Blue Eye Samurai takes Mizu, a mixed-race master of the sword, on a perilous path to satisfy her thirst for revenge against four white men who made her life miserable. It is set in 17th-century Japan, when the country is isolated from the world, but is Blue Eye Samurai based on a true story?
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Is Blue Eye Samurai Based on a True Story?
The husband-and-wife team of Michael Green and Amber Noizumi draws a lot of inspiration from real-life people, films, locations, and more to create the realm of Blue Eye Samurai.
As much inspiration the animated series has from these real-life elements, Blue Eye Samurai is not based on a real story. This means that Mizu’s story is only fictional, but a lot of true-to-life elements helped in developing her story.
Hence, there’s no blue-eyed female samurai who’s hungry for revenge at a time when foreigners are banned from Japan.
There was a lot of research done to create Blue Eye Samurai, not to mention a lot of experts that Noizumi and Green recruited to make the animated series authentic and historically accurate to resonate with the viewers, particularly its target audience.
The animated series was 15 years in the making, with Noizumi and Green closing in with production companies and experts to share their vision of Blue Eye Samurai’s beauty and diversity.
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The Real-Life Inspirations Behind Blue Eye Samurai’s Mizu
Interestingly, the title of the animated series is based on the actual nickname Noizumi and Green gave to their blue-eyed daughter who was born in 2008.
Then, Mizu’s story was conceived based on how the creators thought their daughter would be received at different periods in Japanese history.
Aside from her daughter, Noizumi also drew some inspiration from her personal experience in the complexity of different races in Japan.
Her father, who was born in Japan, even told her that even though she was Japanese, she would look white to natives.
It is a reality that Noizumi experiences to this day. Noizumi even mentions that they’re Japanese in America, but they’re white in Japan.
In addition, the supervising director, Jane Wu, also revealed that she took inspiration from a woman like herself who’s trying to navigate Hollywood’s male-dominated space.
On the other hand, there was once a famous blue-eyed samurai who roamed the streets of Japan, and he was none other than William Adams, an Englishman who led a somewhat similar life to Mizu except for the revenge plot.
William Adams was a navigator who made his way to Japan to introduce Western designs to Japanese naval vessels.
He learned how to speak the language fluently, and surprisingly, he became Tokugawa Ieyasu’s key advisor.
Noizumi and Green also honored the Japanese director Kaneto Shindo for fleshing out the leader of the Shindo Dojo, Heiji Shindo’s character in the series.
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Here Are Some Films That Inspired Blue Eye Samurai
The 1973 Japanese jidaigeki film Lady Snowblood directly influenced Blue Eye Samurai.
It is a genre classic that revolves around a Japanese woman named Yuki who wants to avenge her mother and her half-brother from the three people who raped, tortured, and killed them.
The same goes with Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill and the Barbara Streisand film, Yentl. Noizumi and Green even described the entirety of Blue Eye Samurai as “Kill Bill meets Yentl”.
Blue Eye Samurai’s Real-Life Locations
Blue Eye Samurai takes real-life Japanese locations from the port village in Episode 4 to the ranch estate in Episode 5.
The port village in Episode 4 is based on Nagasaki, whereas the ranch estate in Episode 5 is based on a village called Shirakawa-go.
The cliff where Mizu’s fight took place was based on Honshu’s northwestern coast, while Mizu and Taigen grew up in Kohama Village.
Meanwhile, Abijah Fowler’s castle, located on Tanabe Island, is based in the Aomori area. The castle is entirely fictional, but the creators put a lot of effort into creating its layout and design from scratch.
All episodes of Blue Eye Samurai are now available for streaming on Netflix, and it is available with an English sub and dub!
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