John Wick Meets Shogun In Netflix’s 8-Part Action Thriller

Revenge is one of the most popular themes in all of fiction, because everyone can relate to it. Everyone can relate to the impulse to exact justice when we’re wronged. Movies like Death Wish and Taken and John Wick allow us to live vicariously through characters who are much tougher and more powerful than us. It can be deeply cathartic to see Charles Bronson or Pam Grier or Keanu Reeves take a double-barrel shotgun to the monsters who killed their family.

But the best revenge stories also dig a little deeper. One who seeks vengeance must dig two graves, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, etc. The Last of Us Part II is a revenge story, just like Foxy Brown or Django Unchained or, indeed, John Wick, but it digs a little deeper into the mental toll of the hero’s bloodshed. As Ellie seeks to avenge her father figure, she gets drawn into an endless cycle of violence that just causes more death and destruction without solving anything.

Now that we’ve seen stories like The Last of Us Part II and The Raid 2 and Unforgiven that have explored the devastating consequences of revenge, traditional revenge stories have lost a bit of their luster. They need to do more than just have a terrible person do a terrible thing, then show the hero hunting them down for some sweet vigilante justice.

It’s still thrilling to watch a character like John Wick massacre a bunch of people who have wronged him, but it’s a lot more engaging to see the harrowing ramifications of that violence. The most compelling revenge stories have all the grisly satisfaction of a John Wick movie, but with the deeper emotional cues of The Last of Us Part II. Something like Blue Eye Samurai — one of the greatest original animated shows on Netflix — gets to have its cake and eat it, too.

Blue Eye Samurai Is A Visually Stunning Character Study

Set during Japan’s Edo period, Blue Eye Samurai follows a blue-eyed bushi named Mizu, who sets out to exact revenge against four white men — one of whom is her father — who illegally stayed in Japan after its borders were closed by the Tokugawa shogunate. As Mizu sets out to check off every name on her death list, Kill Bill-style, she learns that turning her vengeful desires into actions won’t be as simple as she thought. Wanting someone dead and striking them down are two very different things.

Blue Eye Samurai is gorgeously animated, with stunning landscapes and eye-popping action beats, but it’s not just a visual feast; it’s also a deeply involving emotional journey. The visuals are just the gravy on top of powerful, poignant character development. The series never loses its focus on character, no matter how action-packed or high-stakes it gets, and that made it stand out from other entries in its genre.

The series was created and written by Amber Noizumi and Michael Green, who are married in real life, so the whole thing is a family affair. PEN15’s Maya Erskine gives a wonderfully nuanced turn as Mizu, and she’s backed up by an all-star voice cast: George Takei, Brenda Song, Randall Park, Kenneth Branagh — every other character is played by a voice you recognize. And the writing is fully deserving of their talents; even the minor characters are so complex and well-developed that they need the gravitas of a Branagh to bring them to life.

Blue Eye Samurai has been renewed for a second season that’s set to be released at some point in 2026 (although we don’t have a firm date, so that’s looking increasingly dubious), so it’s the perfect time to catch up. Even if you’re not a big animation fan, this is television at its finest.

Blue Eye Samurai

Release Date

November 3, 2023

Showrunner

Michael Green, Amber Noizumi

•