#fowler blue eye samurai

[lovesick-pearl]

hear me out

[hastyprovocateur]

Mizu's a good person which is why she believes she's an onryo. There's things she's done already done that she finds reprehensible without considering that it's a consequence of being in a patriarchal, autocratic, immoral, masochistic social system where the weak are singled out and eaten alive. For eg, killing Kinuyo became a core memory for Mizu, something she finds shame in having done. She understands that Kinuyo was wronged fundamentally by her own father and Hamata but is unable to use the same to relieve herself of the guilt. She is nowhere close to the evil that actual men in the time period were (and are) and she knows this but somewhere deep down, finds it much easier to just... take the blame. Be the bad guy. Be the one at fault. Because that's all she's done her whole life. Consider that someone who has been systemically taught to always take the blame (In Mizu's case, by her mom, social prejudice, childhood bullies, her own husband) will become obsessed by their faults to the point that they can't physically operate outside those very faults. Mizu operates on this crux of her internal struggle. The needless violence she has willingly embarked on eats her inside but if she stops, all the innocent people whom she sacrificed in the process would have died for nothing which is why she persists. She's unlike Fowler who doesn't base his peace on all his children he's killed. As a man, he believes he's entitled to kill to survive. He takes pleasure is killing. Mizu doesn't. Each fights hollows her more and pushes her towards becoming an onryo. Self sabotage. It's easier for her to think she has nothing else to live for because choosing love would be so overwhelming. Being despicable is easier. Easier to kill and carry the guilt. Because if she dares to reach for love again... instead of the sword, it'll cut her deeper than any masterfully rendered blade. And if she lets go of the fight, she will have to accept that the part of her that was wronged doesn't exist anymore. Which isn't true. She still carries that pain. And nothing but her own acceptance will ease that pain. Ringo, Taigen and Akemi are seeing Mizu for the person she is now and none of them, I attest as per the writing, considered her to be an onryo until Mizu herself reinforced that. She craves their love, companionship and vulnerability but she is the only one who needs to see herself as worthy of it. Worthy of being more than just a sword. She needs to see that she is indeed a good master to Ringo, that she is a skillful, selfess comrade to Taigen and to Akemi... she can be a better man than any.

[solaredflare]

abijah fowler and heiji shindo are so toxic yaoi

[sad-endings-suck]

blue eye samurai popped off so hard in every department, but this post specifically is a shoutout to the character designers who manage to put so much personality, life, and uniqueness into each and every character to create a signature art style, while still maintaining realistic-like proportions and features that are more reminiscent of live action than animation.

not a single character with speaking lines or more than 3 secs of screen-time looks anything like any other character unless it’s intentional (i.e. resemblance between family members). not only are there so many different body types, but no one’s body is ridiculously proportioned. some characters are very thin (heiji), others are very large (shogun’s emissary), some are quite powerfully built (chiaki)… but then there’s everything else in between!! mizu is very lean and androgynous, and she definitely has muscles, but she’s not ridiculously skinny, nor does she greatly lack softness in her torso, hips, and chest. mizu very much has a woman’s body, her proportions are just not exaggerated to make her look overtly masculine or overtly feminine. unlike some other animes that would absolutely give mizu ridiculously defined muscle mass and 8-pack abs, or maybe a 10 inch waist and huge boobs (that she magically hid completely with some diy fabric bindings and a dream) and then credit those choices to “art style”.

ringo is on the bigger softer side physique-wise, and his body is a perfectly normal human body that any normal person may potentially have! akemi and taigen are both conventionally attractive within the story, but even still, neither is the perfect personification of masculine or feminine “beauty”. yes akemi is very petite and slim, with a more hourglass shape, but she still very much has a body type that some real people naturally have. she has a stomach! and i don’t mean that she has a protruding stomach, i just mean her stomach actually exists. so does mizu’s, even if they both have small flat stomachs, they still very much don’t have itty bitty anime waists. though they are both slender women, they have actual room for organs and ribs in their torsos!! or on the other end of things, there’s taigen, who may be very athletically built, but again, it’s not to an impossible degree or standard. he still very much has the build of a real human person, not a comic book hero with a 12-pack. even fowler, who is on the heavier-set side (presumably from his lifestyle, surviving famine, etc) also has strength to his build that many other characters do not, indicating he does keep up with his training and is very much physically dangerous.

and that’s just the body diversity! we are shown characters and character models of young adults, mature adults, babies, seniors, young children, older children, teens, etc. women in their 40s/50s/60s (madame kaji, lady itoh, “mama”).

hell, the fact that the art style can be so consistent throughout, and yet akemi looks like she’s been rendered in watercolours, whereas taigen appears as if he’s been painted with acrylic is crazy!! or how well the show is able to convey that mizu very much looks like a woman, yet it also convincingly shows us how she’s able to pass as a man through a slew of details is amazing. such as her more androgynous features, her height, a scarf to hide her lack of adam’s apple, hat to conceal her features, orange tinted glasses the cancel out the blue of her eyes, baggy pants and boxy top to hide her silhouette, poncho and sword positioned to give the illusion she takes up more space in the world LIKE A MAN WOULD and so much more.

