REVIEW -- Blue Eye Samurai (Netflix Exclusive Series; Season One, Episodes 1-8)

Blue Eye Samurai is an adult animated action television series created and written for Netflix by wife-and-husband team Amber Noizumi and Michael Green, with supervising director and series producer Jane Wu. It was co-produced and animated by French studio Blue Spirit. The first episode of Blue Eye Samurai was released on November 1, 2023, followed by the entire series on November 3. The series was renewed for a second season on December 11, 2023. 

Episode Summaries 

*** SPOILER WARNING ***

Episode 1: "Hammerscale"

In a soba (noodle) shop, Mizu encounters a "flesh-trader" (a purveyor of women to brothels) with a Western pistol. Mizu forces him to reveal the name of the weapons dealer, Heiji Shindo. Ringo, the kitchen attendant, follows Mizu and implores to be taken as an apprentice.

Princess Akemi, the only daughter of the Daimyo of Kyoto, Lord Daiichi Tokunobu, convinces her father to approve of her marriage to Taigen, a young and accomplished samurai. Mizu seeks a meeting with the master of the Shindo Dojo to find out the location of his brother, Heiji Shindo. When the request is denied it leads to conflict; Mizu defeats the students easily. Taigen, who tormented Mizu as a child, is now the dojo's prized champion, but when Mizu defeats him, the master reveals the location of his brother.

In a flashback as a child, Mizu encounters Master Eiji, a blind swordsmith; they recover a glowing blue metallic meteorite. She becomes his apprentice and learns swordsmithing and swordcraft.

In the present, at the behest of a foreigner, Heiji Shindo dispatches assassins the "Four Fangs" to kill Mizu. Ringo discovers that Mizu is a woman.

Episode 2: "An Unexpected Element"

Reluctantly allowing Ringo to join her, Mizu arrives at a coastal town, seeking to hire a boat to reach Shindo’s island fortress. Shindo and the foreigner plot a 'surprise' for the Shogun in Edo. Taigen pursues Mizu to regain his honor. Because of Taigen's defeat, Akemi's father plans to marry her off to the Shogun's widowed second son and will take her to Edo in five days, despite her objections. She decides to run away in search of Taigen, although her father's retainer Seki catches her and, unable to stop her, joins her instead.

While Ringo participates in the town Hadaka Matsuri festivities, Mizu trains on the cliffs above. She remembers an assassin named Blood-soaked Chiaki, who tricked her and Sword-father into forging him a sword, which broke near the tip during the forging process due to Mizu's inexperience. The Four Fangs attack, with their leader revealed to be Chiaki, still using the broken blade. Mizu battles the Fangs on the cliff face and kills all four, although she is heavily injured in the process. Taigen, having tracked Mizu down reveals himself and challenges her, to which she complies but suddenly collapses due to blood loss; leaving Taigen hesitant to strike.

Episode 3: "A Fixed Number of Paths"

Taigen and Ringo take Mizu to shelter at a nearby shrine. Mizu agrees to a contract to duel Taigen once she is recovered. A huge man with a club delivers an invitation to a ‘Tea ceremony’ with Heiji. Though Taigen suspects this to be a trap, Mizu accepts and they both travel to the meeting. Heiji gives Mizu three options: be paid off to renounce her vendetta, be smuggled into Heiji's castle in sake barrels to kill the white man, or refuse and be killed by archers supposedly hiding nearby. Mizu calls Heiji's bluff and cuts off his arm. Taigen and Mizu escape with Ringo's help while being bombarded by hundreds of arrows. Afterwards, Mizu knocks Taigen unconscious and leaves him with Chiaki's broken blade and a note promising to attend their duel at a later time. Taigen is subsequently kidnapped and taken to Heiji's castle.

