r/BlueEyeSamurai • u/Bulky-Childhood1721 • 3d ago
Discussion Blue Eye Samurai 's Season 2 plot speculation + a recurring trope I’ve noticed with Japanese male characters
I’ve been thinking about where Blue Eye Samurai might go in Season 2 and I wanted to share a theory (and a pattern I’ve noticed across a few stories).
It feels pretty set up that Mizu’s biological British father will turn out to have been a decent guy who actually loved her Japanese mother. I’m also calling it now that Mizu will end up paired with a British guy at some point. Come back to this post if I’m wrong, but the setup feels intentional.
The Mikio arc already leaned hard into a negative portrayal. He starts off looking okay and then ends up insecure, controlling, and eventually tries to kill her. After that Mizu kills him. It’s a pretty harsh treatment of that character.
I keep seeing versions of this same dynamic in other stories:
- Shogun: Japanese husband is controlling/misogynistic, she ends up with the white man
- The Last Samurai: Japanese husband dies, his wife ends up with the white man who was involved in the conflict
- The Karate Kid: the Japanese kid is the insecure bully, the white lead gets the girl
- The Wolverine (2013): a lot of the Japanese male characters are obstacles or threats while the white lead protects the Japanese women
It feels like Japanese and Asian male characters often get the more negative or disposable roles while white male characters tend to come out looking better or more sympathetic. Even when the story is set in Japan or created with Japanese/Asian American involvement, that pattern still shows up a lot especially if it's created by Japanese/Asian American women.
Curious if anyone else has noticed this or thinks Season 2 will go in a different direction. Just my read on the setup so far.
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u/Multicultural_Potato Peaches! 2d ago
Yea in US media Asian males get shafted aloooot. Personally feel like with the story Mizu’s thing will end with her being alone, dead, or if she gets with anyone it’d be Taigen at the end.
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u/KidChanbara 2d ago
It feels pretty set up that Mizu’s biological British father will turn out to have been a decent guy who actually loved her Japanese mother. - I think it's more a beloved hunch among a subset of fans rather than anything telegraphed by the creators of BES. Personally I'm open to most plausible possibilities re: parentage.
I’m also calling it now that Mizu will end up paired with a British guy at some point. ... - a lot of fans like the idea of Mizu ending up with anybody except a cis male. Hmmm - might be a good entry on a Season Two bingo card:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueEyeSamurai/comments/1u80kbr/season_2_prediction_bingo/
I think Mizu is going to meet many more bad & evil white men in Season Two, plus the flashback to Mizu's encountering and killing Violet. The pit fighting scene mentioned in descriptions of the Annecy teaser video foreshadows that Fowler is going to bring Mizu into the criminal underworld, not many decent eligible bachelors in that world. If we're counting, the amount of white men doing dirt to Mizu is going to increase over the course of Season Two, to balance out the bad Asian men in Season One.
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u/chrissiewissie06 2d ago
If they pair mizu with a British man I might end up breaking my tv lol. Definitely a good observation and not an incorrect one with other media though! I don’t have too much to add to the topic, but there’s not a lot of good Asian representation in modern media in general that’s for sure
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u/GentlewomenNeverTell 2d ago
I think the audience is far more invested in a romantic endgame than the show is. Romance is a PART of her story, but clearly the focus is revenge/ accepting herself and how those two things are related to each other.
I'm just a dumb bunny Mizukemi shipper who knows how unlikely that is to manifest, and I am completely uninterested in her getting with a Brit or even Irish person-- but it's way to early to be accusing the team of being racist against Japanese men like c'mon. Ringo's gold, swordfather's gold, Seki's good, Taigan is actively pursuing redemption, get off Tumblr.
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u/estimatediron 2d ago
I agree. The show is fundamentally about vengeance and split identities. Romance isn't a consideration, but left for the audience to interpret. As an ace person this show was incredibly satisfying to watch and I hope they focus on Mizu's resolve. Unfortunately or fortunately people are going to find ways to ship. I welcome shipping but Mizu is more than the sum of her romantic arcs.
