What did you think of it? Imo, it was great and really subverted my expectations without feeling forced or clichéd.
One thing though, how come nobody realized that Mizu was female? Her voice should have been a dead giveaway
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trash.
>how come nobody realized that Mizu was female?
A country with enough passable femboys around, you'd get desensitized to effeminate men, too.
Who is her dad?
One of the other two white guys presumably
That Routley guy.
Narratively it makes the most sense, since the blue eyes are a recurring motif to the point they’re even in the title. And Fowler said she had eyes like Routley’s. Also it’d be best for building suspense if the guy that was most probably her father was the last one she encounters, so that already excludes Violet and Fowler.
I hated it, thanks for asking.
Japanese dude, it's the mother that's white.
Ooo, that’s a neat twist. Though I dunno why that wouldn’t be the very first thing Fowler would tell her, since presumably he should know, and it would be a really quick way to try to convince her not to kill him.
Hot entry level theory time. I'm with
Mizu's father was actually the the Itoh Shogun. There may have been four crime lord white men in the country after the Shogun imposed the isolation, but there was also a white woman (of mostly irrelevant moral stance)
Anyway the gist of how I'd see the story roll with it has Mizu's mother die in childbirth and either the Shogun or his wife (b***h condemned several very high ranked and proven loyal lords to die just because they SAW the Shogun die) order the evidence of his fraternization with the West killed. Then you get one of the would-be babykillers have a change of heart and pass Mizu on to the maid to hide
Mostly I feel the one of the four is Mizu's father explanation doesn't make sense to me because why would they care enough about a blue eyed bastard child when they officially don't even exist. I feel like for someone to be concerned enough to put money towards killing Mizu, they would have needed to have a public image that could be threatened
The twist wouldn't have that many future story ramifications beyond doubly reinforcing that Mizu dedicated her life to a wild goose chase (with possible silver lining that she was ending some evil people along the way)
At this point Mizu would kill Fowler just for being Fowler, and surely intends to as soon as she feels confident in pinning down the other two white guys. Pointing out that he ACTUALLY has no relevant info would just give her cause to end him sooner
My preferred theory is
for the simple straight forward reasons listed.
But, since this show seems to want to subvert expectations at times, I can see arguments for the other three men as well.
Maybe this Skeffington guy will have more going for him than I expect. Maybe we’ll meet one or both of his parents, and he’ll have a mom or dad with blue eyes and it’ll turn out Mizu takes after this grandparent, and the show will use this to make some kinda statement about heritage.
Or, maybe the three unseen dudes will all have bit roles, but Fowler will keep getting more and more development, forming some kinda bond or relationship dynamic with Mizu before being revealed as her father.
Or maybe right at the end we’ll finally get the flashback to what went down with Violet, we’ll find out he was the baby daddy the whole time, and there’ll be this dark irony that Mizu’s true mission was already completed before the story as we know it even began, but she went on ahead and still continued down the ruinous path of revenge just because she insisted on being thoroughly sure.
Or, of course,
makes a good case too. But I still prefer Routley. The white mother twist seems like it could potentially frick with statements I sorta think this show wants to make about colonialism in general. Although it does fit the feminism themes well.
Regarding the themes of the show, I am interested in how they'll deal with her homicidal racism when she sees dozens of different peoples everywhere in the harbors.
She is basically bound to run into issues when surrounded by blue-eyed white commoners who don't care for her eyes but find her skin tone and hair interesting.
She was born into ultra-xenophobic Japan, raised to hate herself. But Europe doesn't have much of an opinion on Japan, it seems.
So her social assumptions are bound to be turned on their head when she turns up somewhere where Japanese culture and laws count for nothing.
Like, she can't really hate everyone in England, the vast majority of whom barely know what Asia is, let alone plotting to subvert the Shogunate.
To not stick out like a sore thumb, she'll have to wear local clothes, emulate the hairstyle, likely learn the use of firearms.
Which makes her more of what she hates.
But it would also force a shift of perspective. It's not her white parent who did commit abuse against her. It was Japan's intolerance. In England her eyes won't scare anyone. They probably don't scare easily in general.
But now she is the Asian who came to England. No different from Chinese sailors or Malay traders.
Her revenge motivation is barely comprehensible in this context.
Maybe once she learns about the other side of her heritage she could become more interesting.
Yeah, but that revenge based on the premise of racist self-hatred would necessarily collapse if she is confronted with the ordinary humanity of white folks.
What then? There goes the entire driving element to the plot.
A part of me wants to see that but odds are the series would shit the bed pretty hard. Odds are Mizu will just incorporate British technics into her fighting style and gear before killing the other 3 crime lords.
The out there option would be Mizu becoming corrupted by the West in the eyes of her pears on top of getting into a fight with the current shogunate or whatever.
>Other 3
2. She killed the first one already.
Which lends to the idea that we might still get flashbacks to Japan
I forgot the one guy she killed already.
She’s definitely racist, but I think another part of her revenge quest is about her being kinda pissed that those guys (presumably) raped her mom.
I’m also pretty sure that the white guys are the ones who put out that bounty that, yknow, made Mizu a fugitive from birth and ruined her entire life.
>if she is confronted with the ordinary humanity of white folks.
She might not actually go to London (I hope not...Japan is a much more interesting and less used backdrop).
Also, people are going to see what they expect to see. There are racist dipshits who live among black people and despite seeing children playing the same games their kids play, folks going to work and trying to raise families and dealing with all the same things their family deals with, all they'll pay attention to are negative examples that they'll hold up as "how these people are".
If she makes it to London, it's possible all she'll choose to see are Japanese people being subjugated, drug use, pimps, flop houses, crooks, etc.
The twist is that it is her mother who is white and not her father. It will be a convoluted explanation, but that's the twist.
>It will be a convoluted explanation, but that's the twist.
Not really. They already explained that Mizu's "mother" was just a maide and not her biological mother.
>Mizu's actual mom
So the coinflip is between her being a Dindu Nuffin and a huge piece of shit that never cared.
Backgrounds were nice but the story was boring.
>boring
So is your life. Takes one to know one
I liked it
It's pretty kino.
Mizu’s white genes make her seem more masculine. For one thing, she’s taller than basically every woman she encounters.
But despite the height, people also seem to think she’s a lot younger than she probably really is, hence why so many people call her “boy.” And that’s probably them excusing the voice.
I think the biggest loser in this story is her Samurai husband. Turned down cute tomboy sword gf because she got too into a spar.
Dude was scared of how well she fought, and how playful and casual she was with a weapon. Mizu is unironically extremely dangerous, and how comfortable she is with a blade to the point that she can not only beat an experienced warrior but do so *without even taking it seriously* scared the piss out of him. In that moment, he knew for certain that she could kill him on the spot and he would be powerless to stop her.
That said, he was the one who asked her to show him what she could do. It's entirely his fault for assuming she was just a weak girl playing at swords, he's a dumbass for reacting the way he did instead of with shock tempered with praise.
If pic related had happened instead they could have been a power couple, Mizu would have been happy, and dude would have had some fearsome kids. Also she wouldn't have killed him later.
Even though Mikio was kind of a dick about it and could have been more understanding that what went down had a lot to do with Mizu being socially moronic- he was also just being honest with how he was understandably freaked out about his crazy wife holding a blade to his neck, and I can’t fault him for that. Not every guy can be Spike or Taigen and be into that dominatrix shit.
Really, I see the incident as a good example of why couples who frick around need to have good communication and a grasp on consent. If they’d had a safeword, and if Mikio hadn’t been to much of a macho tough guy to just use it and tap out before things went too far, then the thing coulda been avoided. You could see he was past his limit when the sheaths came off, but even then he bullheadedly keeps pushing just because he doesn’t want to seem like a pussy. But Mizu is also at fault for basically forcing a weird dangerous kink on someone who she might have been able to notice was getting disturbed by it.
Hapas need better role models
The animation looks terrible. Way too slow & rigid.
It was great to watch a real samurai show. Don't get me wrong Samurai Jack is great for normies, but it's overrated af. The fast food of the genre.
Looking forward to Season 2. The creators apparently want 3-4 seasons and a spin off show.
>The creators apparently want 3-4 seasons and a spin off show.
Shit, that means it won’t get a proper conclusion. I don’t see Netflix approving past the already confirmed season 2. I liked it, but I see barely any hype for it outside of Cinemaphile, and even here the threads seem to generally die quick. Also the future for Netflix and especially its original animation content just doesn’t look good.
Writers strike laws recently passed alter the way writers get paid, making it a lot harder for Netflix to make their buck on tax writeoff cancelling after 2 seasons. If it could keep making them money they’re incentivized to keep the show running. No certainty there but chances haven’t been better in years.
anyone who uses the term "overrated" in any capacity should be shot
>One thing though, how come nobody realized that Mizu was female?
The villain did and he did it in the most kino way possible.
>your bones break like a woman's
>you want his thumbs, bro?
I can’t tell if that whole interaction with executing Chiba and mentioning he knew some of their allies were trying to steal the arms shipment was meant to be a veiled threat against Shindo to keep him in line or whether he never realized he was conspiring against him
Anybody else think Abijah’s accent feels weird? I watched some episodes with a buddy, and we both agreed it wasn’t the sort of irish accent we’re accustomed to hearing. But we’re both american so maybe we’re just unworldly.
