, the creator of the hallucinogen, surrendered his own daughter to the tender mercies of "bad father" Almeida. But what does it mean, that all the owl-symbolism is glossed by the Roman myth of Minerva, goddess of wisdom? And how does the Freudian paradigm change when one learns that one of the "fathers" is really a "mother?"

Though some Lupin III stories are mythic, most of them don't attempt to be consciously poetic in their uses of imagery and elaborate verbal references. Poetic diction is rare in serial television shows, and it's easy to whip out some high-flown phrases that approximate the cadence of poetry. But psuedo-poetry never achieves the quality of mystery. And even though Fujiko doesn't really get an origin story, her mystery is enhanced just by her illusion of having a finite background. And so, even though we aren't getting either her experiences or her influences-- not even within the sphere of her narrative, given that as a fictional character she has neither in reality-- there's no doubt that Fujiko Mine's identity is comprised by the "third thing" that connotes true identity.