One of the first anime series I started watching as an early fan was Lupin III, the now-legendary story of a gentleman thief named Arsène Lupin III, the grandson of the famous thief from a series of French novels, who, with his sidekicks samurai Goemon and gun-wielding Jigen, stage dramatic heists all over the world. They’re usually joined by the sexy and enigmatic Fujiko Mine, who betrays Lupin as often as she has her life saved by him. Today I’m going to write about the allure of Fujiko from Lupin III.
Back before I started J-List, I was an English teacher, and would get off work at 5 pm, head home, and watch whatever was on in the 6 pm timeslot. Often reruns of classic anime would be broadcast, and when TBS started showing Lupin III from the very beginning, I was thrilled. The early seasons of the series, made by Lupin creator Monkey Punch, have a rougher feel to them including a lot more adult themes and nudity. I remember one episode where Lupin and Fujiko were pinned down by enemy gunfire, and each promised to kill the other rather than let either be taken alive to be tortured. Later incarnations of Lupin, especially the fabulous Castle of Cagliostro film by Hayao Miyazaki, take the sexual and violent edge off a bit for general consumption.
Some facts about Fujiko Mine…
- If she has the feel of a Bond Girl, it’s because she basically is. She was based on several different female characters from the James Bond films, but mostly on Diana Rigg, my favorite Bond Girl, who also starred in the 60s Avengers and as the Queen of Thorns on Game of Thrones.
(We’ve got an updated post about the passing of Diana Rigg here.)
- In Monkey Punch’s original manga, Fujiko started out as several unrelated female characters before eventually being merged into the current one.
- Fujiko appears across dozens of series and films. One of the most interesting was an experimental series made for late-night TV, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine from 2012, which focused on Fujiko and her past rather than on Lupin.
- Fujiko’s signature weapon is a Browning M1910, naturally holstered in her garter.
- When Monkey Punch went to think of a name for his new character, he happened to notice an illustration of Mt. Fuji called 霊峰不二 Reiho Fuji (Fuji, the Sacred Mountain), part of a series of modern ukiyo-e paintings by Taikan Yokoyama that shows the top of Mt. Fuji poking through clouds. This became the basis for Fujiko Mine’s name.
- Fujiko’s “three sizes” are 99-55-88 cm/39-22-35 in, and she weighs 50 kg/110 lbs, which is probably a violation of physics, but whatever.
- Some characters in Lupin III are based on historical characters who might be difficult for foreigners to pick up on. Goemon is the thirteenth descendant of the original Goemon Ishikawa, a semi-legendary outlaw famous for robbing from the rich to give to the poor, who was boiled alive after a failed attempt at assassinating Japan’s 2nd national unifier, Hideyoshi, in 1594. (There’s a kind of deep bath called a Goemon Bath in Japan to this day.) Inspector Zenigata is a parody of a half-mythical samurai policeman named Zenigata Heiji from the edo period, famous for throwing rolls of coins (zeni) at criminals to disable them, the way Zenigata throws his handcuffs out as he runs. The physical design of Inspector Zenigata was taken from Dick Tracy.
Read my blog post on the sad death of Fujiko inspiration Diana Rigg here.
Are you a fan of Fujiko from Lupin III? Is there some other badass anime woman you like better? Let us know on Twitter!
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