The big bad “white” guy is actually just irish. I love the irony.
There is a man in a basement in Ohio. He is kept under government guard in a secret facility, where he is studied for observation. He is the one white man alive, perhaps the one white man who has ever lived in all of human history. Everyone else who claims to be white is, in fact, disqualified for some extremely specific reason or another.
He is the genuine article, and everyone else who claims to be white is a deluded fake.
Oh so that’s where Mizu’s dad is hidden.
You may jest, but there is an intentional irony there that Abijah Fowler is racist, colonist and genocidal. When the real reason he is as fricked up as he is is because he is a victim of racism, colonism, and genocide. Because he is Irish.
He learned the lessons that made his oppressors strong enough to oppress him in the first place. Consider his line about how 'nobody invents new ways to kill people as good as the English'. He's *proud* of this, and he takes those weapons and goes elsewhere in the world where be can be the one holding the gun and not the one it is pointed at.
I love how they kick down the shogun’s door in like an hour and he’s just like “sucks to suck, git gud or die” and you understand how he took that to heart ever since he had to eat parts of his baby sister’s corpse to avoid staving to death as a child
Fed her his own blood to keep her alive long enough so the ground wouldn't be frozen when she died so he could bury her, THEN ate parts of her to stay alive.
Pretty god damned metal.
No, no
He fed her with his own blood to keep her alive as long as he could and THEN he didn’t sleep for three days guarding her body waiting for the ground to thaw
Too much Hollywood Asian dialogue for me- "women must be like tofu" crossed the line. And the cliche old sage masters with cryptic metaphor lessons.
The show is by and for weebs, isn't it?
Beautifully rendered. I wonder what they did differently from other 3d shows to make it look more like 2d animation.
I'd buy that it were intentional, if the writers hadn't had him identify himself as "British."
Are you kidding me? The main thing I'm looking forward to is to see how they depict 17th century England. It's the Japan samurai stuff that's way overdone. How is Stuart Period England overdone? How many shows, let alone animation, takes place in Stuart Period England?
Irish nationalism wasn't so much a thing at the time. Which is part of why the English walked all over them.
I think identifying as British is also a kind of coping mechanism for him.
He got out of the role of the oppressed and joined the winning team.
the British national identity was even less a thing at this point than an Irish national identity.
>Irish nationalism wasn't so much a thing at the time
Irish nationalism has existed since the 12th century, the Irish just couldn't get the English to frick off because they were too disorganized.
You mean the Irish were too busy fighting each other.
Not like the English were any better (War of the Roses, English Civil War) but they finished their 'civil war' arc before the Irish finished theirs.
This, japan is super overdone, I really want to see either the War of the 3 kingdoms or the Restoration.
There are a lot of movies and media about the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" time period. More Meji Restoration media please although the Sino-Japanese wars are gonna be...awkward.
not the romance of the three kingdoms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Three_Kingdoms
I meant the English civil war and the related conflicts on the British isles. There's only one movie that covers it that I know.
Then let me introduce you to "The Witchfinder General" movie.
There's "Cromwell" of course and the
BlackAdder Cavalier Years if you want a silly take.
"To Kill a King" I haven't personally watched but also in the mix.
Actually, isn't the primary creator half-japanese herself?
Mizu is basically her self-insert OC.
>if the writers hadn't had him identify himself as "British."
Fowler's definitely Irish because he describes his childhood during the Nine Years War. I guess the American writers somehow got Britain and Ireland confused.
Fowler could've experienced the war, seen how good the british can fight, and decided to abandon his countrymen to fight for them, showing his use along the way.
Fits his character.
Did you watch the show? You honestly think this wasn't on purpose? They didn't confuse Ireland and England, he joined England and fights on their behalf because he, like Mizu, is also a victim of colonization, but he protrays those who join their oppressors instead of those who fight them
Had the writers done their research they’d know that “british” didn’t exist as an identity in that time period
Hmm
Internet tells me that Kenneth Branagh is Irish by birth but spent most of his upbringing in England. That might explain it
Fowler was played by Kenneth Branagh?! No shit! I never would have called that.
Branagh is Northern Irish, which is distinctly different from the stereotypical lucky charms leprechaun accent found in Dublin and most media.
Will he be in season 2?
There’s no way that Mizu is gonna be in England for the whole next season. So, no.
I hope she's not in England for any amount of time, can't imagine where the frick that's going to go.
>I hope she's not in England for any amount of time
This. The setting of Edo era Japan is so fricking interesting and I want to see more of that. England from that time period is so fricking over-done and I have zero interest watching Mizu bop around London far away from her cohorts. I hope something happens that makes her turn the ship around and return to Japan.
Imagine if only the first season of this show is in Japan, and the rest of it is a globe-trotting adventure story where Mizu goes around the world looking for her targets, traveling across Europe, Mexico, China, Africa, America, etc.
I do want to see her in the americas.
Though I don’t see how you could do Mizu traveling around the world and also keep Akemi, Taigen, and Ringo in the story. Their arcs clearly aren’t finished yet. I suppose Taigen and Ringo could tag along with Mizu, but Akemi really seems like she’s sticking around in Japan for a while.
The language barrier would be weird to handle, for one. I don’t expect Mizu to master English on the boat ride over.
I can imagine forcing Fowler to play interpreter, only for wacky shenanigans and cultural barriers to occur.
>"Put that away, we're in the civilized world, no one needs a weapon in London, certainly not a blade... most of the time."
Yeah, in universe that works. But I don’t know how the show would handle it for presenting to the audience, at least in the original English cut. It’s a show which (I think) was originally made by and for an English speaking audience, with dubs for other languages available. We understand that the characters are in universe speaking Japanese even though we’re hearing English.
But dropping the canonically Japanese speaking main character into a setting full of English speakers provides a set of options. You can continue to present things from Mizu’s perspective, and have her and Fowler speak English for the audience’s benefit. But then you should convey that Mizu can’t understand the characters canonically speaking English. So what do you do there? Frick up their voices, or accents til they’re incomprehensible? Make them speak German? OR, you switch to Fowler’s perspective, and have Mizu and Fowler speaking Japanese with subtitles, and leave the Englishmen speaking English.
Would’ve been easier if the four white men just weren’t English speakers and Mizu was just going to France or something.
They should just not even acknowledge any language barrier and have every character speak English no matter where they're from. Not like this cared about realism before.
>They’d might as well do X major instance of anachronism/unrealism, since I personally am still so salty about Y minor instance of anachronism/unrealism!
You gotta stop making this post.
I'm not angry about anything. I'm fine with the show exaggerating stuff for the sake of story, which is why I suggested they do it a little more.
I can see some of this happening while she's in England
>In contrast to how the japanese rejected Mizu and treated her like she was a demon, the british are instead either going to fetishize her looks or treat her with a more condescending type of racism where they're polite and tolerant of her but still look down on her
>Mizu or Taigen get really drunk and enjoy themselves in a english tavern
>Samurai vs knight duel
I'd rather have it shown that advancements in gunpowder have been eroding away the knights prominence with the Cavalry being its last vestiges.
>Samurai vs knight duel
so... a beatdown?
knight would wreck most samurai with nothing but his metal glowes just by being near invincible
>knights
>in 1567
moron.
YOU are moronic, there were knights then
They still had dudes in armor in the 17th century if that's what you're asking
>Mizu vs Don Quixote
Yeah, I’d like that.
Too unspecific to answer.
If we mean Edo period vs. equivalent European soldier, could go either way.
The Cagayan battles are the best 'death match' examples you're gonna find.
I want that to be season 3.
She has to travel there, and get taught to speak english by Uncle Abijah first.
this is very directly on purpose.
Fowler was a little irish kid, who got fricking brutalized by England, who was then assimilated into England and British culture. He was forced to join his oppressors and that's why he's as broken and fricked up as he is. He's literally out here, trying to destroy/colonize a country, just like his own was, so he knows exactly how to do it.
I want him to have an arc to come to grips with this. I want him to realize that he's fighting on behalf the country who victimized him, who brutally killed his family, who starved his sister, who drove his people to cannibalism, and destroyed his life, and who abandoned him in Japan. He was betrayed and owes them less than nothing.
By the end of this I want him to fight England right alongside Mizu, and while he may never be redeemed for how much he's done to Japan and Mizu herself, maybe there can be some sort of messed up atonement.
>fowler sails back to britain just in time to see cromwell genocide his countrymen
It’ll probably change his perspective
Nice concept but I think Fowler no more joined the British than he did the Japanese. He's pure self interest
He's well aware that he's fallen into being a sadistic nihilistic power hungry schemer of a man and he doesn't care because the only thing he wants is to never be at the mercy of others again. He's never really stopped starving and has striven to fill the void of his innocence with money and power and the pain of others, but he doesn't feel betrayed. I'm not sure where you seem to have the idea that he was staying in Japan against his will. He doesn't hate his companions just like he didn't hate the Shogun and probably doesn't even particularly resent the English. He sees the world as dog eat dog and his goal is to make sure he's the one who eats, and he'll use any tactic, sell out any friend, to do so
he says several times he hates being in the country and he hates having to stay there.