Seki and Akemi are ambushed by brigands and lose their money and transport. They hire a cart using the last of Akemi's jewelry, but Akemi discovers that they are traveling in the wrong direction. Seki reveals he has enough money to hire a horse back to the palace, and implores Akemi to give up the search for Taigen and accept the marriage which he brought before her father. Akemi angrily rejects the offer and tricks a flesh trader into transporting her instead.

Episode 4: "Peculiarities"

Mizu seeks out Madame Kaji’s brothel to follow up on what Heiji Shindo revealed about how prostitutes enter the castle of Abijah Fowler, the white man she is seeking. Kaji promises to give her the information if Mizu agrees to mercy kill Kinuyo, a deaf-mute girl who was in Kaji's care before being forcibly taken by the local "thousand-claws" mob boss Hamata. After convincing Kinuyo to believe Mizu will protect her, Mizu carries out her task and leaves the scene making Kinuyo's death look like an accident. However, on her way out a boy sees her; Hamata arrives at Kaiji's brothel with his fighters and orders them to kill everyone.

After realizing Akemi has run off, Lord Daiichi sends his men after her. Akemi ends up in the same town as Mizu and sees her with Taigen's scarf, entering the brothel. Akemi persuades the purveyor to trade her there. To prove her competence when tasked by Madam Kaiji with pleasuring a veteran customer with erectile difficulties, she tactfully uses his interest in poetry and her proficiency in the subject to stimulate and bring him to climax. While she's being applauded for her talent she volunteers to serve Mizu in an attempt to drug her.

At the castle fortress, Taigen is being tortured by Shindo for information about Mizu.

Episode 5: "The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride"

Faced with the threat of Hamata's men, Mizu gathers the women of the brothel in the cellar and tasks Ringo with guarding them. Inside the brothel, she starts taking out the thousand claws individually, but one manages to wound Mizu, resulting in her slowly losing strength.

In a flashback Mizu has while being attacked, allegorical with the tale of the first rōnin, Mizu is seen receiving a similar wound from some gangsters, and is later saved by her presumed-dead mother, who goes on to arrange a marriage between Mizu and a disgraced samurai, Mikio. Mizu gradually opens up to her new husband, but when she beats him in a sparring match, he calls her a monster. He fails to help her when soldiers arrive to collect the bounty on her head. Feeling betrayed, she battles the group and kills them. Mikio and Mizu's mother fight over who betrayed Mizu. Mikio stabs Mizu's mother to death. Mizu kills Mikio and leaves. A narrated bunraku puppet theater play intersperses and complements the storytelling, with its female protagonist eventually transforming into an Onryō, a vengeful spirit.

In reality, Mizu is pinned down but manages to summon back her strength, turns her sword into a makeshift Naginata, and kills Hamata’s men. The men sent by Lord Daichi arrive to take Akemi back home and though she pleads with Mizu to help her, Mizu doesn't intervene. Ringo, angered over his master's callous decision, ends his apprenticeship.

Panning out from the frame narrative, Princess Akemi is shown at the Shogun's palace with her teeth blackened to mark her status as a bride.

Episode 6: "All Evil Dreams and Angry Words"

Mizu follows the instructions relayed by Madam Kaji, finding the underground passageway to the castle littered with the skeletons of women and infants. While trying to unlock the door to exit the tunnel, she accidentally triggers a water trap and just manages to escape drowning, but loses most of her gear. Her covert entrance is blown when a soldier sounds the alarm, interrupting Heiji and Fowler's meeting at the upper level with two of the Shogun's advisers as they conspire to kill the Shogun and his family to take power by force using guns in Fowler's possession.

Mizu proceeds upwards through the palace, sustaining injury from the numerous castle traps and guards. Eventually, she makes it to a dungeon area where she fights her way through released prisoners before stumbling upon the cell holding a badly injured Taigen. She carries him with her till she comes across the giant carrying a club. Mizu defeats him with an explosive that also breaches the outer castle wall. She then climbs to the top of the outer wall while carrying Taigen, and then confronts Fowler. He shoots at them, injuring Mizu and breaking her sword in two. While Fowler is trying to kill Taigen, Mizu grabs him and jumps into the freezing water below where a hand extends towards them as they are about to drown.

