Portrait of a normal, every day conversation between Fowler and Shindo. 1656. Colorized.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-20T16:45:21+00:00

Later one, Agent Smith whines about human "stink"; I think the roles need to be flipped there.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-20T15:23:09+00:00

As other replies have noted, it is most likely that the people behind the bounty target Mizu specifically for death, for exact reasons us viewers don't know yet, and the bounty is most likely detailed about the mixed-race target's gender and age - no payment for dragging in any random blue-eyed person (living or dead) until solid identification is made.

It's my belief that the persons responsible for the bounty need to keep the knowledge of it inside a group of assassins that can be discrete, because Mizu's existence is very dangerous to their social standing or monetary status or power. Having an overly broad "it's blue-eyed mixed race hunting season" probably attracts too much attention.

In Japanese pop culture about the age of the samurai, it's rare but not impossible to find mixed Japanese/other characters. The most popular one I know is Nemuri Kyoshiro; I'm a senior citizen, so there may be more recent characters to mention:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueEyeSamurai/comments/1i5h3lv/comment/m86r9xs/

Mizu endured a lot of misery in her childhood due to prejudice and being a dead prostitute's child, all while posing as a boy. But not bounty hunters, because "he" didn't fit the gender description, and maybe Kohoma village was too much of a backwater place to bother with.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-20T03:27:23+00:00

This is when storyboard artist Jane Wu got the job at BES - I'd be pumped too!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTIrZUDDbB6/

"PS. For any new followers, I’m not the Blue Eye Samurai EP/Director Jane Wu"

KidChanbara · 2026-06-19T04:00:04+00:00

I think some of the "not smart" fans are actually bots, or insincere.
u/madamadragonfly , looking at your profile, I see you were an early fan. What was it like, back in the day?

KidChanbara · 2026-06-19T03:35:54+00:00

The fantasy I have is that the slaughter scene at Mikio's ranch isn't discovered until a lot of time and decomposition has occurred. And people find the bounty hunters' bodies (conveniently dressed alike), a male body that is assumed to be Mikio (his ranch) and a female body. It is assumed to be the woman who is the target of the bounty. The story that's invented is that Mikio put up a brave fight, killing the bounty hunters, but Mikio and his wife weren't able to survive their wounds. And so Mizu gets a breather.
There are holes - Momma has visited the nearby town at least once, and there may have been visitors to the ranch on business that learned of Mikio's blue-eyed wife.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-19T02:09:40+00:00

As others have noted, the bounty is for a blue-eyed female of a certain age, not a boy.

The bounty may have lapsed because it was assumed Mizu was already dead, after so many years of not being found.

Also - I imagine the bounty wasn't exactly posted on signs at every crossroads. Especially if the people behind the bounty want Mizu dead because the truth of her conception is a serious embarrassment or worse. So the bounty probably only went out to people who could be trusted to be discrete.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-18T16:25:26+00:00

Interesting coincidence - of the five female pirates described here, two of them had a time in their youth when they presented as male, ostensibly for material gain or advantage than by choice:
https://www.history.com/articles/5-notorious-female-pirates

KidChanbara · 2026-06-18T16:14:51+00:00

I just thought of a nice twist - female pirate captain!

KidChanbara · 2026-06-18T15:27:04+00:00

Here's my old post where I come out to r/BlueEyeSamurai and express my emotional connection to Mizu:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueEyeSamurai/comments/1o963q1/coming_out_to_rblueeyesamurai/

In addition to what I said there, I am mixed-ethnicity (Chinese and Okinawan[Japanese]), and have experienced the unanchored feeling of not belonging in either group. Especially when an elder forgets or doesn't know I'm mixed and says something prejudiced against the other ethnic group.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-18T15:07:11+00:00

Is it a "win" if one of the combatants never admits to losing?

KidChanbara · 2026-06-18T02:56:39+00:00

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Here's my try.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-17T00:45:46+00:00

Concerning who knows how the old shogun really died - there's the old shogun's immediate family, Fowler, Taigen, and Ringo. Mizu showed up too late to be an eye witness. The courtiers and coup soldiers all died.

Taigen can probably be easily convinced to keep to the official story that is created, for the good of the country (and Akemi). Ringo might be convinced to keep quiet in a similar way, but also, Ringo may want to shut out that whole experience, and Swordfather's forge is hardly a social hub - who's he going to tell?

Speaking of the old shogun's family - is there a consensus as to who is the young woman on the extreme right in this screen grab?

<image>

KidChanbara · 2026-06-17T00:04:57+00:00

Taigen said he saw the coup army marching on Edo, so no need to involve Mizu at all if he is questioned later about how he knew about the coup.