And of course he resents the english, he has a whole speech about how he suffered because of them and never wants to be under their control again.... but he knows, and is likely very aware of how he's become the exact guy that hurt his family and killed his sister, so they still have a tight grip on him and that will probably eat him up inside.
I just am really interested in seeing how this all plays out for someone who is both a victim and an oppressor, to see if they address that
hammerscale is the impurities that get hammered out of a piece of hot metal.
He hated being locked away in Shindo's castle where he had to master arts he loathed just to stave off the boredom. He could have just left it altogether if he wished but he was playing the long game to take control of the country
I mean, that isn't really much of a choice, is it?
I dunno, I see it as such
His plan relied on his business partnership with the Shogun, which could only happen if the inconvenient fact of his existence was kept in the basement, which meant he choose to endure twenty years of cabin fever
If he wanted to just wash his hands of the whole country and have one of his smuggler contacts give him a boat ride home, I reckon he could have done so pretty easily
you really think he, an irishman, could just return to england whenever, and explain how his venture was a total failure to his overlords?
we're going to see him prostrate himself before them and explain his failure... or he's going to be terrified he's going to have to do that.
WHAT overlords?
Is there some crucial scene I missed where they explain he's directly backed by and beholden to someone else?
Because as it stands the impression I got from the show is he and the other three were free agents who made their fortunes by wriggling into the cracks of Edo Japan, just with Fowler having bigger plans than just making money
Why the hell wouldn't he leave if he wasn't being forced to stay there?
You're not wrong, he and his fellow colonizers probably are living it up as best they can, but like... they didn't make him irish for no reason.
You dense motherfricker how many times do I have to say it
He endured house arrest in Japan for a few decades because he was scheming that entire time to build up enough influence and power to topple the whole system and take control
Being Irish just gave him a backstory of being shat on and becoming motivated to become the one who shits
Maybe if it were a situation other than him leading his insane samurai maybe-probably-not-daughter to murder them
Given the circumstances I doubt he cares what they think of him
> take control
for who? he literally says in his speech at the end that he's doing it on behalf of the british
For HIMSELF
Think back to the scene where he "prays" and talks about how he's going to remake the country to his liking
And for the record, just rewatched the scene and he makes no mention of the British at all, much less working for them. Just his cruel glee at opening Japan to the ravages of the West in general
he doesn't mention the british because it's obvious who he's there on behalf of
he mentioned "us", "our faces", etc etc, who do you think he's talking about?
Just because he plans on inviting people LIKE himself to his new vision of Japan doesn't mean he's working under any foreign government or anything. He's a criminal arms dealer, and he specifically talks about the whole scheme being the idea of himself and his partners. He wants to rule Japan his way, not hand it over to someone else
> he mentioned "us", "our faces", etc etc, who do you think he's talking about?
In the context of the scene, he’s talking about white people and westerners in general. It’s never implied to specifically be British.
Fowler's still going to face humiliation when the other men find out his grand insurrection plan went kaput.
I'll be extremely disappointed if we don't get to see him.
>how come nobody realized that Mizu was female?
It's Japan
Taigen/Mizu endgame seems inevitable but where does that leave Akemi? Married to the political grind?
Yeah. She seems happy with it.
In my heart it’s Ringo. They have the same dream to become Great. But he’s so underutilized that I feel they’ll just want to go Girlboss with her instead.
Honestly is Taigen actually getting with Mizu? I doubt it.
Hardass Akemi is entertaining though and is actually how a lot of women in Asian cultures got the power they desired. You can see it's probably the same way the Shogun... well.. current Shogun's mother became the uber b***h she is.
Mizu is clearly hot for him and he got hard when the toppled while sparring
This is Li/Mulan all over again.
>One day the tension between Mizu and Taigen is too much and she starts making out with him
>Gay stuff was okay in Feudal Japan so Taigen just rolls with it
>Reaches down to give Mizu a friendly handy but feels nothing there
>pic related happens
this is one thing I wish they'd shown more of, if you're going to put lesbians in this show, we better get some gays as well
>if you're going to put lesbians in this show, we better get some gays as well
There was a split second scene in Madame Kaji's brothel where we saw two dudes making out.
Mizu looks so hot there
>the fricking bald spot
I don’t know why it’s so funny in this context
It wandered to the side of his head so it's always in frame.
>Polyshit
God I hate Reddit.
It's a joke from Parks and Recreation, anon.
I loved when he followed Mizu and found the cut tree and then touched his bald spot and went "yep, that's the one right there"
The swordautism is so off the chart. Like when Mizu noticed how the flower on Shindo's lapel was cut and instantly knew that it was done by a master swordsman.
Ridiculous shit, but I love it.
>Mizu
>clumsy
Other than that it’s perfect
>It's over
She's already married to the Shogun's son, and he turned out to be a nice guy. Maybe that'll be the twist, where Akemi becomes so ruthless her husband becomes miserable and wants to leave her.
>Poor guy doesn't speak because his mother probably beat him for his dishonorabur stutter
>Akemi turns into Lady Itoh 2.0
He'll need two tanto for this Seppuku
At least his brother seems okay
Akemi will treat him like her little caged bird, her little pet. I can't wait
Can't wait to see how the New Shogun is going to be, especially probably being influenced both by Lady Itoh and his brother (Who is being influenced by Akemi)
So will everyone in London know she's a Japanese mutt? Can she pass for white? How will they convey the language barrier
>Can she pass for white?
Probably.
At best we’re gonna get timeskip rigamarole and one episode of a flashback of her in europe.
How did Mizu get the other two pieces of the sword? She left them at the top of Fowler's castle, did Fowler throw them out? did i miss something?
I sure hope someone got fired for this blunder
obviously Ringo climbed up there after saving Mizu and Taigen, politely asked Fowler for the shards, and he graciously obliged. Then the two had a fine chat in which Fowler introduced him to the culinary world of dairy
Crossover with Yasuke anime when??
Fowler knew that Heiji Shindo betrayed him but swung his big dick by instilling fear using the Shogun's advisor as target practice right?
Shindo was incredibly innefective.
It’s weird. I liked Taigen weirdly enough. My only problem is that he didn’t have any true “cool” moments other than giving a holding back Mizu a better fight than others.
I dunno. It happened also with Ringo where he only had One genuinely good moment where he poisons the giant kanabo guy.
I get the issue with Taigen, with Ringo eh...
The point of his character is to show the perspective of someone who has utmost respect for Samurai because of what they represent: Greatness. This world view gets shattered the more he hangs with Mizu and Taigen. I do hope he stays with the sword master, I liked their little moments even if it was the sword father going "hmm" for most of it.
Yeah but I mean even when he’s doing plot relevant stuff. Not that he should murder people or become a master combatant. Hell, him poisoning the big guy was genuinely awesome and that didn’t involve him being a samurai or anything else.
True. I personally liked his first kill more. You can see his world starting to unravel in that moment.
Yeah my complaint is ultimately how underutilized he was by the end. He’s the earliest companion so he should have been a little more plot-character relevant
I
Could honestly do without him
That’s exactly my point. He’s undercooked which is why you’re fine without him. He peetered out by the second half imo.
He's the comedic relief. Towards the end he was less necessary because they wanted to suspend the sense of tension as things ramped up, but I think he provides a necessary service to the story. He's also a good foil since he talks about everything out loud and is also kind of dumb. It's helpful for the modern day mostly western audience to either have him explain things or have things explained to him that would otherwise not need to be said out loud to anyone who actually lived in that time and place.
I appreciate him a little better now.
With Taigen I genuinly just don’t enjoy useless rivals. Dude is genuinely talented as noted so I feel their aversions to have him shine a little more when they could have was more a detriment.
Thing with Ringo is that he almost stopped talking to Mizu over her not helping Akemi and going to Fowler’s castle
He should be pretty much done with her straight up ghosting everyone to run off halfway around the world with a psycho
Unless she’s gone long enough for him to circle back around from mad to zen again from sheer time
Getting mad about the Akemi thing is a bit understandable since as I recall she and Ringo worked more closely during the brothel fight, but Mizu had 0 reason to get involved with a runaway princess who was just trying to drug her, especially not after all the wounds from saving the brothel from a large gang and now Akemi demands she fight fresh soldiers so she doesn't have to go back to her life of luxury? Frick that.
I'm not arguing that point (even though Mizu could have taken apart three random chumps with zero effort even injured, she just didn't want to have to babysit Akemi going forward which would have inevitably been the case if she'd intervened against her father's men)
Yeah, Mizu was in the right there. I’m kinda disappointed it feels like the show itself acts like we’re not supposed to be on her side there. It feels like she gets punished for it when Ringo ditches her.
And if Ringo wanted Akemi saved, why the frick didn’t HE just jump up at the drop of a hat and murder her father’s guards? How is it okay to just dump that all on Mizu like she’s their personal servant?
Because Ringo regrets his kill, you can see how it shook him to his core.
As for the show implying it's bad to take Mizu's side, well, it's a contrast to the Onryo story how a person so consumed by hate and revenge once felt love. Mizu now no longer has any love to give.