Episode 7: "Nothing Broken"

Ringo saves Mizu and Taigen, bringing their unconscious bodies to Sword Father’s hut. While recovering, Mizu's relationship with Taigen starts taking a non-combative and suggestive turn. This comes undone when she reveals Akemi's marriage to the Shogun's son, and of Fowler's impending attack on the Shogunate. Taigen rejects Mizu's broken blade and leaves for Edo to save Akemi and warn the Shogun, vowing to kill her when he returns. After multiple failed attempts and an epiphany that results in mending ties with Ringo, Mizu manages to recreate the metallurgy of her sword's steel but refrains from reforging it until she has slain Fowler. Mizu and Ringo leave for Edo to save Akemi and kill Fowler.

Akemi is chafing against the restraints of her new position in the Shogunate and endures the machinations of her cruel mother-in-law. She confronts her husband, discovering him to be gentle, despite his reputation (the result of propaganda), and also insecure—and pliable—due to his severe stammer. She strikes an understanding with him which leads to the consummation of their marriage. She uses her newly gained wealth to hire the prostitutes of Madam Kaji’s brothel as her new attendants. One of these, Ise, informs her of Fowler's plans which they relay to Akemi's father Lord Daichi, who to Akemi's horror kills Ise, revealing himself to be involved in the conspiracy. He then confines Akemi in a basement cell.

Episode 8: "The Great Fire of 1657"

Mizu asks Ringo to wait by the sewers while she saves Akemi and sends her his way. Taigen finds Ringo and they decide to storm the front gate to warn the Shogun about the impending attack, which shortly ensues as Fowler’s army breaks through the castle defenses. Seki saves Akemi from her cell, locking her father in her place, but they are outnumbered by soldiers until Mizu arrives. Heiji opens the final gate from the inside, giving Fowler access to the Shogun and his family. Fowler kills the Shogun, but the Shogun's sons and wife escape after Mizu crashes in, leaving Taigen to kill Heiji Shindo. Mizu subdues Fowler after starting a fire while attempting to stop him from fleeing, which rapidly spreads throughout the castle and then to the city.[c]

Fowler tells Mizu that they'll have to travel to London to find the remaining two white men, and that the woman she thought to be her mother was a maid paid to raise her. Seki and Akemi shut the front gate of the castle, preventing Fowler’s men from escaping the roaring fire but Seki is fatally shot. Taigen finds Akemi outside the castle and offers to run away with her, but she declines, choosing to remain in Edo with the Shogun's surviving family and her father, Lord Daichi. Ringo returns to Sword Father, convinced that Mizu has perished in the fire. Mizu leaves on a ship with Fowler as her captive.

The fight between the Four Fangs was the first instance where this series' visual perversions got in the way of getting the point across. Full disclaimer: I don't have a problem with what anyone is into in terms of each his/her/their own preferences - fetishes and whatever else gets their rocks off. That's none of my business, but by in no means, did I think it was a great narrative decision to constantly interrupt Mizu's fight with the Four Fangs with cuts back to town with the villagers all running around naked. It makes this series come off even more as a perverse power fantasy under the guise of beautiful imagery than I read subtly early on.

OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS SHIT IS PREDICTABLE AS FUCK.

That was literally what I wrote down in my notes by the end of Episode Two in all caps. I had jokingly predicted a few events in the first episode in terms of where this was going, but to see it was actually moving in that direction was both sad and disappointing.

Princess Akemi is introduced in Episode Two and one of the most frustratingly, yet surprisingly well-written characters in this entire series if I am perfectly honest. It takes her the entire season to realize that she has the same power to lay dominion over men that she practices over Taigen following his loss to Mizu. She assumes control and mounts him in their moment of passion/sexual intercourse, without any resistance nor pushback from Taigen. He submits to her completely and it's just outright bizarre that it took her that long that she has had this ability from the start, but we will come back to her later in terms of recognizing her position of power as a holder of the male gaze. 