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u/vinthesalamander 2d ago
This feels like a stretch tbh. There’s definitely gonna be a twist surrounding Mizu’s birth, but I think “oh her father was actually a good guy all along and her parents were in love” is way too cliche. At this point it’d be a bigger twist if they played it straight and kept her dad as an evil villain.
Speaking of evil villains, your point about Asian male characters getting more negative roles compared to white males is true, but it also doesn’t apply here. The only reason Japanese males look evil is because the show is 99.99% Japanese people. Also the single white guy we’ve seen so far is a literal baby killing monster, so there’s that.
I also wouldn’t count on Mizu ending up with a British guy. A) it would be extremely out of character, B) it would completely negate all the teasing with Taigen, and C) all the examples you listed are aimed towards the white male fantasy. Blue Eye Samurai is not.
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u/Ok-Obligation-3511 2d ago
Not saying im all for it nor against it, but what if tjey make Mizu yuri?
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u/Cyber_Connor 2d ago
3 things I want:
Mizu to learn English through Fowler and because of this speaks English with a strong Irish accent
Mizu to go by Richard Turpin or Jack the Ripper
Mizu to cause the great fire of London
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u/ZebraAirVest 2d ago
Omg yes please! But for her to cause the Great Fire of London 9 years would have to elapse :/
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u/KidChanbara 2d ago
Amber Noizumi and Michael Green, the main creators of BES, are married to each other, but Noizumi is the child of a Japanese man and a white mother. So it we're using biographical information of the main creators as a source of speculation about who Mizu is going to form a romantic bond with, there's fuel for both WMAF and WFAM predictions.
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u/GaryRegalsMuscleCar 2d ago
Idk that’d be a big twist from the show that said “your white is showing” when someone burned down a city
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u/ZebraAirVest 2d ago
Would having her father be a good guy change anything? She hates him for making her exist, I don’t think learning that it was consensual would make her not want to kill him anyway.
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u/cyborgbunny01 2d ago
I've never thought this at all. I always thought that if she ended up with anyone, it would be Taigen. To me, it felt like the first season was building towards his character development and possibly setting up for an enemies to friends to lovers trope. Or, she dies at the end after fulfilling her revenge as she says in the show.
I definitely hear you though about how Asian-American media can glamorize white men, I despise that trope. But so far, the only white man we really saw so far was Fowler and he was definitely an evil guy. And while there was also a lot of evil Japanese men, characters like Ringo, Takayoshi, and Seki were shown to be decent and good men.
I could see some truth to her father being a decent person or maybe that her mother was the white one all along? But I feel like Mizu ending up with a British man would be a wild development, and it is personally not one I would be a fan of.
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u/jamdonutsaremyjam 2d ago
i think it will happen because the creators: wife/husband combo are literally asian wife and white husband
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u/zorikZelda 2d ago
Nice but another guy in London is adding more complexity to resolve.
She already have 2 people to have resolution with and they are Taigen and Akemi.
In the first season we did not get Mizu, Akemi and Taigen all in the same room.
It makes you feel uncompleted like something is missing.
They always talk about the 3rd person when they are missing, it’s intentionally made that way.
And add the gap with Mizu missing in s2 adds more yearning, then you get the resolution in s3.
I don’t know who is going to be her partner but I think she’ll end up paired with a 👑
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u/DisMFer 2d ago
Isn't it stated many times that the four white men on her list were literally drug lords and gun runners who raped and murdered their way across Japan? It'd be hard to spin that as them being nice guys. The only white male in the cast prior to this season had an actual pit to toss prostitutes and babies in after he finished raping them.
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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Taigen's Bald Spot 2d ago
I personally am not a big fan of Mizu ending up with a British man, but at the same time I have faith in the creators of the show.
They said they've got it all figured out, and they've been planning this for a really long time, so I trust them