Mine Fujiko is a thief. And Lupin is trying to steal her.
There’s nothing in particular I *dislike* about this show. It’s very well made. The animation is particularly superb. It has some good characters too, particularly Mine Fujiko herself. And the slapstick comedy and thievery is amusing as well.
With that said, I just wasn’t drawn into this show for some reason. It took me six months to finish, not due to any extenuating circumstances, but simply due to lack of motivation. I just didn’t really care.
I often have that problem with episodic series. When each episode is self contained, I don’t feel any sort of hook drawing me into the next episode. Comedies are not a problem, since I like to laugh. But in non-comedic, self-contained episodes, I just don’t feel much motivation to go and watch the next episode. I had the same problem with shows like Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Mushishi that everyone else loved. I just have no interest.
Towards the end, things did turn into an overarching story. But it was just completely absurd. Brainwashing, cloning, drugs that make people turn into owls… was this really necessary? To top it off, it ended by making you feel sorry for the villain, then having Fujiko draw out her death, emotionally torture her, and fondle her corpse. Um… ok.
- Storytelling – C – Individual stories could be good, but in general, the show’s weakest component.
- Voice – A – Very distinctive style.
- Characters – B – Pretty interesting characters, especially Fujiko and the police. The other lead men were weaker though.
- Attention Grab – C – Took me six months to watch, although individual episodes kept my attention.
- Production – A – Extremely stylish.
- Overall – C+
Recommendations – Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo
Awesome visuals (and soundtrack) can make up for almost any flaws in a series for me, so I would certainly rate this much higher. It was my favourite in spring season 2012.
Generally I have the same thing with episodic stories as you mention but in Lupin’s case I just became hooked by the style and by Mine Fujiko’s voice. I particularly loved the girls school episode (6). After this ep. I was hoping every week to have another one like that. Alas, it turned out that ep. 6 was the series’ climax for me as the overarching story was indeed ridiculous.
Episodic series can be awesome, I think, if the setting is so rich that each episode brings something new and interesting. This worked for me in particular with Mushishi and mostly also with Jingoku Shoujo and with xxxHolic. On the other hand, I found e.g. Natsume super boring for the most part as the plot seemed to be always the same to me.
Huh, I kind of had the opposite experience, I liked Natsume (although not enough to watch the second and third season) but found Mushishi boring. Did sort of like xxxHolic, although my mileage varied based on the episode.
Some of the episodes were pretty good— I liked the school one, I think my favorite was the one in Cuba.
Perhaps Natsume season one was good, I only watched two and three.
Ah, I guess we somehow watched the opposite seasons. I’m less motivated to finish the rest then… although I’ve already been putting it off well enough without any help