It's funny 90% of the criticisms here can be debunked by researching history and watching the fricking show. When did the show make out Samurai were infallible super warriors? Most of them were dudes that didn't follow their code most of the time.
Hadn’t Ringo already poisoned that ogre and tossed him off a cliff to certain death before that point? I mean, I get why a shanking is a little more dramatic, but still.
One of them he doesn't see the consequences of his actions, the other is dead in his face.
Did he actually die? The first time I watched it I assumed he did, but on second watch I wondered if the giant they send after Mizu when she's storming Fowler's castle was the same guy.
Ringo had mentioned that one bite would make you sick, two would make you die. We only saw the guy take one sip from the pot, puke, and then Ringo kicked him off a ledge but we have no idea how far he went since he kind of disappears into the mist. It's entirely possible he only fell a short way.
No, big guy absolutely survived. He's the one who grabs Taigen and brings him to the castle
thank you. that's what I thought. He's the guy who grabs taigen and is also the one who squares up with Mizu when he releases all the prisoners/golem dudes and kills the lights.
>When did the show make out Samurai were infallible super warriors?
Ringo basically states that this is what he believes samurai are, and the reviewer seems to have mistaken what is supposed to clearly be Ringo’s manchild delusion, as outright canon fact.
I guess if you randomly decide the crippled special-needs peasant is the writer's stand-in, it makes sense to then assume that the obviously wrong shit he says is correct by definition.
All it takes is completely ignoring the text and subtext of the show.
>All it takes is completely ignoring the text and subtext of the show.
Right. That's my biggest beef with dude's horrible take. Like...he completely ignores all of the times the show goes out of it's way to dismantle that stereotype of 'honorable samurai'. I guess some people need shit spoon fed to them by an idiot even when that idiot is unreliable. In reality, Ringo's disgust over how things actually are should have highlighted that the film was NOT embracing those stereotypes, but weebs are gonna weeb I guess.
Taigen has a reason to be mad at Mizu because he has a vested interest in Akemi. Ringo is simple minded and thinks he was friends with Akemi just because they were temporarily allied in a fight.
I think that sense of loss the audience feels is really more a reflection of how Mizu feels having friends ditch her like that. Earlier in the show, she probably would have preferred that Taigen and Ringo left her alone, so the fact that it actually seems to have an affect on her is showing that she's becoming more than a revenge machine.
I'm guessing her arc is going to be that she'll continue to kick ass on her way to the top, but slowly regains her sense of humanity and compassion as she goes and in the end there will be some clever play on that idea that a sword is a line between life and death.
I don't like fake anime with the 3D style. Also why do westerners fetishes samurai shit. Why not do some knights or some shit.
For this particular one, it really doesn't fetishize Samurai nearly as much as any other western production, in fact, they make it abundantly clear they are just normal dudes.
That and this story wouldn't work in Europe anywhere near as well. The setting and time period really works for this story of an outsider by birth.
Alright, maybe I'll give it a watch. Thank you.
Because the Japanese made samurai movies and exported them to the west. Dumb question.
>Why not do some knights or some shit.
Because it's been done a million times? Why do you morons always pretend something that is super common isn't a thing at all now?
People always talk about the drama but the humour of this show can be alright sometimes too.
>The "Walrus" guy that Akemi wordplayed into orgasm being at the gift giving for the wedding.
What a bawd
I thought that was going to be a minor plot point with him telling people that Akemi was once a hooker.
if that dude said that he paid money to have sexual relations with or had carnal knowledge of the new wife of the son of the shogun, whether he was telling the truth or not, he'd be dead before he hit the fricking ground lmao
PEACHES
long on style, a couple of decent surprises, formulaic, meh
I want a version of “you’re an irredeemable monster” with either Ringo and Mizu, or pretty much anyone and Fowler
Let's ask the real questions here:
Would you Mizu or Akemi?
Mizu. I was so mad when her husband rejected her. What a gay. But maybe it's to be expected for a nip to not being able to handle white devil pussy
I want that Japanese Mulan pussy. Akemi loves herself more than anyone else.
Mizu for sure. It's hilarious how everyone reacts to her like she's hideous yet she's objectively extremely attractive, whether male or female
>objectively
>whether male or female
you must be some newtype homosexual, but to a normal straight man, she's not particularly attractive.
>Akemi
Spits in the face of everyone and everything in her presence, everything is just a temporary stepping stone on the way to whatever she feels like pursuing next, has zero self awareness or sympathy when she realizes other people are trapped in the same golden cage she is. Textbook brat.
Mizu is pure sex.
Mizu absolutely
Even thinking she was a guy, Taigen knew what was up
Tomboys that secretly just want love and dick are the best, objectively speaking.
>Tomboys that secretly just want love and dick are the best, objectively speaking.
That's the 4ch fantasy, but in reality most of those 'tomboys' will later realize they actually *are* interested in women and leave you seeking a therapist.
Now THAT is the Cinemaphile fantasy.
That’s dyke propaganda and I will not have it.
I want Mizu to spit in my mouth
I just want to cuddle her.
Same dog. She seems great to cuddle.
That's fair too
>beta nips see this and get scared instead of a hard on
So I think it’s pretty likely that season 2 will start after a timeskip
>Mizu is on an ocean voyage, which takes time
>Akemi needs to rebuild Edo and “heal” her oven roasted dad, which takes time
>Ringo and the Swordfather need to reconstruct a space sword, which takes time
But what is Taigen gonna go do? Is he gonna go train in the mountains, or is gonna wallow in self pity and catch fish for a while?
Also it’s slightly odd that Mizu set a deadline for her scheduled duel with Taigen for a bit under a year, when I don’t see her making it all the way to London and back in that time. Writing wise they could have just had her arbitrarily choose a later date for the appointment, since it’d be anticlimactic if she just blew it off. So I’m interested what it is they’re planning there.
>But what is Taigen gonna go do?
Hopefully more than chase Akemi around while acting as her assassin/guard/simp.
Maybe he falls in with Swordfather and Ringo. SF reveals he remembers all the different samurai school techniques via body sense and gives them a Mizu level crash course.
I love reverse hair Zuko. The bit with the window fricking killed me.
>The bit with the window fricking killed me.
There was never any respect but man, did she do him dirty there. She freed him from torture only to torture him more
Taigen probably followed Mizu and Abijah on the boat
>fire happens March 2cnd
>”first day of autumn” for japan lunar calendar is supposedly around August 8th
>so, 6 months
>google search how long a mid 17th century trip from Japan to England might take
>maybe about 10 months?
>then presumably 10 months’ return journey
Yeah, there’s no way she’s going to England AND getting back on time for her date. My money is on her not completing the whole trip and getting turned around at some point before returning. OR, and I hate this theory, but Fowler might be taking her to some random ass obscure tiny port somewhere that happens to be named New London.
Or the show could just cheat like it did with how it acted like guns were this new and foreign weapon to the japanese when in actuality they were already quite familiar with gunpowder and firearms by that point in real history.
Gunpowder yes. Guns, no.
The show doesn't skirt that issue. Mizu uses an explosive herself. Guns would still be a gamechanger.
I guess she does also mention in the first episode that Japanese firearms do exist, they’re just shittier than western ones
Ever heard of Oda Nobunaga ? But the show takes place in an alt history anyway. There is no Tokugawa shogunate and maybe the Sengoku Jidai went completely differently
I don’t expect or want the show to be 100% realistic or historically accurate, but cutting the length of the trip by, what? about three quarters? seems like too big of a cheat. They don’t need to get everything perfectly right, but they’ve also been generally trying a little harder than that.
>What did you think of it?
I think it's problematic, chud.
It’s odd that this person simultaneously mentions by name one of the genres that they are clearly paying tribute to, while also completely ignoring that tribute. This guy needs to get off reddit and touch grass.
Blue Eye Samurai is like Kill Bill, Lady Snowblood, John Wick, Old Boy, etc. It's a revenge arc. The characters in all of these types of flicks tend to perform feats that are realistically impossible and recover from mortal injuries pretty quickly. Realism is not the point. Harping on shit like this just shows ignorance of the genre. It's like watching a porno and wondering what sort of tradesman would throw away all their years of training and apprenticeship by whipping their dick out in front of a customer in hopes that their feelings would be reciprocated.
True, but I think the even more troubling thing he does is in his analysis is that thing where he didn’t enjoy a piece of fictional media, and instead of being honest with his feelings about that- “I think these genre tropes are silly and that’s why this show isn’t for me”- he instead just had to turn around and assign some sort of moral failing to it by calling it “fetishizing,” just so he can feel like a good person for not liking it.
I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but analysis like this pisses me off. They use language which has been used to rightly point out problematic issues in past media, but twist it to vilify something they didn't like. They're trying to leverage a sense of false moral outrage which is manipulative, especially when they outright admit that they don't know what they're talking about.
I agree with you. Dude should just say he didn't like it instead of trying to make it "problematic". In truth, they producer is japanese and has studied both martial arts and traditional geisha culture, and the team hired a bunch of historians to dig into everything from period accurate costuming, food, architecture, customs, etc. Blue Eye Samurai is not a perfect historical vignette (nor does it claim to be), but in the context of ancient cultures depicted in pop media, they did more due diligence than most productions.
