Lupin the Third’s female reinvention was exactly what the franchise needed

polygon.com:

Sayo Yamamoto had no interest in directing another typical Lupin the Third story.

It was mid-to-late 2009 and she was a few months removed from Michiko and Hatchin, her debut as a series director. The magical girl project she was developing as her follow-up was unfortunately turned down. A director without a project, she was contacted by producer Yu Kiyozono, who offered her the chance to direct the first Lupin television series in over 25 years.

With little reason not to accept, especially once she was promised full creative control of both story and staff, Yamamoto set to work on how she could draft a version of Lupin that would make her interested in the iconic gentleman thief, and how to make her version stand out from the many existing series, movies, OVAs, and TV specials. The idea would not come quickly, but once it did, Yamamoto’s vision would begin a process that would purge everything audiences had come to expect from the decades-old franchise, and in just 13 episodes deliver its darkest, sexiest, and strongest installment in years.

Yamamoto’s Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, made to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first Lupin anime(and the manga’s 45th), was the first series to be led by a female director, a female writer, and to have a story focused on the series’ iconic femme fatale. While there had been stand-alone Fujiko-centric stories told through the years, her role in the franchise had mostly been as a wild card, an untrustworthy accomplice who would gladly assist Lupin in his grand schemes just so that she could make off with the loot, leaving her gentleman suitor with nothing but perhaps a blown kiss and some charming words of affection until their next adventure.

The series