What do you get when the screenwriter of two of the best R-rated genre films released in the past decade — Logan and Blade Runner 2049 — decides to turn to animation? Netflix’s new, very adult animated series Blue Eye Samurai, evidently. The new series just dropped its very adult first trailer today, showcasing its bloody revenge storyline and distinctive, don’t-call-it-anime visual style.
Michael Green, the aforementioned writer, joined forces with his wife, Amber Noizumi to write the series after being inspired by their own half-Asian, blue-eyed daughter. The eight-part series tells the story of Mizu (voiced by Maya Erskine), a mixed-race master of the sword who disguises herself as a samurai in order to get revenge on her white father for killing her Japanese mother. A lot of blood is spilled as she does so.
While the show may look and feel like other Netflix anime at first glance, it is evidently not. “This is not anime,” Green said in a press release put out by Netflix. “As much as we are fans of anime, it’s a very different aesthetic. It is a 2D/3D hybrid, utilizing technologies of both, but even when we use 3D, we wanted it to have a 2D handcrafted feel. We did use a lot of filmmaking techniques that don’t always show up in animated television, including a pre-visualization department, a stuntvis department, and a wardrobe department.”
The approach definitely delivers a somewhat unique style that almost feels rotoscoped and has a live-action quality that anime often lacks. The voice cast is also pretty filmic, pulling in major names, including George Takei (Seki), Masi Oka (Ringo), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (The Swordmaker), Brenda Song (Akemi), Darren Barnet (Taigen), Randall Park (Heiji Shindo), and Kenneth Branagh (Abijah Fowler). Supporting voice cast includes Stephanie Hsu (Ise), Ming-Na Wen (Madame Kaji), Harry Shum Jr. (Takayoshi) and Mark Dacascos (Chiaki).
Blue Eye Samurai will drop on November 3.
