Blue Eye Samurai Season 1 Recap: Mizu’s Revenge Story Explained Before Season 2(Photo Credit –Netflix)
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Blue Eye Samurai is an acclaimed animated series that originally premiered on Netflix in November 2023 and has recently been confirmed to be in production for a second season. The series is set in Japan’s Edo period, and follows the story of a half-white, half-Japanese female Samurai named Mizu, who’s on a vendetta against four white men, including her father, for ruining her life.
The series was created by husband and wife team Michael Green and Amber Noizumi ,who work for the French studio Blue Spirit. Read on for a recap of everything that happened in the first season.
Blue Eye Samourai Is A Story Of Revenge
Blue Eye Samurai’s main protagonist is Mizu (Maya Erskine), a half-white elite samurai, or bushi, who has grown into a deeply bitter woman thanks to the discrimination and cruelty she faced growing up. Demonized for her ethnicity and mixed birth, Mizu makes it her mission to hunt down the four white men responsible for her birth and troubled childhood.
In season 1, Mizu’s primary target is Abijah Fowler, an arms dealer from Ireland who’s in cahoots with Japanese crime boss Heiji Shindo. While he’s the only one of the four men Mizu crosses paths with in the season, he proves himself to be a vicious schemer who’s plotting to overthrow the current Shogun and leave Japan open to being colonized by the British.
In her vendetta against Abijah, Mizu first targets his friend and partner in crime, Violet, who dies very quickly at her hand.
Mizu begins to cut a path to Heiji Shindo’s crime syndicate by interrogating the human trafficker about his whereabouts. She uncovers a lead to the Shindo dojo, which Heiji’s brother is the master of. After being turned away, Mizu forces her way through the dojo and defeats the champion, Taigen, who bullied her as a child. As a result, she discovers the location of Heiji Shindo’s island fortress.
Mizu is subsequently accompanied by a naïve former cook named Ringo as she seeks to clear a path to the fortress, and is hounded by the Four Fangs, a gang of mercenaries in the employ of Shindo and Fowler. She eventually kills them all, but is harassed by Taigen, who wants a rematch. She doesn’t get a chance to honor his demand as she collapses from blood loss. Taigen later agrees to hold off the duel until Mizu’s recovered.
Eventually, Heiji arranges a meeting with Mizu and offers to pay her off, or smuggle her in a liquor barrel to get her to Abhijah Fowler, but Mizu refuses to trust him and slices his arm off.
In her search for another lead, she visits Madam Kaji’s brothel to get a lead on how Heiji Shindo is able to transport prostitutes to his fortress, which leads to a face-off against Kaji’s enemies, known as the “Thousand Claws”. After a grueling battle against them, Mizu learns of a secret passage that can get her within striking distance of Shindo and Fowler, but she’s discovered before she can strike them down.
Fowler and Heiji end up escaping, causing Mizu to head for the Shogunate and prevent Fowler’s plans from coming to pass. Mizu fails to save the Shogun’s life, though her intervention allows his family to escape. Determined to stop Fowler from escaping her at any cost, Mizu sets the place ablaze, resulting in the Great Fire of Meireki.
Once she’s finally caught up with Fowler, he bargains for his life by promising to lead her to two of her remaining targets, Skeffington and Routely, who are currently in London. Mizu concedes to his terms and takes him prisoner, with season 2 of Blue Eye Samurai set to follow her quest for vengeance as it continues in London.
