Blue Eye Samurai

[Rob_Royale]

I finished the first season last night on Netflix and I have to say it's marvelously done. Some really great writing. Great drama and character conflicts, with just the right amount of comedic relief in the perfect spots in the story. Anyone else like it?

EDIT - be kind. No spoilers, please.

 

[AlinaX]

Loved the first episode.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Is this thread open for spoilers? (Thinking of watching it.)

 

[Rob_Royale]

Is this thread open for spoilers? (Thinking of watching it.)

I've amended my OP and would hope no one here would be crass enough to do so, considering it's only been streaming since the beginning of this month. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It's not for kids though.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Very enjoyable and engaging. One of the best things Netflix has put out in a long while. Binged it in one day.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

Where, pray tell, is this show at?

 

[SyleusSnow]

Where, pray tell, is this show at?

It's on Netflix.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13309742/ and the entire first episode is on Youtube for free:

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

It's on Netflix.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13309742/ and the entire first episode is on Youtube for free:

Oh, it's animated, I'll never talk hubby into that.

 

[SyleusSnow]

It's anime. It's not for kids. I found the animation style interesting.

And George Takei is doing one of the character voices. Who can pass up Sulu in an anime?

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

It's anime. It's not for kids. I found the animation style interesting.

And George Takei is doing one of the character voices. Who can pass up Sulu in an anime?

The love of my life, my hubby, that's who. Or is it whom?

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

This damn Monday night game has sucked donkey dicks. Both teams have tried to give the game away. And looks like the Bears are stealing this one.

 

[CyranoJ]

I finished the first season last night on Netflix and I have to say it's marvelously done. Some really great writing. Great drama and character conflicts, with just the right amount of comedic relief in the perfect spots in the story. Anyone else like it?

I'm a big fan, for sure. I particularly love -- and I don't think this is a spoiler -- the way the story plays with gender, race and disability in really intelligent and interesting ways.

Combined with the incredible swordplay and animation and the little musical touches that make clear how much the creators love Tarantino movies, it's great stuff.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't know the show, but are y'all aware that the forum software has options to mark sections as spoilers?

This is what an inline spoiler looks like. (Looks like I screwed up the syntax for the other kind?)

 

[nice90sguy]

I don't know the show, but are y'all aware that the forum software has options to mark sections as spoilers?

This is what an inline spoiler looks like. (Looks like I screwed up the syntax for the other kind?)

You're such a inline spoiler spoiler, posting that.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I thought it was good. The art was amazing. The set pieces were amazing. Characters - AMAZING. The attention to detail - *chef's kiss*. BUT (some spoilers and some negative critique ahead):


The plot felt flat to me. The villain was not complex. He was too stark a caricature in a world filled with deep characters. And I felt Mizu's internal conflicts was left unresolved by the last episode. A big part of the discord and maybe this was the issue with respect to the plot in particular was the rather clumsy mixing of two different modes of storytelling - Japanese and Western. The problem is, Japanese anime storytelling and Western storytelling approaches internal and external conflicts differently. In Japanese storytelling, particularly in anime, the emphasis is decidedly on the internal conflict of the protagonist(s), and the plot is often heavily driven by a forcible externalization of that conflict. You know the writers know this, because episode 5 exists. Episode 5 was BEAUTIFUL and conveyed the reason for Mizu's rage in a very eloquent and in an authentically Japanese way. But in the end, maybe because the global plot was treated in a decidedly Western fashion, we didn't really see the resolution to Mizu's rage that Episode 5 (the Japanese episode) promised. In retrospect, the episode felt like nothing more than an expedient segue to explain Mizu's motive and abrasive nature. In (good) Japanese anime, resolution of conflict typically involves some matter of coming to terms with one's flaws, or one's haunted past through intense or often impossible struggle (a sort of storytelling largely influenced by both Mahayana Buddhism and Confucianism). In that sense, I was hoping that somehow Fowler was something more to Mizu than a big bad boss to hate. But he wasn't, at least not apparently so, and Mizu's internal conflict was left unresolved in the end. Where there was an opportunity for depth and complexity in the plot, because of the half-baked addressing of the various conflicts presented through two starkly different modes of storytelling, the story really just ended up being: Mizu is a badass Ronin and Fowler is big bad boss and badass Ronin ends up destroying big bad boss in boss battle and saves all of Japan. But never had her personal struggle truly been addressed as promised. I suspect Netflix's execs had something to do with that (keep your subscriptions because season 2 is on its way! Yay...)