In a sense, Akemi is Mizu's polar opposite in this social hierarchy in every capacity. 

• Akemi is purebred Japanese woman; Mizu is of mixed race origins. 

• Akemi grew up rich and pampered; Mizu grew up poor and had to learn to survive on her own until she was taken in by the Swordfather. 

• Akemi lusts after Taigen and forces him to submit to her sexually; Mizu was bullied by Taigen in her youth, annoyed by him in the present day (for now), and forces him to submit to her in combat.

• Akemi controls and commands the male gaze; Mizu refuses and denies to acknowledge it.  

Mizu's injuries throughout the course of this series border on the levels of comical, absurd, and nonexistent in terms of they rarely play a role in the outcome of her physical encounters. One moment she's limping around to one room to the next in a later battle in Episode Five, but a few minutes later, she's fighting without any issues. Sure, you can chalk that up to adrenaline and mental fortitude/determination in a lot of these life or death situations, but it's done to a point where it's ridiculous here. In this case, I feel like the writers had Mizu get wounded and injured so much to attempt to dispel the comparisons to being a "Mary Sue". Case in point comes up in Episode Three where Mizu and Taigen agree to a rematch to their duel in two-three days. Two-Three days to recover from sword wounds/cuts is insane and lazy writing, especially for this so-called demon that Mizu is always being referred to as to not have any powers nor enhanced healing. If wannabe Prince Zuko was truly looking to regain his honor against her, then he would want Mizu at top form, not at her earliest convenience. 

As previously mentioned, Episode Three firmly establishes Taigen's pursuit of Mizu as being sadly comparable to Prince Zuko's obsession/pursuit of his lost "honor" while he hunts down the Avatar. He foolishly thinks his entire life will turn around from this one kill/defeat. Defeating Mizu will somehow make him worthy of becoming Akemi's husband in the eyes of her father, Lord Daichi - a character who is a piece of work on his own.

Lord Daichi is arguably the most misogynistic character in this entire series. He treats his daughter (Princess Akemi) as a bargaining tool that can be passed around to ensure that he personally maintains or gains any significant increase to his own wealth or an upgrade in his social status. He constantly talks about doing these things for the best of his daughter's interests, but it's obvious it is only for his own personal gain. His daughter's wants and desires are insignificant and a nonfactor into his plans and goals for his own ascension into these political and social ladders. 

After Lord Daichi's announcement that he is sending his daughter off to marry one of the shogun's sons, Princess Akemi runs away to search for Taigen, but her party is robbed by a band of thieves. 

"You're lucky I'm not a man..." Female thief comments to the princess during her attempt to escape. 

The thief merely slaps her and takes Akemi's shoes. Seeing Akemi having to walk through the freezing snow is another act of humiliating women at the expense of this character. On one hand, I could see this is part of the narrative trying to humble Akemi from her spoiled and pampered upbringing, but on the other, that comment from the thief convinces me that the writers wanted to convey one of many heavy-handed reminders of how misogynistic this time period was for women. Akemi's male tutor, Seki, doesn't help alleviate this notion either as he gives off an dubious demeanor of claiming to want the best for her. In that regard, I don't blame Akemi for not wanting to trust Seki in the least as of course he means well, but he never comes across as a sincere person. He comes across as shady as Heiji Shindo, Fowler's accomplice that Mizu and Taigen had tea with in Episode Three while these events were taking place simultaneously. 

Speaking of that interaction, I felt that it was a cruel joke on that trope in this samurai cinema subgenre that is commonly referred to as chanbara or "chambara". As a film studies graduate, I feel like I have to mention the works of Akira Kurosawa as being the grandfather of this genre, due to his portrayal of stylized and exaggerated death and violence in samurai epics. His films are best known to western audiences. 