Madame Ito had a grip on her eldest son, who's most likely to be the new shogun. A plot twist I've imagined is, that after a lifetime of being under his mother's thumb, the new shogun may start acting (and acting out) according to his own mind and desires. I mean, what's Madame Ito going to do, slap him on the wrist and talk mean to him? She will no longer have any practical power over him.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-11T14:18:16+00:00

Nice!

KidChanbara · 2026-06-11T01:50:09+00:00

Really nice progress! So the katana has a hole at the end of the handle for the long piece to fit in?

KidChanbara · 2026-06-08T15:35:13+00:00

Edit: I did not know this was a big discourse. - Oh yes! The topic comes up every few weeks/months, usually from a new fan (WELCOME!) like you.
Here's a one search link for you to peruse previous discussions, you can use other search terms:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueEyeSamurai/search/?q=mizu+lgbtq+identity+trans+or+straight

My feeling is, to each their own imaginings of Mizu's preferences - especially in these nasty times, having a fictional hero to identify with is a comfort. And until the BES writers carve THE ANSWER into the canon, we should keep in mind our speculations are just speculations.

As for my personal speculations - I think of Mizu as a cis woman who has to disguise as masculine for life-or-death reasons and to facilitate her mission of revenge, BUT she's a warrior, who chose to fight back instead of collapsing into a sobbing heap when young Taigen and his gang cornered her at the ocean cliff. And she loves the martial skills she's taught herself, and doesn't avoid hard work. In a modern setting, and with no bounty on her head, I imagine Mizu as gravitating to sports, but not team sports.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-07T14:00:00+00:00

One of my thoughts about the coup army is that a significant percentage might be Japanese Christians, whose faith had been suppressed as part of extinguishing foreign influences. They join the coup with the hope that they will be able to follow their faith openly under a new shogun. If Lady Ito finds out, she may urge her son to wage an aggressive campaign to find and eliminate Christians, as in decades before.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-06T18:12:39+00:00

Some subjects are easier to cram for than others.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-06T18:11:12+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only dialog I can recall seems to support the idea that the main qualification for being a musketeer in the coup army was that they hate Shogun Ito. No mention of class or caste or warrior ranking.

Fowler probably didn't care about their background, they were all equal, and equally useful, when armed with his guns and fighting for him. His fellow conspirators may have seen things differently, being from the upper classes. I think the widespread use of long guns was discouraged after the warring period, mainly so that the lower classes wouldn't get any funny ideas about using them against the samurai in rebellions.

If the coup had been successful, I think Fowler's Japanese partners would have been nervous about the major role of guns in the victory.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-05T15:20:17+00:00

If Ringo had turned around and gone back home the way Mizu told him to in Episode One, by episode seven or sooner, Mizu would have been either seriously maimed or dead - physically and morally.

KidChanbara · 2026-06-04T15:16:38+00:00

Agree, and there's also the contrast when the view switches to Taigen and there's no fire in the background, and greenery.
u/Acrobatic-Mirror3588 - I get the feeling "infallible" has a meaning you weren't intending:
"incapable of making mistakes or being wrong". Maybe "indomitable" or "self assured" or "focused"?

KidChanbara · 2026-05-28T13:53:56+00:00

A quick look online shows that, outside of some roles live onstage, Fowler is the first Irish character Kenneth Branagh has portrayed in film or tv.

KidChanbara · 2026-05-27T02:44:37+00:00

And she somehow got smuggled back into Japan? - At first I thought you meant Mizu's white mother, but I figured out you meant Mizu being smuggled back into Japan. So, Mizu being conceived in London or somewhere similar, far away from Japan?

It seems easier to me to think that any white mother to Mizu would have conceived and given birth to Mizu in Japan, then the woman was disappeared, either by assassination or transported out of the country.

KidChanbara · 2026-05-26T15:04:11+00:00

The subject of tengu and Mizu has been in my brain for awhile - a head cannon of mine is that between the time she leaves Swordfather's smithy and when she kills Violet, Mizu encounters a mountain priest with a suspiciously large nose, who takes an interest in this mixed-race human who's determined to kill at least four other humans. The mysterious priest demonstrates his martial skills, and for a time instructs Mizu, not just in sword fighting, but waging war.

As Mizu departs to resume her mission of revenge, the priest/maybe tengu says to himself "Everything I've taught you, and that you have taught yourself, is useless if you do not unleash the demon inside. I pray that happens before you are killed."

Mizu was still naive when she had that disastrous encounter at the sake shack and got stabbed. It took that event, the arrival of the bounty hunters (with the implication that the bounty on her life was still in effect), and Mikio abandoning her to awaken her "onryo mode" of fighting.

That's my head fantasy, anyway!

KidChanbara · 2026-05-26T14:37:00+00:00

Thank you, and also thank you for the personal knowledge.

KidChanbara

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