Yukiko Nikaido, the First Voice of Fujiko Mine, Dies at 87

Voice actress Yukiko Nikaido has died at the age of 87. On the 1971 *Lupin the 3rd* television series, the first anime adaptation of Monkey Punch's manga, she was the actress who gave Fujiko Mine her voice.

We're going to keep this restrained. A career retrospective would mean writing things we cannot source, so we won't. What has been reported is this: she was a voice actress, she has died, she was 87, and Fujiko on television started with her. Anime News Network carries the news.

Why that role carries weight

Fujiko is one of the harder parts in the Lupin ensemble to get right. She isn't a sidekick and she isn't a love interest in any ordinary sense. She is a thief who is usually a step ahead of Lupin himself, and the performance has to carry charm and calculation inside the same line reading. Every actress who has taken the part since, across five decades of series, films and specials, has been working within a shape that was first defined in 1971. That is a substantial thing to have left behind.

An honest note before you press play

All 23 episodes of the original 1971 *Lupin the 3rd* are free and official on AnimeSphere, uploaded by TMS Entertainment's own **Anime! on TMS** YouTube channel. It's the legitimate release, and it's viewable in the US.

**You will almost certainly not hear Nikaido, though.** Twenty-two of those 23 uploads are the English dub; only episode 1 is untagged in our records. If you were coming to these episodes hoping to hear her original Japanese performance as Fujiko, that isn't the audio waiting for you. We would rather say so now than have you click through expecting a memorial listen and find something else.

The series remains worth watching on its own merits. It's the scrappier, more hard-boiled Lupin, before the character settled into the lighter register most viewers know him in, and the later stretch of the run is where Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata came aboard as directors. Just go in knowing which track you'll get.

What we can't offer

*The Castle of Cagliostro*, *Lupin the 3rd: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine* and *Lupin the 3rd Part IV* are all in our catalogue as entries, but none of them have any free episodes on AnimeSphere. If you want more Fujiko after the 1971 run, you'll have to find those elsewhere. We'd rather point you off-site than imply otherwise.

*Source: Anime News Network.*