Shindo's offer to Mizu was so obviously a trap that it was to the point that it was comical, down to the warning/ploy that he had 500 archers seated on the surrounding cliffs to blanket the sky in darkness from the sheer amount of incoming arrows from his signal. To Taigen and Mizu's dismay, his bluff proved to be true as it was Ringo (Mizu's handless companion, who initially comes across as an annoyance to both Mizu and the viewers only to prove to be useful to her throughout this journey) to fetch their asses out of the fire when shit hit the fan.

Episode Four sees Mizu seek out Madame Kaji's brothel after learning from Shindo that Abijah Fowler hires prostitutes to enter his castle. Fowler is the white man that she is seeking and looking to kill. 

"Strong men come here (brothel) to be weak..." Mizu comments on what she sees in the brothel in terms of the practices on display to fulfill fetishes. 

I thought this comment was another telling remark in terms of my personal reception of this series five episodes in. At this point, this anime felt like a social commentary more than ever. Everyone is happy and content as long as their fetishes are being catered and (egos) stroked properly. Mizu isn't wrong in the least in her assessment either. Women hold all of the cards in this setting as the men are at their beckoning and mercy to fulfill said desires. It is the one environment where the men are completely weak in this time period. Hell, these confines are timeless if we don't want to kid ourselves as they still exist today. Men are still slaves to their sexual desires, fetishes, and fantasies with women still seated in positions of power to satisfy those needs.

Princess Akemi follows Mizu and Ringo into the brothel and offers herself to be traded there by a flesh trader in hopes of confronting Mizu. Madame Kaji isn't so easily persuaded nor convinced of Akemi's talents to work in the brothel, so she brings her in on a trial basis. Akemi ends up commanding dominance over their veteran customer in a similar manner that she took control of her encounter with Taigen. This time, she uses his interests in poetry and her own personal knowledge on the subject manner to arouse him to climax. I fail to understand how she is in this much denial of the power that she has at her disposal when she has used her female wiles to her advantage in several situations up to this point.

Instead, Episode Five is a play on the puppet theater play trope, which is another amusing comparison to Avatar: The Last Airbender (Season 3, Episode 17: "The Ember Island Players"), where the narration offers a flashback exposition of Mizu's past between the scenes from present day where Mizu struggles with the threat of Hamata's men coming to slaughter the women in the brothel. Much like the fight with the Four Fangs in Episode Two, I don't care for these cuts in the action. It's not just for this anime either as it annoyed me when BLEACH interrupted a fight just to insert an entire filler arc in the middle of it. In a narrative sense, I can understand doing it when you have a group of main characters that you have to juggle in a story that got split up, but doing it to shoehorn in a exposition flashback feels like lazy storytelling. 

In this flashback, we learn that Mizu was wounded in a similar manner like she is currently dealing with Hamata's men, only to stumble into her thought-to-be dead mother, who treats her injuries and saves her life. Call me heartless or whatever, but I felt that Mizu didn't owe this woman all of shit when she left her to survive on the streets without means to do so when she was a child. Instead, Mizu feels like she is in debt to her mother who has arranged a marriage for her to a disgraced samurai named Mikio. It is awkward at first with all of them living together on his farm, but Mizu and Mikio fall in love and Mizu loses her virginity to him. I bring up the latter as there's a key difference in that scene in comparison to other sex scenes in this series to date. Mizu allows herself to submit to him in the bottom of the missionary position. This is a stark contrast of Akemi's preference in the cowgirl position in all of her sex scenes where she always assumes control. Mizu's submission in this state echoes her nature to deny the male gaze. The irony comes in their sparring match when she attempts to assume control in their battle, only for Mikio to call her a monster once she bests him in combat. Soldiers arrive to collect the bounty on her head, with Mikio turning away and refusing to help. Mizu kills them with ease after feeling betrayed with her mother and Mikio arguing over who betrayed her. Mikio stabs Mizu's mother to death and Mizu kills him in response before promptly leaving to resume her revenge. 