>I'm no expert on Tokugawa-era history, but
He could just stop there
>Blue Eye Samurai does that American fetishization/exoticization thing where it defines samurai as excellent-and-honorable super warrior
Did he bother watching the show? They kind of go through the trouble to show that is not the case in a variety of situations. In most cases, some people act "honorably" while others do not. It's almost as if the point is that humans are complicated and do not adhere to stereotypes.
>he thinks Ringo of all people is supposed to be the author’s self insert spelling out the intended meaning of the show, instead of a flawed character in his own right who is supposed to be seen as naive and unironically a little moronic
How embarrassing
Sounds like the type of weeb who thinks they know everything about Japan despite having never been there for more than 3 days and likes to make sweeping generalizations about how Japanese women are better because they act a certain way or how certain chivalrous values are cherished and upheld there. All this based on the anime he watches and the 2 foreign exchange students who desperately tried to avoid him in high school.
Nah, the guy is a mod on r/graphicnovels and runs a shitty called Goodokbad. He only reads what is officially available and mostly shuns anything to actiony.
>Sounds like the type of weeb who thinks they know everything about Japan despite having never been there for more than 3 days and likes to make sweeping generalizations about how Japanese women are better because they act a certain way or how certain chivalrous values are cherished and upheld there
>Nah, the guy is a mod on r/graphicnovels and runs a shitty called Goodokbad.
Same same
>I'm no expert on Tokugawa-era history
stopped reading lmao
>fetishizing
It's literally co-created by a Japanese woman.
>It's literally co-created by a Japanese woman.
co created by a white man and a half japanese woman, but produced by a japanese woman.
lol this guy uses his real name on reddit
https://www.reddit.com/user/TheDaneOf5683/
It was filled with samurai cliche but that's not really a bad thing. Some episodes were good but it didn't have the episodes quality of something like a watanabe show. It was alright. The villains were fun. A 7/10 at best I woul say.
which is best? the OG episode or the Special Edition in black and white.
>"special edition" is just a black and white filter
bravo netflix
honestly laziness of that aside the colors in the show are pretty good in their own right
Want to know how this shit gets really dark? Blue eyes are a recessive gene. You basically wouldn't see a half-Japanese half-English child with blue eyes because you need both eye colored genes paired up to be blue in order to get blue eyes. Blue with basically anything else means you get the other eye color.
Could totally happen though if one of the English dudes fricked a half-breed daughter, so Mizu may be chasing a man who is both her father and grandfather.
I'm just going to assume that like de-emphasizing Japanese use of firearms and erasing the Dutch from existence, BES didn't put that much thought into alleles and just figured a blue eyed parent is good enough
The idea for Mizu came from creator Amber Noizumi when she became excited realizing her hapa baby had blue eyes. Granted, Amber herself is mixed so she likely carried the recessive blue eye gene from somewhere in her family, but for the bio nerds out there, they did kinda sorta explain how even the japanese side of Mizu could have carried the gene with the presence of the blue-eyed albino sex worker at Madame Kaji's (you see her a couple of times in the show).
Others have theorized that Mizu may have actually gotten her eyes from her mother which would be an interesting twist. She only seems to know what people have told her about her background, but the show is very careful not to show either her mother OR father at the beginning so it's anyone's guess as to who is what.
>the blue-eyed albino sex worker at Madame Kaji's
You mean the star of the upcoming spinoff: Eyes of Green Hooker Queen
>Eyes of Green Hooker Queen
I'll watch it based on title alone.
I'm kind of expecting that the albino is actually her mom or something (there are a few albinos in the show...some of them younger). When Mizu was at Madame Kaji, there was a weird moment where she and the albino sex worker kind of locked eyes for a moment. I figured that was going to end up being significant and come back around in the future.
I thought it was just Mizu being struck by her metaphorical alternate reality self, seeing that she very easily could have wound up stuck in a fetish themed brothel if only the events of her life went just slightly differently.
Good interpretation
>yfw the Japanese Metallica kicks in
Truly unexpected Kino.
>Survive a coup by essentially pure luck
>Know that at least one major noble family was conspiring against the Shogunate, and that there are probably others that weren't exposed
>Decide to murder several of your highest ranking and all but unquestionably proven loyal lords because "DURRR SHAME", only weakening your position further
Literally what the FRICK is Lady Itoh's problem?
Muh honor
Japs are morons, that's why one irishman manaaged to take over their capital
To be fair the irish are the strongest race in the world.
you kidding? They can be killed by being out in the sun for a few hours without a big floppy hat and spf 3000.
Did or did he not feel something here? Or is he just gay?
Of course he felt something. Mizu felt it poking her too
He likes violence and being topped. We saw this when Akemi fricked him.
Looking forward to seeing Mizu up against a fencing master in season 2. A real culture clash of a fight.
I already know she'll take 8 fatal stab wounds before winning dramatically at the last second.
Or maybe she'll take a small glancing stab and the British duelist will go "Ah ha! First blood! Good sir, the duel is mi-" before Mizu cuts his head off.
Like actually explore different concepts of honor.
It'll just be this:
Basically Mizu's screwed unless she finds a way to get around that reach.
>Mizu vs. friggin' Musketeers
What needle drop do we get for that?
I'd dig it IF the musketeers used firearms and we had a Milady arc.
m'lady
Hard to say.
Would depend fully on the way the scene is planned out, I guess.
Maybe "Out In The Fields" by Gary Moore rendered in flutes and drums?
>Gary Moore
Good goddamn taste, anon.
"Emerald" would have been a pretty good leitmotif for Fowler.
?si=oQu5wfY8c41XpY42
This
i was fricking done on the scene with bandits, MC is literally superhuman, with insane speed, strangth, duarbility and regenerarion, wrecking anything in her path and shrugging off any wound
Only one stronger is some white dude...
is this show trying to say that being white is a superpower?
but seriously tho, what's the poiont of giving your characters challenges they can't realistically face? it isn't cool. it's dumb
>MC is literally superhuman
That's a revenge film trope. In Kill Bill, Uma Thurman wills herself out of paralysis and proceeds to frick up a muscular dude's day, runs over fricking 80 people just cutting them down like nothing, punches her way out of a buried coffin (after being fricking shot with rock salt), and suffers any number of mortal wounds just to kill a famously deadly man by slapping a few of his pressure points.
Like...surviving deadly shit, healing quickly, and being impossibly skilled at killing armies of people with nothing but a stick or something is baked into the genre. John Wick, Taken, Lady Snowblood, Old Boy...these films are not supposed to be realistic. It's fantasy and it's fun to watch someone be unrealistically badass.
Mizu doesn’t heal though, she seems to be working with the pain at several points, like all of her wounds throughout the season gradually slow her down
She does seem to slow down, but not nearly enough to be 'realistic' as anon was annoyed about.
It's all part of the hollywood suspension of disbelief, though. We're used to seeing people get beer bottles broken over their heads in movies, but in reality if that shit actually happened the fight would be over. The person would likely be dead or at least injured enough to no longer be standing, but we see the people brush it off like it's an annoyance and return fire with a flying crane kick or something.
>being white is a superpower
Isn't that the plot of Sword of the Stranger?
As an Amphibia fan I liked it because I got to hear Brenda song moan during sex.
Does anyone think this show is actually going to last? I thought it was worth watching even if the story's kinda stupid but I'll never get invested in a netflix cartoon again given their track record.
Season 2 has already been confirmed. I’m just disappointed to learn they wanted to shoot for 4 seasons, so they’re probably not gonna quit while they’re ahead and wrap it up in the next one.
Season 2 was a forgone conclusion. Netflix orders batches of episodes and then spllts them up into "seasons". They get a nice little press bump by announcing that the show has been 'renewed' for another season, but in all likelihood Season 2 is either already done, or was well on its way by the time Season 1 aired.
I don't think so, the showrunners said they didn't plan ahead of season one and just ended it with the London hook because they thought it would make for a good cliffhager,
I love how part of Fowler's evil monologue to the Japanese lords is just saying he's going mindbreak them into liking milk, like dairy is so anathema to their culture that cheese is one of the greatest horrors he could inflict on them
>dairy is so anathema to their culture
Asian here...that's kinda true. My family and I still ingest dairy products but we really shouldn't. Lactose intolerance aside, can you imagine how fricking disgusting it would seem to hear about drinking the milk of another animal for the first time? (or letting that milk purposefully go bad and then eating it?) It's meant to feed their babies.
It would be kind of like hearing that a culture harvested the regurgitation that birds would normally vomit into their babie's mouths, let it ferment, and then eat bowls full of it as if it was a delicacy.
No more disgusting than making a sauce of spoiled fish you let rot in the sun.
right, also sounds disgusting if you're not used to it. I don't know if this was supposed to be a gotcha, but I think it just proves my point.
>GARVM•IN•CIBI•OMNI•QVID•TIBI•VIS•CHVD?
I tried to get my Asian gf to try blue cheese and she looked at me like I was a psycho. It became a long ongoing joke.
I went to Vietnam with an international student group and the Chinese were so squeamish around the food.
I ordered fried stinky tofu and they recoiled. I got summer rolls with some kinda purple dip sauce that rocked and they wouldn't go near it, just because it was made with fermented fish, judging by the smell.
