Every so often, a show comes along that makes you remember exactly why you love stories. Not just television series or animation, but the bigger, grander concept of storytelling in general, and how someone’s personal experience can inspire something greater and universal, without ever losing that individual spark.
Every part of Blue Eye Samurai clearly comes from a personal place for Green and Noizumi — and that passion speaks to just how brilliantly evocative and exciting it is. The show is much longer than typical animated television, but the sweeping scope of the story deserves that much attention. It’s not a show that takes time to gel. From the beginning, it hooked me in, and there wasn’t a second where I felt my attention waning throughout the eight episodes. Blue Eye Samurai reminded me that the best stories feel like they speak directly to you, even if they’re about places you’ve never been and experiences you’ve never had.
Has anyone checked it out yet? I think I’m finally building a critical mass of stuff I have to check out on Netflix, so I might have to subscribe again soon.
I saw the first two episodes and definitely want to watch the whole thing. It’s not quite as funky as Samurai Champloo (another stylistic samurai anime series where at least one bespectacled main character required revenge), but the animation is gorgeous, the characters are appealing, some of the jokes made me laugh out loud and some of the fight choreography made me go “oooh!”
I tore through this and highly, highly recommend it to all. Adults that is, this is one gory anime, entrails are a constant presence. The sex scenes are also very well done and never gratuitous - they’re there to show that women had their own way to exercise power, even though they were property.
I loved the time period, the characters all had arcs and progression, and of course the animation. Best thing I’ve seen since Arcane. The episode with the puppet show was both breathtaking and heartbreaking.
It hasn’t been confirmed for a season 2 yet, but it’s very much a complete story in and of itself, so don’t wait. Watch it!
It’s a great story and animation, but I just had to accept that like any historical fiction, it’s actually about our own current time, not the actual 17th century, in particular around the view of race relations and imperialism…
But episodes 5 and 6, in their own way, were both just amazing highlights, and it’s fun to finally hear Kenneth Branagh chewing the scenery in his own accent.
While I think the best individual episodes were at the beginning of the run, I loved how the different characters evolved. No one was just a stereotype, no one ended up where they began (unless they were quickly dispatched).
I don’t know if I’d call it a complete story. From the beginning we know that our Blue Eye hero wants to kill four targets, and she hasn’t killed them all by the end of the season finale, even though that finale was spectacular. I’d hate, say, only reading Jack Vance’s first few Demon Princes books or only watching Kill Bill Part One, and never seeing the end to the revenge stories. It is a cool season though! I wonder if Fowler’s magic word – “London” – might result in Mizu being present and probably responsible at another city’s Great Fire in a hypothetical Season 2. I hope to find out!
I finished watching BES this week. An amazing show from start to finish. Great story and stunning art.
I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have preferred it to end with the killing of Fowler and Mizu realising that there’s more to life than revenge, but we might get another season like this so I’ll take it.
Watched this and have to concur - this is great. Definitely one of the best shows I’ve watched in many years.
Having just come off Witcher S3, it’s hard not to contrast and compare - especially the artful way in which Blue Eye mixes past and present in most episodes. Where the Witcher S1 was just a mess, each flashback here fills in backstory, while enriching the present narrative. Every scene matters, every character matters; Green and Noizumi provide a masterclass in how this kind of storytelling should be done.
The only thing I found a little bit annoying was the lack of power scaling. One moment, Mizu has superhero-like powers; the next, they’re getting beat up by mooks. Characters will take debilitating injuries, then ignore them shortly after. There are some serious cases of plot armor. It doesn’t mar the story-telling, but it leeches the otherwise excellent fight scenes of some of their tension.
The ending was great. The only thing I didn’t like is that Taigen - as the only one of the four main characters - doesn’t get any form of closure. But this is clearly intended as a multi-season show - hopefully Netflix goes ahead and gives them the 2-3 additional seasons they need to complete the story.
They’ve done this thing a couple of times, where they get bitten up initially and then take the weights off their arms and legs and proceed to kick everyone’s ass.
I really liked this show, but it does cheat sometimes. I had noticed a few times where the samurai gets hurt badly and then a few scenes later they are fighting at full strength with the previous grievous wounds all but forgotten. Also, something that nearly every show is guilty of and something I wish writers would stop, but the wildly improbable luck or coincidence to help out the heros. For example, the rescue in the frozen river after assaulting the fortress.
Hope this doesn’t end up another 2-season unfinished show on Netflix. Wish they would have just gone ahead and given them the 2-3 seasons they need to complete their story or arc.
This was excellent. If I had to criticize, the best I could come up with is that Battle Without Honor or Humanity in episode one is a little on the nose as far as musical choices go, and the end of the season leaves a bit more unresolved than I’d like.
Nothing here I don’t give a pass to in John Wick or a dozen other action films I already love. You’re not wrong objectively, but it just sort of comes with the territory as far as I’m concerned.
One thing I really liked about (at least some of) the fights in the Daredevil TV series is that you could really feel the fighters getting tired and worn down as the fight went on. They nailed the physicality of those encounters.
Yes, this is where I’m at. The cheating where Mizu gets hurt in ways we’re no normal recovery is to be expected, yet she recovers quickly enough, happens many times during what’s a short series. I was sometimes left wondering if they were going to reveal the character had some mystical powers/immortality after all. But no, it was just (repeated) narrative laziness. And characters speaking English with no Japanese track felt very weird and cultural appropriationish in an icky way.
However, show’s craftsmanship is great, and some of the characters are interesting, but a lot of the plot and some characters are a hodgepodge of tropes and cliches, amazingly executed, but the end result feels somewhat empty emotionally.
Some episodes (thinking of the attack on the ice castle) feel like they do nothing but put in some cool images and tropes without really trying to do much with them but look cool.
Yet some other episodes (the Bunraku dolls one) are tight and even poignant. And on par with some of the best stuff I’ve seen this year.
The ending was a mess, imho, leaving many disparate open threads, separating the main groups of protagonists, and refusing to take a stance on Mizu’s journey, delaying yet again any significant, irrevocable character decision. Yes it lefts itself wide open for a second season, but I fear the story is now devoid of direction.
But I’ll watch the second season because damn, this was a cool show! A triumph of form.
Ah, man, I’m only a couple episodes into this, but I’m disappointed to learn there’s going to be more, as I assumed it was going to be a tight one-and-done thing. It does not seem like a story that wants to be stretched out over multiple seasons.
I initially also hoped for a single-season series, but having watched it, I don’t mind. It feels like a story that has a definite end in mind, and there is more than enough narrative potential in the character development of the 4 main characters that they can easily tell that story over 3 - maybe even 4 (as they themselves have suggested) - seasons. So I just hope they get the money to actually finish it (and keep up the quality).
To me, this is a consequence of the “cheating” (aka plot armor). If the wounds/mistakes of Mizu actually carried consequences beyond setting up some cool action set piece action sequence/scene, then they’d also carry more emotional weight. Episode 5 (the one with the dolls) - IMO - is as good as it is precisely because it tells a story of action → consequence, in addition to tying into the greater story they’re trying to tell about identity and the conflict between greatness and happiness.
But I disagree with you about the ending - to me it felt mostly logical, with interesting possibilities for most characters. Mizu is still broken, but has started down the path of self-acceptance. I expect she’ll travel to Europe, lose some of her self-loathing, before coming back to Japan for the (final?) season. Ringo has become apprentice to a better master. Princess Akemi has accepted her place in the world and decided to strive for greatness on those terms and there is lots of potential in her story wrt the power struggles in the Shogun’s court. The only character I feel got a bad deal was Taigen; he’s left with neither honor nor love, and no indication of what is next for him.