Ringo: "You are NO samurai... a samurai is honorable."

(CLAPS) I'VE BEEN WONDERING THIS SINCE THE FIRST GODDAMN EPISODE... Shouldn't this show be called Blue Eye Ronin or Blue Eye Onryo? I applaud Ringo for saying what I was wondering since the first two episodes.

Sidebar note about Ringo... I have to admit that I didn't care for the comedy relief character who accompanies the lone samurai trope. I didn't care for it in Afro Samurai, Ninja Scroll, nor did I care about the wealth of side characters in Samurai X/Rurouni Kenshin, but I warmed up to Ringo by the end of this season to the point where he was far more tolerable than the rest of this series' cast. He saves Mizu, Taigen, and Akemi's collective asses more than they give him credit for as someone who doesn't have any hands or with any handicap in general could be expected to do. He excels at this support role masterfully, despite having dreams of being great. Unfortunately, he shares the same issue that a lot of these characters share where they are blinded to what is right there in their lives if they look hard enough. 

• Ringo aspires to be "great" but he is already great at being useful to others. He proves this time and time again throughout the series. 

• Taigen is blinded by his obsession to regain his lost honor; in reality, he was merely following Mizu to satisfy his ego and convince himself that he was worthy of Akemi's love

• Akemi is blinded to the fact that she has had the means to control her life all along; it is only after walking the path of common women in her era for a period is when she recognizes the power at her disposal

• Mizu is blinded by her path of revenge under the veil of her self-hatred and self-destruction; if she truly wanted an honorable death in this quest, she would have performed seppuku if she was truly devoted to the life of a samurai. In her defense though, she responds with "I NEVER said I was a samurai" in response to Ringo's remark. 

Episode Seven sees Ringo take Mizu and Taigen to her "Swordfather" to recover while Princess Akemi prepares for her wedding to the shogun's son. It's beyond pathetic at this point of the season that Princess Akemi still doesn't realize that she is the ONLY woman in this anime that doesn't realize that she has more control than any other woman in this time period due to her position despite her forced marriage. It takes Madame Faji and the women from the brothel she worked in previously to remind her of this fact. 

Faji: "...That he's a beast? He's a man. All men are weak. The ones who act beastly are weakest. They penetrate women and think that makes them powerful. Really, their pricks are fragile... exposed. You saw it yourself. They want to be spanked, diapered, and breast fed. Then strut away like they've conquered an army. Nurture his weakness. Be his strength and he will worship you."

Akemi: "I don't know if I can..." 

Faji: "Stop running to and from men and decide what you want for your FUCKING self."

Akemi: "I want to be in control of my life."

Faji: "Then take control of HIS, princess." 

What more needs to be said here? Faji spelled it out as clear as day for Akemi. She's had control all along and even if she didn't, she has the means to take that control back in her life. Akemi's whining is beyond redundant and tiresome at this point. 

Taigen and Mizu engage in some friendly sparring and end up on top of each other, adding more fuel to the fire to my prediction that they would end up in bed with each other literally by the end of this. Ray Charles can see this shit happening at this point, even if it doesn't happen until the next season that has been already greenlit for this series. Things don't proceed further after a moment of awkwardness between them that led to Mizu confessing that she knew about Akemi's arranged marriage to the shogun's son and the pending attack on the shogun by Fowler's army.

How ruthless and cruel do you have to be to serve your bride-to-be the same bird that you shot out of the air to her as a "gift"? I swear, this show gets off on its own misogyny and perversions.

Eiji: "I did not train you to be a demon or a human. I showed you how to be an artist. To be an artist is to do one thing only. Look at me. Cannot fight or weave or farm. I make swords. I cook for strength to make good swords. I study the Sutras to cleanse my heart to make good swords"...

