Summary

The first trailer for the Netflix anime series Blue Eye Samurai has been released, giving viewers a glimpse into the world of Mizu, a mixed-race sword-wielding warrior seeking revenge in Edo-period Japan. The supervising director of the show, Jane Wu, revealed her personal connection to the character, relating to Mizu’s feelings of not knowing where she belongs due to her biracial identity. Blue Eye Samurai comes from Michael Green, the writer of Logan and Blade Runner 2049.

The first trailer for the Netflix anime series Blue Eye Samurai has been unleashed. The footage offers our first look at Blue Eye Samurai which stars Maya Erskine, Randall Park, Masi Oka, Kenneth Branagh, Brenda Song, Byron Mann and Mark Dacascos. From a brutal time that fears and hates her, a warrior will rise. The adults-only, eight episode animated series was created by Amber Noizumi and Michael Green. Check out the trailer below:

From the writer of Logan and Blade Runner 2049, Blue Eye Samurai takes place in Edo-period Japan and follows Mizu, a mixed-race master of the sword who lives a life in disguise seeking to deliver revenge.

While chatting with Vanity Fair about the upcoming show, Jane Wu, the supervising director of Blue Eye Samurai opened up about feeling a connection to the series’ warrior character.

“For most of my childhood years, up until college, I really was a boy. I was a tomboy. All my friends were guys. Everything that I did was very masculine and male-based.”

The supervising director later went on to share her thoughts on Mizu and what drew her to the character saying:

“Her being biracial, me being bi-cultural, I can imagine her feeling disowned by her own people. And then to white people, she’s also not white, because she has mixed blood. There’s a feeling of not knowing where she belongs that I absolutely identify, because here in the West, I’m the Chinese girl, but when I go home to Taiwan, I’m the American girl.”
“What really drew me to this character was her self-hatred. She hated herself for being different, and also she hated her femininity. And I remember growing up hating my femininity, not really understanding why. And of course, now that I’m older, I see it’s because society tells me I’m weak and I’m not valuable as a woman. So I hated that.”

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Michael Green Offers Some Insight Into Blue Eye Samurai
Netflix / Vanity Fair

Green also offered some insight on the character, noting:

“Mizu does not have the capacity for kindness at first. It is a very hard lesson for her to learn. We were careful balancing stories in the first half of the season and the second half of the season, that all of her moments of mercy, kindness, or just acceptance of other people end up having a negative consequence for her. And then, towards the end of the season, the lesson comes in that maybe being vulnerable is okay and pays its own dividends.”

While reflecting on various aspects behind the inspiration for the upcoming series, Green noted:

“After coming across the history of Edo Japan, when they took such great pains to seal the borders from Western influence, the very aesthetics that we now put on advertisements would’ve been considered problematic or monstrous. We talked about that for a good 10 years, thinking: what are we going to do with this story? The one day, the word ‘animation’ came up in conversation, and we realized there is a way to tell this story through an adult animated show.”

As for the creator’s feelings on Wu’s involvement in Blue Eye Samurai, Green believes that there’s no one better suited for the job. Green said:

“Jane Wu was made in a lab to direct this show. There’s literally no one else who has the martial arts background, the attention to detail, the care for wardrobe, and was a comic book and genre fan. The number of people who have the skillset required to make this show a reality as a director was one. We did not have an animation background. Now we do, but it’s only because we remember things she taught us.”

Blue Eye Samurai hits Netflix on November 3rd, and check out some new images from the series below courtesy of Vanity Fair.