There have been a lot of debates about what is a drama and comedy, especially when it comes to the Emmy race. We have so many shows that are right in the middle that the length of show has literally become the arbiter. Yet in one other category, this has gotten even more confusing: Outstanding Animated Series. When you have shows like Arcane and Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal going up against The Simpsons and South Park, there couldn’t be a bigger difference in tone. This year the race is the same with shows like X-Men ’97 and Scavengers Reign up against Bob’s Burgers and (again) The Simpsons. These are such different kinds of shows that making a clear decision on the best in animation can be a complex issue. Not for me though. This year, Blue Eye Samurai should win.
Starting simple, the animation is beautiful. Using a 2D/3D-hybrid animation, they capture every facial expression and movement. These people feel real and yet they still have the freedom of what animation can bring them. The way people move in a battle is a hybrid of the realism of fighting that still lets us experience the action that could never happen in real life. There are the gorgeous settings of the mountains and woods to the deep details of the cities.
There are little details like the orange tinted glasses Mizu wears to cover her eye color, or the intricate design of Mizu’s sword handle, or the waves that appear embedded in her blade. It gives character to this world and makes it stand out.
Episode two, “An Unexpected Element,” is a wonderful showcase for the fighting and the landscape. Mizu is fighting four assassins on top of a mountain, the wind is blowing the characters’ hair, and the mask on the lead assassin moves as he talks. As Mizu drops down off the cliff onto a ledge with assassins jumping down following her, we see the beautiful cliff details and the way the blood is spilled as she kills some of them. We see the gorgeous fighting as they jump around the cliffs, culminating in an epic final duel on a beach with waves crashing around them. It is beautiful in its look and movement of characters, and horrifying in its violence.
The beauty of the animation design would be nothing without good characters and world building, and this show has both. Our villain, a white Irish smuggler, Abijah Fowler, has to live in hiding because he is a white man and at this time all non-Japanese have been banished from Japan. Even though he is making the ruling class wealthy, they look down on him and make him stay in one building. Now he is brutal and heartless to everyone around him, even his allies, and yet you still see why he is bitter and see how in some ways he may even be right. Then you want Mizu to kill him.
One of the most explored aspects of this society is how women are viewed. We see offhand young girls sold to whorehouses due to lack of money or the inability to marry them off. It is never in your face, but as we see the men relax with these women or Mizu passing through a town, the lot of women is made very clear. This is even true of the upper class when we see that Akemi, who has a wealthy and powerful father, is treated no better than the whores that we see throughout this world. She is to be married off to her husband, that is it. She is better dressed and lives in a better house, but she is not a person to most. Then we have Taigen, a brave warrior, who due to his skill has moved up in the world and even has a shot of marrying above his rank. But one defeat and the upper crust toss him aside. The structure of society is monstrously unfair for everyone but the very top, and what is clever is the show never tells us this, we learn just by seeing our characters living it.
Mizu, though, has this even more than any other character and it is what makes her so fascinating. Her very birth as a woman, and with foreign eye color, makes her immediately disrespected at best and hated at most. Yet her birth is sadly the least of her issues.
She is also not some noble warrior, she wants revenge plain and simple, and while we sympathize with her goal, the fact that she is willing to abandon and hurt people who care about her and that she makes morally questionable choices to reach her goal gives her a lot more complexity. Episode 5, The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride, gives us more of her backstory that shows that there is a lot more going on with Mizu than first is known. Her lack of trust has deeper layers to it.
What is interesting is that for me this episode felt out of place at first. Combining it with the fight she is having in the present took away from the deep details of why she was seeking revenge. But the more I have thought about the show the more I appreciate it. It takes the simple idea of revenge on a person who killed my mother to I want revenge for a discarding of all of society. If she helps others it is because she has developed some sort of relationship, but even then it is not a guarantee that she will do so, or it aids in her quest. But what she will do in what moments is completely unknown and opens up a lot more possibilities.
What also makes her fun is how cool of a fighter she is. She takes on impossible odds and she adapts in battles. We get background into how she has become this way, and it helps us believe that she could be this good. Yet, most importantly, we see her fail, such as in the mountain battle I mentioned above. She falls, she gets hurt, and when a new foe appears, collapses. She would have died if this opponent did not have honor. As good as she is she is not invincible, she can die, be hurt, and needs time to recover. That makes her infinitely more interesting to watch in a fight where we see her struggle and can never quite know how she will prevail. In fact we know she can lose.
The journey Blue Eye Samurai took me on was something familiar in its tropes but wonderfully new in its execution. It has a clear view of the world it is living in and how the characters are responding to it. It has a beautiful animation even of terrible things. It is surprising, has layers to its characters’ motivations and action that is exciting to watch. I hope it wins the Emmy.
Blue Eye Samurai is streaming now on Netflix.