Grilled rat and steamed chicken feet were fine by them, though.
Maybe growing up with cheese and fermented fish counts for more than general proximity when it comes to food with a smell.
>I ordered fried stinky tofu and they recoiled. I got summer rolls with some kinda purple dip sauce that rocked and they wouldn't go near it, just because it was made with fermented fish, judging by the smell.
I am Chinese and have spent a reasonable amount of time in China eating all kinds of food with all kinds of people. I think the students you were with were just weird?
yeah, there are carts that sell stinky tofu in China and they're popular like taco or halal trucks are in the US. Dunno what the students were about. Were they like super Westernized rich kids?
>Asian here...that's kinda true.
Depends on the Asian. Dairy is pretty common in central Asia + Mongolia and the Himalayas. It's only really East Asia that has trouble with milk.
oh shit, is Blue Eye Samurai set in the Himalayas?!
>a culture harvested the regurgitation of birds… and then eat bowls full of it as if it was a delicacy
You were pretty close. This is bird’s nest soup and it’s real.
Hated it, the main character was too self loathing
You WOULD eat all of Mizu’s cooking if she was your wife, right?
The more spice and vegies the better.
Mikio fricked up, can you imagine the type of sex Mizu would give after a rough sparring match?
Hopefully this will be a scene between her and Taigen that I won’t have to imagine.
The show hasn’t shied away from sex scenes and they seemed to be shipping them. There’s a real chance it may happen.
Let’s hope they don’t listen to the dykes online.
You done?
Did I hit a nerve?
Not at all. Just seemed like you were having a moment.
Really? I’m just stating my thoughts. Nothing out of the ordinary.
naw. She didn't even bother to taste it as she was dumping whole plates of spice in. Like...I get the joke is that she has no idea how to cook and I'd politely eat it if she at least tried to give a shit, but if she's not going to even attempt to make something that might taste good, then I'm not going to even attempt to pretend to want to eat it.
Forgetting to taste as you go along is a rookie mistake that I admit I’ve been guilty of.
Consider that she spent years of her life eating literal garbage
...and unless she's going to learn how to cook, eat all her meals out, or bring Ringo along with her forever, she'll continue to do so.
The real tragedy of this show is the story of two people with perfectly compatible kinks finding each other, and then not fricking.
I wish more people were talking about this show, It's great.
its shit
Can we appreciate George Takei’s character for a second? Dude had some standout sick lines.
>But Seki! If I marry a rich man through arranged marriage, how am I different from a prostitute??
>Well, there are some impoverished prostitutes right over there. Go ask them if it’s different.
Might have actually changed my perspective on some things.
Also
>I raised you to… I raised you.
Is just beautiful.
Seki is a really well written character and it's really clever how what Akemi ends up being like after her talks with the prostitutes is what Seki always knew she would be like if she did eventually marry the Shogun's son: Taking advantage of the situation and turning it in her favour.
Personally, that's kinda why I hate Akemi
They depict her choosing to stay and play the game of thrones as some deep and meaningful personal development but really she never seems to stop acting like a petulant brat
What was it she said? Something like I'm finally choosing to do what I want? b***h never did anything ELSE. Her entire story is being a nuisance to everyone around her as she stubbornly refuses to budge from her pursuit of whatever thing, so when she says she's going to do the thing Seki suggested she try in the like the second episode (while rebuffing Taigen in the process) I don't think "you go girl", I say "everyone comparing you to a thoughtless pig was completely right and Seki tried and died for nothing"
That said I chuckled about the pig metaphor since pigs are exceptionally good at RETVRN TO BOAR and the resulting feral hogs are a plague across many parts of the world
Akemi is the least interesting of the main cast.
she has some interesting...features. Which we fortunately get to see fully.
Can you really say that Akemi was making all her own decisions, when everything she was doing was really for Taigen all along?
Madame Kaji had it right when she said that Akemi was always “either running to or from men.”
Yeah
Additionally, can you really say she was doing it for Taigen? For me, looking back through the events after getting to the end, Taigen seems more like an excuse. Her real desire is autonomy (which in itself isn't a bad thing, especially in her time and circumstances) but it manifests itself as
points out, Akemi sorta just running, towards Taigen, away from Edo, without any real seeming goal except to just keep ahead of things trying to tie her down
That's why her season 1 ending rubs me the wrong way. Instead of being character growth, her decision to just STAY somewhere feels callous and opportunistic. She has Taigen there, ready to leave behind everything he was chasing that took him away from her, and she rebuffs him all but outright because now she has an avenue to pursue power and control, showing how shallow her feelings for Taigen actually were
Mizu dipping on the closest people she'd ever known as a father and a friend to go across the sea chasing the even more nebulous hunt for revenge seems to be an intended parallel of the two girls still allowing unhealthy obsessions to rule them, but while Mizu has been gradually having it driven home that living for single minded hatred is wrong, I'm not sure if the same will bear out for Akemi. They have Lady Itoh as another comparison for a woman who fully embraced cold, controlling political maneuvering, but I dunno if the showrunners will be willing to insinuate that a woman pursuing power might be a road that leads to trouble
Akemi is a willful brat, yes.
But she has been raised to be that.
Her father never treated her as an adult, as a participant in the political game.
She was to be a token and never trusted to even hear the reasoning.
To her it was safe that she was to be married off to some old fart and plop put kids.
She had no word in the selection of candidates, no way to get in the mindset of power.
So she couldn't appreciate Seki's efforts, she couldn't see that the Shogun's son was a very good choice.
All she could do was to use her favored child power and stave off the political marriages so she could exert control by making the one good guy she knows into an eligible husband.
That was her one plan. And she had to see for herself that the game wasn't over if she got married before she could fathom the gift she was given.
And she has been making contacts along the way, recruited loyal followers who would owe everything to her.
She was what her circumstances made her, but yeah. She hasn't shown that she learned much, yet. What with the city burning around her.
But she has started to take stock, make decisions and actually do something.
>it's really clever how what Akemi ends up being like after her talks with the prostitutes is what Seki always knew she would be
I don't know where the cleverness is. Seki basically told her, "Hey, this is the reality of the situation, but you can maneuver and play the game so play the game". And then she started to maneuver and play the game. Was it clever that he told her what to do and then she did it?
It's more they set this up earlier with Seki
pretty generic and by the numbers woke stuff
I miss when media was allowed to be more then just "strong wyman mary sue easily kills billions of guys" stuff over and over again
a show with a straight white male action hero who rescues weak female damsels would be the most unique thing I have seen in over a decade
Touch grass
They hate you because you said the truth.
cringe and bluepilled
Is it worth watching? Anyone have a MEGA?
Meh
Post yfw "He will kill you... With a sword."
This is also my reaction to hearing the first bars of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in ep 6.
I dunno. I thought it was fricking weird to phrase things like that when Taigen was getting tortured and I thought it was lame when he brought it back. I know it was supposed to be badass, but it didn't strike the right chord with me.
It was only cool thing Taigen ever did.
I haven't watched the show, but I read the premise. How does a half white half japanese have blue eyes? Isn't that genetically impossible? I thought you needed to have the genes for it from both of your parents.
It’s either leading up to the shocking reveal that the protag is actually 3/4 white instead of 1/2, or they’re not overthinking the science too much and are letting that inaccuracy slide, same way they’ll have characters get pummeled and shanked and then get up and continue to fight as though it’s just a scratch, because at the end of the day this is still a silly action cartoon.
Genetic defect on the maternal allele.
It's possible. Despite being the go-to example when they teach you the Punnet square in school, determination of eye colour is actually quite a lot more complicated.
I watched the trailer and when they couldn’t pronounce Kyoto right I never looked back.
Will Mizu run into jack the ripper?
Not unless she gets frozen for 200 years.
>Will Mizu run into jack the ripper?
>Not unless she gets frozen for 200 years.
...and tossed into an alternate timeline which is our own. I think they've fairly firmly established that the events and people in Blue Eye Samurai don't really exist. It would be jarring to suddenly pull in historical figures. Plus, I kinda hate when characters go somewhere and just fricking happen to bump into every historically important character from that time and place. This isn't fricking Bill and Ted.
well okay mr no fun allowed
>Mizu vs the three musketeers
>Mizu vs Don Quixote
>Mizu meets Pocahontas
I need more. It’s fine with me if we’re like 50 years off the mark, just don’t cross all the way over into a full century off.
Götz von Berlichingen, with his iron fist and dirty mouth.
>Mizu vs Nzinga Mbande
>Mizu meets Mary Toft
>Mizu fights in King Philip’s War
>My dear Mizu, the solution seems self evident. You have to give her the dick.
>I cherish your advise, Descartes-san. But that is the one thing I can not do.
René Descartes died seven years earlier in 1650.
The rules of the game were “don’t worry about it as long as you’re in the rough ballpark.”
as is the case with a lot of historical fiction. These things existed 100 years from each other? Frick it.
>Mizu fights in King Philip’s War
>mfw this date is actually feasible, and this development could even suit some of the themes of the show
So is this the first time Cinemaphile has liked an action female protag and not just because she’s sexy?