That being said, there were some great moments in the storytelling. That one scene where her sword transforms into a naginata was a particularly powerful moment of symbolic storytelling (In Edo Japan, the katana was a man's weapon whereas the naginata was traditionally seen as a woman's, which, knowing that makes that scene even more badass). Another bit of symbolism that resonated with me was her tinted glasses, which she used to hide the blue of her eyes.
I'm hafu (half-Japanese) and spent a large part of my childhood in Japan. I was constantly bullied because of the way I looked, so the little ways in which Mizu hid her 'westernness' was really poignant to me. A small detail that adds a lot of depth to her character.

I could've done with less gore, and without the surprisingly crude fetishism of Geishas, and maybe a bit more of that juicy romantic tension between her and Taigen, but those are minor personal gripes compared to the more systemic flaws, namely, the muddy flatness of the plot, the shallowness of the villain, and Mizu's internal conflict remaining unresolved.


TLDR: I really enjoyed the film and I'd recommend it, but imo it fell just short of a masterpiece. Unlike Arcane (amirite @onehitwanda?)

EDIT: Block spoiler wasn't working for me for some reason. Sorry for the large blob

 

[onehitwanda]

Unlike Arcane (amirite @onehitwanda?)

broke me, and then it just got worse and worse and worse. Arcane is a war crime, it should not be legal to cry as much over stupid animated characters as I did.

Stupid Vi. Stupid Caitlyn. Stupid Jinx. Stupid Vander. Stupid, stupid Silco.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

broke me, and then it just got worse and worse and worse. Arcane is a war crime, it should not be legal to cry as much over stupid animated characters as I did.

Stupid Vi. Stupid Caitlyn. Stupid Jinx. Stupid Vander. Stupid, stupid Silco.

Yep!

 

[R. Richard]

In the real world, the Samurai were often Ainu. Some of the Ainu do have blue eyes. What's the point here?

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I finished the first season last night on Netflix and I have to say it's marvelously done. Some really great writing. Great drama and character conflicts, with just the right amount of comedic relief in the perfect spots in the story. Anyone else like it?

EDIT - be kind. No spoilers, please.

I watched it, I liked it.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

broke me, and then it just got worse and worse and worse. Arcane is a war crime, it should not be legal to cry as much over stupid animated characters as I did.

Stupid Vi. Stupid Caitlyn. Stupid Jinx. Stupid Vander. Stupid, stupid Silco.

Yeah, yeah... somebody didn't watch Cyberpunk. What happened to Rebecca made me mad. I liked that scrawny lil pistol of a woman.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

In the real world, the Samurai were often Ainu. Some of the Ainu do have blue eyes. What's the point here?

The point is her half white features were not something most japanese would abide, being the era where the country was supposed to be closed to the world, the idea that english men stepped foot in their country and created abominations with their women sullied their people.

 

[FeralSmile]

Oh, wow, I didn't expect a discussion of William Adams here. He was the first European (and blue-eyed) samurai. And of course James Clavell's Shōgun was a fictionali...

ummm.

Oh.

OH.

My bad.

 

[R. Richard]

Oh, wow, I didn't expect a discussion of William Adams here. He was the first European (and blue-eyed) samurai. And of course James Clavell's Shōgun was a fictionali...

ummm.

Oh.

OH.

My bad.

I must admit that I thought that Shogun was a device that Nipponese men used to marry off their ugly daughters.