Even if you are not usually a fan of animation, the cast of Blue Eye Samurai should make you look its way. Kenneth Branagh, George Takei, Randall Park and Disney star Brenda Song take their parts in a huge, starry ensemble cast. But Pen15’s Maya Erskine is the lead as Mizu, the blue-eyed samurai of the title, who carves a gruesome path through 17th-century Japan on a mission to avenge those responsible for the death of her mother.
This is Edo-era Japan, in which borders have been sealed and outsiders (and children born to outsiders) are considered to be “less than human”, “monsters” and “impure”. Mizu’s blue eyes give her away as the child of a “white devil”. There are only four white men in Japan at this time, and she sets out to kill all of them. In flashbacks to her childhood, we see her tormented by the local children. She is saved only by a blind sword maker who, believing her to be a boy – or perhaps simply pretending to – takes her in as his apprentice.