I think the show does A LOT to diffuse the knee-jerk reaction of the people that have recorded 5 hour rants on The Last Jedi.
Even Critical Drinker recommended it and that man hates pussy with a passion.
Like another anon in the thread said it’s a lot like kill bill and doesn’t have typical “girl boss” shit. The MC is actually interesting and compelling
Ye. She is a badass character who is a woman.
Not a woman who the story insists is a badass character while showing her just being a dick.
Mizu is actually a HUGE DICK for most of the show. But because you understand where she's coming from and what drives her, she's still engaging.
Of course, yeah. She's violent and abrasive, but the show doesn't act like that's okay and girlboss, actually.
She is interesting as a deeply traumatized and hateful person on a self-destructive revenge bender.
She is not like abusing power in petty ways and excused for it.
She's a badass character who is a woman and flawed. The biggest problem with tokenism is people want to simply parade their representation around, but they're not actually characters. I don't give a frick if someone is white/black/gay/trans/disabled/man/woman/non-binary/etc, but just give them an actual story and motivation and complexity of character.
Mizu is a great character because she's flawed and kinda damaged. As amazing as she is, she doesn't always do the right thing and that makes her worth watching to see how she grows.
>Kinda damaged
>Kinda
Also anybody got a webm of her seeing Mikio fricking dip while she's confronting the warriors and she starts crying?
They do a good job with Ringo too. He's got no fricking hands, but while they could have him constantly struggle with people making a big deal out of it only for him to overcome adversity and show that he can do everything blah blah blah, it honestly doesn't come up that often. His lack of hands is a very small part of his character and his simple-mindedness and constant chatter is much more defining.
That and when it is brought up it is to make a thematic point, like when talking with the sword maker
>I... want to be a samurai
>Hmmm...
>Usually people laugh when I say that.
>Is it funny?
>Well, I mean you need hands to be a samurai
>Just like I need eyes to be a sword maker?
Also they have him dishing out some casual racism early on when he offers to hold a parasol for Mizu because he heard white people die in sunlight or he says they're alike because they're both deformed
But it's shown as more his unfiltered naive nature and he grows to understand Mizu and the world better as they go
Definitely naivete, but as the foil, Ringo also helps the audience understand how unusual it is to be white in Japan in this specific settting. A fair amount of Netflix's audience is going to be Western White people. I think part of his casually racist comments were helping people get a feel for what it's like to be "othered" as well as setting the stage with ridiculous but commonly held beliefs that other people probably wouldn't say out loud. The underlying but not 'bash you over the head' message is that most racism is borne of ignorance.
plenty of anons hate it based on the fact that she's a woman and the main villains (for now) are white men, but I think most people are okay with it because it's actually done well. TLJ was a joyless cash grab with Disney fully admitting they started making a fricking trilogy with absolutely no god damned plan. Blue Eye Samurai actually has passion and creativity behind it and it shows. People respond to that.
Guys, I just finished episode 5 and Akemi is the worst character so far. Just a huge b***h who acts like her problems are bigger than anyone else's even though they all suffer much more. Does she get better later on?
uhhhhh
Kinda? She actually starts to embrace her shittiness and becomes much more manipulative. Maybe she'll become the japanese Empress Wu.
>created by husband and wife
that's really sweet I never knew that before
yeah, the idea for the show came about when they realized their partially Asian baby was going to have blue eyes.
>Genderbender Kazuhira Miller
I didnt enjoy the fist episode. Does it get any better?
>first
Yes but it’s not like the rest of the episodes are radically different. The story gets deeper and it’s fun watching the characters interact when you get to know them a bit better (and Mizu’s back story is constantly unfolding over the course of the season). I’d say it’s worth checking out episode 2 if it was interesting but you feel like you weren’t quite hooked yet, but if you really really hated episode 1 then perhaps the show isn’t for you.
The show is basicallly Kill Bill in ancient Japan.
I dunno, 2 episodes in and the writing is just all over the place. The flashbacks with the smith are well written, but so much of the modern stuff is handled so poorly, especially all the attempts at badass dialogue and humor (can't stand the handless comic relief).
There's so many standard cliches and they're handled poorly. For example, they even do the whole "wearing weights to lower their power" trope but execute it in the worst way possible. It's basically the first fight ever, we know exactly nothing about this character and what they're really capable of, so them taking the weights off loses all impact when it's the first big fight ever we see of them. Leave that kind of thing for a fight at least a couple episodes in. Not only would it be more of a surprise, but it would also make all the previous major fights seem more impressive retroactively.
If the animation wasn't so nice, I think i would have stopped watching this already. I'll give it a few more episodes, I guess.
Little did anon know the weights were a setup for later.
>It's weird I'm excited that my baby looks White
>I should write a character who hates the fact that she looks White
>it’s another animated flick with a self inserted hapa writer
It’s only missing tampons and pandas
I hope Taigen stops being such a jobber in season 2.
His ego can't take it.
Taigen is going to down the path of the househusband, anon.
Taigen is the best jobber I've ever seen, I love him so much.
I hope he wins exactly one climactic fight in the entire series and it makes all the difference.
Taigen being such a jobber was handled well enough for me to have never noticed he was a jobber
He fought and got his shit kicked in repeatedly but it was never so brutal or unnecessary to the plot that I didn't realize he wasn't winning meaningful fights until now
Nah, you could still have her going out of her way to find the two others solely because she has nothing else in her life in her eyes and she'd still want answers
They did drop the bombshell that her "Mom" was actually a maiden paid off to protect her so her real mom is probably still out there
Mom is dead. I'd be very berry surprised if she isn't
I don't think babby Mizu would be alone the way she was if her mother was alive and she (surely) knew the attitude towards the child was murderous
Where do I watch this show for free?
Fowler's Castle
Try this https://flixhq.to/watch-tv/watch-blue-eye-samurai-102328.10062751
I'm sure he was too broken inside to think of a child as anything but a burden or future threat to him/Shindo said he couldn't allow any of his bastards to survive to keep their partnership under wraps
But honestly I feel he missed out on the potential of having a whole mini-army of his kids that he could theoretically raise to be equal fighters and more loyal to him
Not 2000 rifles worth of kids lmao, but y'know, he had twenty or so years to set up a hapa special forces team
that wouldn't've happened. They definitely would have zero loyalty to him.
In Vietnam, Americans raped tons of the locals, and so their progeny were all treated as half-breeds and shunned by society. They absolutely hated their fathers for this, those who weren't killed when they were born.
they'dve sooner united against him to kill him, and he knew this.
I predict that Mizu will discover she has one or more
half siblings in england.
I for one am very happy that katana-wank and swordautism is back on the menu.
It's like I'm back in the early 10s.
Swordtism at its finest.
I wonder if that fat incel who chopped through water bottles with mall swords is still doing his thing on youtube?
Jidai Geki bros, we won.
Who ratted out our girl?
Mama or Mikio
I'm leaning mama. She managed to get Opium and if Mikio was the one to rat her out, he wouldn't be there to witness it in the first place.
I believe him. He lost his nerve and wasn’t willing to go against his daimyo’s men for her sake because of their falling out the other day, but I feel like if he was the betrayer directly he would have joined in on the attack to demonstrate his loyalty to the system over his wife
Who cares? Mama deserved it either way and Mikio running when he saw Mizu cornered makes him deserve it too.
Mizu will learn the dark truth yet.
Who was the one who got away unscathed in this whole affair?
Who had direct access to the shogun?
It was Kai all along!
her handmaiden did, and Mikio hung back to see how it'd turn out, if Mizu could defend herself or not. Since Mizu won he was happy to swoop in and be like "oh, I'm so glad you're safe!!", but Mizu is too fricking smart for that stupid bullshit.
He was also trying to sneak up on her and get a classic backstab kill
I'm almost certain he snitched, he showed up just conveniently when the bounty hunters did which implies he came to see how shit was gonna play out before dipping and him trying to sneak up behind her with the sword is a bigger indicator of that
The maiden was just trying to get her fix but she was a guilt tripping drug addict anyway
They better put Mizu in those baroque fits.
I need my girl looking dapper as shit.
FRILLY DRESS FRILLY DRESS
The frilly dress is for Taigen.
I can’t quite tell if you meant she wears the frilly dress around Taigen or if Taigen himself winds up in the dress
I am pleased with either outcome
I'll take some fanart of Taigen in drag, slowdancing with Mizu.
>white man and half white girl have superpower strength and can overpower most asian men
>asian man is impotent in bed
>main character is a hapa
>race mixing with white men a central theme
>women are le strong men are weak
>all the parents are bad people
I get the impression this show was written by an asian american woman
man is impotent in bed
The only time this was a thing was with the Walrus and that's because he's so fricking fat he couldn't get it up.
are le strong men are weak
Eh, not particularly. Seki, Heiji Shindo, Abijah Fowler and even Taigen can be strong dudes.
>>all the parents are bad people
Swordfather is a fricking good person, shut up.
The bald spot guy ejaculates in 15 seconds, all the parents command their daughters to behave but get proved wrong, this show just has mad asian woman energy
To be fair, I would jizz diamonds if Akemi was using my revenge scheme to the dude that dishonoured me as a metaphor.
