Spring 2012 has been a remarkably interesting anime season, in that multiple shows are doing unique things (yes, the bar for “remarkably interesting” when it comes to anime gets lower every year.) One of those shows is Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. It had buzz long before it ever aired. Here are the reasons:

1. It’s directed by Sayo Yamamoto (female anime directors are extremely rare), who previously directed Michiko to Hatchin.
2. Takeshi Koike (of REDLINE fame) did the character designs on it.
3. It looks amazing, incorporating that chalky line quality exemplified in 60s and 70s anime to great effect.
4. A female supporting character, Fujiko Mine, is actually the main focus of the show, not Lupin himself.
5. And…

We’re only three episodes in, but there’s a lot of frank Fujiko nudity and sexuality in this show. Frank nudity and sexuality occurs all the time in anime, especially in garbage shows I avoid because their facile titillation is so remarkably dumb/creepy/pedophilic it would kill whatever non-existent boner I’d theoretically be watching the anime for.

Fujiko Mine does it differently. The show is still trying to give me a boner (a task which, hotblooded male I may be, it fails at every week), but the quality of its eroticism is different. It’s more womanly and less childlike (read: less creepy). It approaches something you’d even dare to call eroticism in the first place.

The opening calls attention to the manner in which the creators of the show are setting out to do this: deliberately, up-front, and without detracting from the complexity of Fujiko Mine herself. The opening is also kind of brilliant, articulating the submissive/dominant parts of every person’s psyche that inevitably conflict as sexuality becomes one of the dominant forces in our lives.

However, I think the creators of this show are failing. Admirably, but still failing. Every time Fujiko expresses her sexuality to some end, the result is most often either abject failure or success despite herself. Yes, she is confident. Yes, she is brazen. But it seems mostly unwarranted and kind of humiliating. Like a broken superpower she’s too dumb to notice no longer works.

Honestly, the opening lyrics (surely intended to be Fujiko’s own inner monologue) are by far the most interesting thing about the entire show. We don’t really get any glimpse of who Fujiko might be outside of it. Three episodes in, and she would be entirely cardboard if it wasn’t for that opening. At the same time, the show is too smart for me to throw my hands in the air and write off its absurdities as par for the course.

So the profound inclusion of ecchi is the fifth interesting wheel on this anime. And I think there’s more room for it to be discussed. But not by me, because I find Fujiko Mine’s inclusion of nudity to be cloyingly deliberate and ineffective. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but it does seem to cheapen a stylish product. And however uncool it makes me to point that out, I’m perfectly fine with it, because these are my reasoned reactions to watching the show with my full attention, an activity I plan to continue for all thirteen episodes, because it’s otherwise just that goddamned interesting. Call it a compromise between my dominant and submissive responses to less-than-perfect entertainment, if you will.

Welcome to Blog of the North Star’s Spring 2012 Preview Guide! By now you know the drill:  I will cover as many shows as I can handle, resulting in half-assed takes on most every show (sometimes on more than one episode!). Check back a couple of times every day during the guide and you’re likely to see something new!

Please remember that this is a preview guide. It is designed to give you a taste of the first episode (or the first few episodes) of a show with a preliminary opinion and a few thoughts on whether or not the show has potential, because watching a show for twenty minutes and deciding for yourself would be ridiculous! These are not intended to be blanket judgments of these series as a whole. All reviews use the same ratings scale: 1-5, with 1 being the lowest. Because 1 is actually the lowest number in that set of numbers it makes perfect sense. You may wonder why I have to explain that, but I do. It’s important. Trust me.

Space Brothers
Rating: 2.32523461436 (of 5.0000000000)
Review:

So this anime is Planetes meets Gurren Lagann. On heroin. With a side of cheese. You’ve seen it before, so instead of a review, here is an arbitrary list of tropes I’ve culled from tvtropes.org: badass blink-meat puppet-interactive narrator-shoot the dog-alien sky.

Time will tell if this show ends up being good. Time, but not this preview guide, because I’m only doing one more episode review of this series tops. Seriously, I have more important shit to do. Like watch the first episode to crappy anime I know I won’t like, and write hilarious previews blasting them. It will be really funny.