On untold forums and blogs, Blue Eye Samurai has been praised as the best "anime" in a while but it really isn't. It's great, yes, but not anime. Not only does it not actually qualify as "Japanese animation" (despite what the setting and largely Asian cast might have people think), being produced in English by French and American studios, but it certainly doesn't have the stylistic choices and big-eyed over-the-top expressions we'd ordinarily expect from an anime.
These are characters with realistic features, whose thrashings and slashings deal damage that feels agonizingly real. Still, it is a highly expressive show in terms of art direction -- the angles, the lighting, the speed of the visuals, etc. The animation is a sort of hybrid of 2D and 3D that recalls movies like Klaus, just with decidedly less cheerful-looking characters. The aim of the creators was to create "moving paintings" that combine the works of Kurosawa with bunraku puppetry. The show achieves all of this and more.
All of it is carried by a majorly compelling protagonist, a scowling onna-musha named Mizu, who is both unthinkably badass and terribly pitiable at the right moments.
Disguised as a man, donning shades to conceal her blue "mixed-race" eyes, and damn good with a sword, her story has been dubbed "Mulan meets Kill Bill", yet I feel as if she exists in a category all her own. The side characters are also memorable, including an optimistic cook, a kindly princess, an over-confident swordsman, and a smug Irish villain.
If I were to find anything at all to complain about, it would be that Blue Eye Samurai sometimes feels distractingly like a video game, albeit one that would kick ass. Would it kick the same quantities of ass as the show? That's hard to imagine. All I know is, I'd love to give it a try.
These are characters with realistic features, whose thrashings and slashings deal damage that feels agonizingly real. Still, it is a highly expressive show in terms of art direction -- the angles, the lighting, the speed of the visuals, etc. The animation is a sort of hybrid of 2D and 3D that recalls movies like Klaus, just with decidedly less cheerful-looking characters. The aim of the creators was to create "moving paintings" that combine the works of Kurosawa with bunraku puppetry. The show achieves all of this and more.
All of it is carried by a majorly compelling protagonist, a scowling onna-musha named Mizu, who is both unthinkably badass and terribly pitiable at the right moments.
Disguised as a man, donning shades to conceal her blue "mixed-race" eyes, and damn good with a sword, her story has been dubbed "Mulan meets Kill Bill", yet I feel as if she exists in a category all her own. The side characters are also memorable, including an optimistic cook, a kindly princess, an over-confident swordsman, and a smug Irish villain.
If I were to find anything at all to complain about, it would be that Blue Eye Samurai sometimes feels distractingly like a video game, albeit one that would kick ass. Would it kick the same quantities of ass as the show? That's hard to imagine. All I know is, I'd love to give it a try.