Mizu: "Then I am a bad artist."

Eiji: "An artist gives all that he has to the art. The whole. Your strengths and deficiencies. Loves and shames. Perhaps the people that you have collected. I made my best blades when I had an apprentice."

Mizu: "I thought I annoyed you."

Eiji: "Both are true. There may be a demon in you but there is more. If you do not invite the whole, then the demon takes two chairs and the art will suffer."

Mizu: "Then what do I do?"

Eiji: "Start a new fire and start anew." 

I get that this is meant to be one of those thoughtful and profound moments in the samurai's journey, but as an individual who is undergoing the artists' journey currently, it pisses me off to hear more of this "just enjoy the journey" mantra. In relation to Mizu, what kind of fucked up advice is that to tell her that when she has lives of others hanging in the balance in terms of whether or not she decides to take action? Oh just start over, everything will be fine. In relation to art, that's so easy to tell people as the common response when it's painfully obvious that your teachers, mentors, and peers don't know the answers themselves. I rather someone tell me they don't know instead of some philosophical bullshit that they probably don't even believe nor practice themselves. 

Akemi's dad being in bed with Fowler's coupe wasn't a surprise in the least, especially when this anime made him to be one of, if not the most, unlikeable man in this story when he was so adamant about maintaining and acquiring power at the expense of his daughter's happiness. His daughter was a bargaining chip to fuel his own ascension in the social hierarchy from the start. Why would the viewer be surprised of any other outcome from this clown?

Speaking of Fowler's invasion, it only succeeded because the shogun's security was so flimsy. Explain to me why didn't they just destroy the bridge when the first round of soldiers were shot dead from the start and prevented his army from advancing even further towards the castle? Even having Shindo as the man on the inside wouldn't have been for much as I'm sure those pistols didn't have more than one or two shots tops, especially for early model western firearms. This was typical lazy writing at its finest as I was ultimately disappointed watching this as I knew nothing was going to be resolved in this finale. 

Akemi escapes with Seki, only for Seki to be shot dead when they barricaded Fowler's soldiers within the city when the fires started. Akemi reunites with Taigen shortly thereafter, but she is adamant about exerting the newfound control that she has acquired as the wife of the son of the currently dead shogun. So much for that relationship, huh? That leaves Taigen's options open for pursuing someone else who has had his eye for so long... I wonder who that is... (sarcasm).

Mizu confronts Abijah Fowler again and beats him to an inch of his life until he reveals that they would have to travel to London to find the remaining two white men and that the woman she thought to be her mother was a maid paid to raise her. The season ends with Mizu leaving on a ship to London with Fowler as her captive. Since when did Mizu learn how to captain a ship? So much of this had me shaking my head by the time the credits rolled. 

I feel like for everything that I have criticized this series for being, I should mention some of the good things that Blue Eye Samurai does well. 

The character development for its female characters, specifically Akemi, were well-done, despite becoming frustratingly tiresome by the end of the season. There are some aspects that I do appreciate about Mizu's character, at least in the first four episodes, that I thought that really broke the mold on the typical "strong female protagonist" trope. I still feel like she dances dangerously close to falling into Mary Sue territory for my personal tastes, but that's for the writers' discretion in follow-up season(s). 

The fight choreography for the action sequences are beautifully well done and animated. If that was done without the assistance of motion capture in 3D rendering, then that was even more impressive. The artistic choices in terms of scenery and color palettes highlight and enhance the tone for this narrative across the board from start to finish. I do agree with a lot of critics that Episode Five is unamiously the best episode of the entire season, in terms of how everything comes together visually in regard to both the action sequences and the animation as a whole. 

Unfortunately, I think I would have enjoyed this series more if I wasn't heavily insisted to watch this for educational purposes and watched it more at my leisure. Instead, my entire viewing experience was hampered by my educational, analytical side of my brain constantly asking "WHY?" after every event and/or sequence.