A guy asked me what I thought of Akemi
Rightfully I said she fucks and knows how she needs to play the game
Dude said, “idk she just seems so naive and childlike, so it didn’t leave me wanting to go fuck yeah when she did something…”
My brother in Christ, she only acts like that to fool men and holy shit it worked!!!
52 notes
·
View notes
Speculation on Mizu’s heritage
Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix is one of the best things I’ve seen all year. As I’ve been rewatching it, I couldn’t help but speculate on Mizu’s heritage, and I wanted to share my theory so we can all laugh at how wrong I was in a few years. (I am notoriously bad at guessing plot twists. I was totally wrong about how Wandavision and Loki season 1 would end.)
Spoilers and speculation behind the jump.
Short version: Mizu’s mother was a white woman and her father was the Shogun. The Shogun’s wife, Lady Itoh, put the bounty on Mizu’s life because she was proof that the Shogun broke his own laws.
Who Would Want to Kill a Baby?
We know that there has been a bounty on Mizu’s head since she was a baby. There are only three reasons I can think of for putting a hit out on a child who’s just been born and couldn’t have personally wronged anyone yet:
1) To deny them an inheritance.
2) To eliminate proof of an affair.
3) To eliminate proof of a crime.
The woman that claims to be Mizu’s mother is Japanese, so Mizu assumes her father must be white. But once Fowler reveals that Mizu’s “mother” was actually her maid, it opens up the possibility that Mizu’s mother was white and her father was Japanese.
We know that someone is willing to a pay a lot of money to kill Mizu, but the maid also ran off with enough money to take care of Mizu for several years, so at least one person in this mess is wealthy. We also know that someone still wants Mizu dead when she's an adult because men come to kill her when her husband rats her out, so she’s still a threat to someone else’s interests at that time.
If the Shogun slept with a white woman and fathered a mix-raced child as a result, that would fulfill all three reasons to put a bounty on a baby. Killing her would remove any chance that a bastard might try to blackmail her way into an inheritance, it would remove proof that the Shogun had an affair, and most importantly, it would destroy evidence that he violated his own laws against Western influence by sleeping with a white woman.
But the True Culprit is…
But I don’t think the Shogun put the bounty on Mizu’s life. I think it was the Shogun’s wife, Lady Itoh, for several reasons:
1) Lady Itoh is willing to kill people who learn that her husband broke his own laws.
When the nobles are trying to escape the fire in the finale, Lady Itoh makes her sons lock the door behind them and sentence the other Lords to death because they witnessed the Shogun’s shame, the revelation that he broke his own laws by dealing with Fowler, a white man. She’s demonstrated that she’s willing to kill people to destroy proof of her husband’s violations, so she’d do the same to a mixed-race baby he fathered. It would also explain why Mizu’s maid never claimed the bounty herself; she would have been targeted for death too because she knew about the Shogun’s crime. She probably took whatever money was in the house when the killers came for Mizu, and went on the run as much to save her own life as Mizu's.
2) The woman’s a sadist.
Lady Itoh does everything she can to make Akemi’s life hell once she marries into the family. She saddles her with bitchy attendants and serves her disgusting food at the banquet, and finishes it off with the cooked remains of the bird Akemi tried to free. Then she sends her two more birds the next day, claiming they’re breakfast and lunch. I have no trouble believing this woman would put a hit on a baby!
3) She’s a hardliner against Western influence
After the fire, Lady Itoh orders her sons to destroy 2000 guns which they could have used in the future against their enemies because she’d so fiercely against Western influence. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who came up with the law banning white people and talked her husband into enacting it. That would explain why the Shogun was willing to violate the law, because he didn’t completely believe in it and only enacted it to get his wife off his back.
It Fits a Common Theme of Revenge Stories
Another reason I think Lady Itoh is the ultimate villain is because it fits the common theme that revenge is futile. Revenge usually destroys the person seeking it just as much as anyone they go after. There is a famous quote from Confucius that says, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." The implication is that the second one is for yourself.
If it turns out that Mizu has been going after the only four men in the country who couldn’t be her father, it would demonstrate how misguided revenge quests are. She’s spent her whole life pouring hatred into the wrong mission.
It would also be a painful twist to know that Mizu was in the same room with Lady Itoh in the finale, but she was focused on killing Fowler instead of realizing that her true enemy was fleeing out the back door with everyone else.
How It Will All Sort Out
I predict that Mizu will eventually learn the truth about her parentage and ultimately target Lady Itoh for death, not just for revenge, but so she can permanently remove the bounty on her head and live her life freely as a woman.
Akemi might end up assisting Mizu since Lady Itoh is also her enemy. Akemi will probably spend season two battling Lady Itoh for control of the household, and thus the country. If Akemi can put her husband in place as the Shogun, she could remove the bounty on Mizu's head.
If Taigan ends up working as a castle guard, this might put him in conflict with Mizu and Akemi if they target Lady Itoh since he would be honor bound to protect her.
It will be interesting to see how it all sorts out!
ETA: I misspelled Lady Itoh's name, sorry! (According to the subtitles it's Itoh, not Ito) I think I fixed every instance.
605 notes
·
View notes
Thinking abt ages of blue eye samurai characters.
Mizu is like. Im pretty sure canonically 19/20. Im leaning towards 20, cuz im choosing to believe fowler meant 20 years literally n the white men came to japan also during the spring. Its just a very literal n simple read of the scene but yh im choosing that. Mizu is a spring bby :'))
Ringo, as carefree and unburdened as he may act, he is not a child or even a man-child, hes an adult man who's just very very sweet n cute. Imo? He's like. 23. Hes just infantilized a lot by his father n others that he seems way younger
Taigen is only a few months older than Mizu imo. They seemed basically the same age as children, but i think taigen is justtt a wee bit older, n yes he does use that against mizu when he finds out. Im votingggg a november bby. Between autumn n winter
Akemi i can only see as being 21/22 for some reason. Idk if its even logical i just see that. I need to research more into what edo period japan thought was normal for when a woman should beat children, but i think it was young, like maybe around the 18 years of age. It also depends on how old do those men think a woman needs to be before shes barren or smth. I do think akemi is 22, more because its obvious she is still young, but not a teenager.
For funsies i think takayoshi is like. Between 25-27. Im still undecided. But he is a few years older than akemi. I dont think hes older solely cuz hes the younger brother, n im just going off of what i see in their mother, but if she had the eldest son at 18, and i hc her as being around 45-50, then i think he has to be (the older brother) around 27-32. She probably had the two sons n they went "thats good enough, anyways", n left it at that.
88 notes
·
View notes