It’s just so beautiful to see, not only because it speaks to the skill of the creatives and the level of care and attention to detail with which this story was clearly made, but also because it proves you don’t have to “choose” between a distinct art/animation style and diversity. by combining animation and live action, and using the best aspects of both, blue eye samurai has managed to capture something that no other animated production I’ve seen, has (no, not even arcane). and that is allowing the personhood and character of a live action actor/model to come through in the character they are portraying. no matter how much beautiful animation i watch, there is almost always some level of “default” face, body type, height, or facial features that are consistent across every character, and blue eye samurai proves that this is not just due to “art style”. it’s a limitation of the medium of animation (to an extent), or at least, it was.

we live in an era where plastic surgery, photo/video retouching, workout supplements, trendy scheme diets, beauty consumerism, etc, are at an all time high. so it’s such a relief to see an animated project of all things choose to reflect real human appearances in its work, and not only that, but do so without ever commenting on it. as an animated project, it could “beautify” its characters as much as it likes to make them all same-face/same-body conventionally attractive, and excuse it as their “art style”. but blue eye samurai does not do that. they said “no, we can do better. we can do way better” and they did. the way bes is shot leaves no room for women (or anyone) to be sexualized or objectified, regardless of how much nudity and sex there is in the show. it demonstrates that sexuality and sexualisation are in no way inherently synonymous. there are no unnecessary comments about a character’s body that feel off or not in tune with the social perceptions of the time period in which the story is set. it’s just amazing to see.

[absolute-fool-for-now]

OKAY last times the charm, I now have a good way to make small animatics

[that-one-weeb-buts-its-the-main]

Someone: What's ur type right now?

Me: Square *old* mentally unstable animated men + scruffy

Someone: What?

Me:

[artoriarts]

more scrappy art because my brain can’t commit rn, here’s The e Asshole

[unstablebr0]

Hear me out on those two

[pyromanicfool]

I know my daddy issues are bad bc why is Fowler kinda hot in a "my taste in men is a form of self harm" way. FUCK lmaooo. My taste in men is literally the ones who would assault and kill me. Send help.

[beelzebubsbois]

SPOILERS FOR BLUE EYE SAMURAI

Okay, so is no one gonna talk about Fowler literally getting fucking pegged in ep 7??? (Could have been ep 6 or 7 but I don't remember)

I need someone else to fucking acknowledge that shit.

A WOMAN WAS FUCKING HIM IN THE ASS WITH THE LONG ASS NOSE OF A DEVIL MASK???

[sourjabloki]

tumblr posts with these two give me life inspired by @carrot-love-to-be-indecisive post

[lovesick-pearl]

genderbend Fowler lives in my head rent free +Shindo

[hastyprovocateur]

Can someone please help me find where the track "Thankyou for my Ember" plays in the show? Because I heard it in ep 4 when Akemi serves Mizu the drugged sake but I'm not sure if it's the exact track. Like does it play anywhere else? I'm trying to figure something out.

[peach-cream-tea]

Blue Eye Samurai memes lol

i know this isn't my usual content but i'm getting severe brain rot and will die if i don't share my content

[sad-endings-suck]

i’m not gonna do it, i’m not gonna do it, i’m not— fuck it i’m gonna do it

ok. does anyone care if i make tumblr fandom circa 2014-esque moodboard edits sourced from aesthetic images on pinterest for blue eye samurai or nah?

if anyone has any ideas or idk feel slightly invested in what they could look like/be, pls let me know. i’m mapping out some ideas and trying to find a theme or pattern of some kind for consistency.

currently thinking of maybe doing character moodboards with element associations for mizu (water), taigen (earth), akemi (fire), and ringo (air). (maybe fowler, madame kaji, swordfather, and others too eventually, but idk about that).

anyway, feel free to drop in my asks, my messages, comments and/or reblogs on this post, or whatever you’d prefer. I’d love some insight or ideas from those of you with metas or hc.

thanks !! 💕🥹🙈✨

[absolute-fool-for-now]

Please ignore how fucked the insta handle got, I've been trying to fight Instagram for a while to make this animatic