I might attribute some of that to, like, brevity in consideration of the runtime? Lol.
>That “apology” when he mentions right hands around Shindo
Are we sure Abijah wasn’t from Australia?
What the hell was Heiji Shindo's plan, anyway? Dude went back and forth between helping Fowler and trying to kill him a bunch of times until the end, and then he just gets murdered in the last episode without us learning anything more about him. And what about the barrel plot, was that an extremely convoluted way to kill Mizu or Fowler? Or both?
Shindo (probably literally) was in bed with someone who he probably thought was about to lose his usefulness to the shogun. At that point, HIS safety would be in danger.
he wins either way:
If Mizu kills Fowler, he can take on everything he built and probably live comfortably in the Shogun's pocket for the forseeable future and Mizu will go frick off to run some backwoods shithole out of the way.
If Fowler kills Mizu, he can take credit for "giving her" to him as a gift and further solidify himself in Fowler's pocket.
Shindo was an insurrectionist, in trying to secure his usefulness, he actually made himself disposable. I suspect Fowler knew he was a snake from the beginning and was always 3 steps ahead of him.
also Fowler was probably railing him in the ass every other night and it was kindof getting tiresome
Just finished the first episode. Mizu is so fricking CUTE, bros
I wanna know what Violet's deal was. Fowler was obviously the firearms dealer, maybe Violet was the one bringing in the Opium. That leaves the last two being flesh traders, which makes sense.
They spell that out
You see a flashback to Mizu earlier where she's seeking the white man who imports opium (and gets shanked for her trouble, leading to the Mama/Mikio fiasco) and we know that by the start of the show she's killed Violet
Also Fowler directly tells her that the other two were human traffickers
genuine question:
I had no idea about this. Were people actually trafficked out of Japan as slaves?? when was that??
>Were people actually trafficked out of Japan as slaves?? when was that??
In the 16th century, but it was the Portuguese doing the enslaving.
What exactly does hammerscale mean?
Hope she sees some giant Scandinavians next season
Cant remember which episode it was but there was an intro that showed that she was saved as a baby from an assassination attempt. Do yall think one of the white men ultimately saved her life?
Nah they were Japanese I'm pretty sure
Their mannerisms seemed more like goons than potential fathers and at least one of them spoke of babby Mizu's appearance with the same disgust as the other Japanese in the show
>Found out certain Katana were made from cutting the blade of the Naginata from the hilt
Huh, that makes Mizu turning her katana into a naginata more interesting.
Subversions are a red flag at this point for me
> OP : it subverted my expectations
> anon: actually subversions are a red flags to me
????
>Wait a Minute, why is the animation so good, fluid and stylish?
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L O N D O N
O
N
D
O
N
>Bloody 'ell, ain't that the c**tin' blue peeper'd samaroy?!
i like it
I would lick the blood of her face if you know what I mean
I wanna lick her breasts tbh
She’ll cut off both your hands by the time you get off the binder.
If this show has taught us anything, it's that such a thing is no obstacle in the face of determination
All she needs is a hug and someone to tell her that it's not her fault.
Upon arriving in England:
>Ringo: Excuse me, are you British?
>Isaac Newton (or some other famous bong shitter): Wait, what'd you say?
>Ringo: Oh no. Oh no nonononono. Master does NOT talk to British people. The only pounds he needs is him pounding your mum.
Taigen has nothing to do now what he no longers wants to duel Mizu for le honour and marrying Akemi is off the table so what leads me to believe that he hid in Mizu's ship going to England
He needs a job and was already halfway to comic relief anyway.
A good way to keep Taigen from being a lame duck could be for the new shogun to find out that Fowler is alive somehow, and give Taigen the task of finding him. Or he could just gose looking for Mizu on his own.
Me thinks Akemi will become a villain. She will play Shogun boy in a Lady Mcbeth way, ruin his life and for some reason will be at odds with Mizu
you vill eet ze songbirds
Mizu could have had it all if she wasn't such a vengeance nerd.
Mizu deserves better than SHITkemi
Madame Kaji is entertaining, hopefully we see her more.
Might be hard with her being such an Akemi focused character.
The prostitutes fleeing the city might mean they’re not coming back.
They got OUT of the city but once word gets out that the Itohs and Akemi survived there's no real reason I can think of they wouldn't return to her service
I wouldn’t go back after finding out what happened to those lords. And if anybody would hear in the grape vine what went down there, it’d be the hookers.
Hell, lord murdering aside, I wouldn’t even want to go back after the massacre style assassination attempt.
Like just imagine spending most of your life as a prostitute, thinking that was already a pretty damn dangerous job. And then one day you get invited to go work in a literal palace, and you think all of your problems are solved and you can finally relax. Only to narrowly avoid getting ethnically cleansed the very next day and coming closer to dying a horrible death than you even needed to worry about before. Kaji and the gals have every right to decide they’re better off at a brothel.
Casting Ming-Na Wen in the role must have been a bit of a meta gag.
I hope Mizu meets another half-Japanese person who hates themselves for being Asian and is on a mission to kill the four Japanese men who were in Europe when Japan closed itself off to the world.
When Mizu got her foot skewered by a booby trap in Fowler's castle I thought she was going to cut it off and have to use a prosthetic for the rest of the show like Ringo.
i didn't watch it, i was turned off by its aggressive marketing campaign
maybe if i came across it organically i would have checked it out
I literally haven't seen a single advertisement
I wouldn't have known it existed at all if it weren't for 4chins
>Netflix
>marketing their animated shows
Excellent jest, friend.
There's two things I wanna see in season 2.
First and foremost is Mizu in a Victorian dress because she can't fake being a man around White people
Second is Fowler breaking out of his cell long before the ship gets to british waters and going along with her moronic revenge plan because it'll be funny.
It would be very in line with Fowler's fickle nature if he just went along with Mizu until some kind of opportunity to put him back in the saddle presented itself.
>Mizu in a Victorian dress because she can't fake being a man around White people
Restoration era, anon. So you're getting huge powdered wigs, high socks and frills and laces everywhere. If anything Mizu would have less trouble passing, if she chooses to do so.
>Victorian
Queen Victoria won’t be born for over a hundred years after these events.
The dress Mizu can be shoved into can be much frillier than a mere Victorian woman’s.
I thought the first 3/4s was pretty solid but then it started to go a bit off the rails a bit after the drug-fueled fight episode. The fact that it ended the season without even a partial resolution to any of the open plot arcs doesn't give me hope that there will be closure at the end of the series, but I hope I'm wrong.
>without even a partial resolution to any of the open plot arcs
Maybe it’s because I may have a different idea on the meaning of the term “arc,” but I felt like we got a lot of resolutions. Akemi spent most of the season trying to escape her arranged marriage, and resolved it by embracing her arranged marriage. Taigen spent the season trying to regain his honor, only to change his mind and reprioritize his goal in the end and decide he didn’t give a shit about honor or greatness. Mizu spent the season trying to find and catch up to Fowler, and she did that (even if he’s not dead yet).
I didn't find any of those to feel like resolutions. Akemi's is the closest, but even she seemed like she was just making another spur-of-the-moment personal decision like she always did.
Taigen spent most of the latter half of the season working with Mizu off and on, and even seemed to have already stopped trying to chase her multiple times before the finale, so it seemed like the finale didn't really give him anything to do or any future direction.
Mizu spent the entire season trying to kill Fowler, caught up and failed once, then caught up again and decided not to kill him and frick off to England. It just didn't feel like a satisfying resolution to me when we'd already been blueballed once and there's supposedly multiple more minibosses to go.
Like I said, maybe I'm wrong and this will all turn out to lead to satisfying season 2 shifts, but it just felt really limp and inconclusive to me, even for a season 1 climax. It could easily have been a middle episode.
>It could easily have been a middle episode.
Well, according to talk around here about Netflix’s policy of ordering single seasons and then breaking them into two parts that they can then market as two seasons, it kinda is. So if you consider this a reasonable mid season finale with a little hiatus in the middle, then they hit the mark well.
You know, that actually makes a lot of sense. I'd forgotten how often Netflix does that to shows, and the finale definitely works more as a mid-season pivot than the 'end of a book' for me.
Wait
>Akemi’s dad starts the season by considering marrying her off to some forgettable lord he offhandedly mentions
>Akemi coerces him into agreeing she can marry Taigen
>after Taigen is shamed, Seki (by his own admission) is the one who obtains a recommendation for Akemi to marry the Shogun’s second son
>jump forward to end of the season, Akemi’s dad reveals he was playing 5D chess all along, working for Fowler and using Akemi’s marriage as part of the plan (which Fowler has had in the works for years) to institute a coup
So, how does that work? Was Seki in on it? Was Akemi’s dad brought into Fowler’s plot mid season? Was he always working for Fowler and came across a very lucky coincidence that he turned into opportunity?
I would say that he was only doing that to temporarily bring her under his control then changing his mind when they were ready to go to Edo.
But if it was the plan all along, what is Seki’s role? Seki acts like it was his idea, and behaves as though it was something he introduced into the mix only after Taigen was out of the running. Did Akemi’s dad trick Seki into thinking he came up with it? Why? Or was Seki lying when he took the credit? Again, why?