October 30th, 2023 
Jackson Murphy 
Let’s go to Japan in the 1600’s and meet an incredibly skilled swordmaster who’s hiding her true identity while also being a badass. It’s the new adult animated series Blue Eye Samurai, premiering Friday November 3rd on Netflix. Creators, writers and EPs Amber Noizumi and Michael Green (who are also wife and husband) join me for this Animation Scoop Q&A. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: Amber, how did you want main character Mizu to shine? She is quite a lead.
Amber Noizumi: She’s half-Japanese. I’m half-Japanese. It’s a little bit of my fantasy of cutting down some a–holes. Ultimately it’s a great character — somebody who’s internalized a lot of self-loathing, dehumanization and is on a journey to get her revenge but also find some healing in the process.
JM: Quite a journey. Michael, you know a lot about heroes. You worked on the NBC show “Heroes” and wrote “Logan” to an Oscar nomination. So what goes into crafting the perfect hero, like Mizu?
MG: It starts with, “What are they after and what journey is that going to take them on?” I love a grumpy hero — they have what they want, which is very different from what they need. When you have a single-minded hero… Mizu’s on her revenge quest… anytime someone kind of innocently pokes that character, it’s really fun. You can start to see the obstacles that get in their way and become the story.
JM: And when it comes to Mizu’s revenge, Amber, it’s a big theme. How did you want to showcase that over the arc of the season and bring the emotions out of this character?
AN: We wanted her to be so laser-focused, single-minded on this idea of revenge, thinking that this is what was going to make her whole… finally make her satisfied. And along the way she’s going to realize that maybe this isn’t what’s going to make her satisfied.
MG: Doesn’t mean she’s giving up on the revenge.
AN: No, no, no.
MG: She’s still gonna cut some throats. But there’s more too.
Amber Noizumi, Michael Green and Jackson Murphy
JM: This show is so big on atmosphere. You use the elements of water and fire — fire and icicles crackling. Michael, what goes into capturing that?
MG: Take your time, sometimes. In television, sometimes people fear losing their audience so much that they jack the stories with cutaways… “Get to the cool thing fast!” We love steeping. It’s a show about process. If we’re making noodles, let’s watch the dough roll out. Let’s take our time there. If we’re watching swordsmithing, I want slow-motion of hammerscale falling off and sparks coming at camera. We wanted the sound to be transporting — and the whole thing to be experiential. Everyone was on board for that. Usually you get from your studio or network, “Cut that! Cut that! It’s too quiet!” And here everyone’s like, “No! Let’s hang!”
JM: That works. There’s a lot of good walking sequences.
MG: Yeah. We made sure we didn’t do too much. Yes, first cuts of the show in animatic…
AN: There was a lot of walking!
MG: A lot of walking! And we were like, “Okay, we’re gonna wear out her bamboo shoes with that amount of walking.” But we made sure to keep it. We wanted it to be elemental — every frame to have something blowing, something in the foreground, background and middle.
JM: And the swordsmith sequences are very good, as are the samurai sequences. Everybody’s gonna be talking about these. So Amber, what goes into deciding how much blood spews out of someone?
AN: Look, there were a lot of conversations about that. There were some iterations where we were like, “Eh, that’s a little too much” or “That’s not enough.” But ultimately, Mizu has such a raw rage and you can’t articulate that without a lot of blood spilling out. You gotta sometimes hear the pumping of the blood out of a person, because you feel what she’s feeling. It’s definitely for adults but it was necessary violence.
JM: Right. A lot of good characters, including apprentice Ringo, voiced by Masi Oka. Michael, I like his spirit.
MG: That’s what we’re hoping. He’s someone who has been marginalized as well. He’s disabled and is looked at as “other”. But he’s dignified about it. He has found a way to survive in the world. He makes do. Worked with Masi Oka on “Heroes”. When we were writing this character we were like, “It’s probably Masi, right?” In everything he does… if you want to get the biggest laugh in a show, cast Masi and have him just say earnest things. It becomes not just funny but delightful because he brings that. There’s something in him. He can embody innocence so well. He believes. For Mizu, it’s the first time she’s ever met anyone who looks at her and gasps in belief.
JM: Before getting into this show, has there always been a lot of love of animation between the two of you?
AN: We both definitely had a big appreciation for animation. It was not something we thought we could get into until now. We’ve been spinning this tale for 15 years… 10 years before we got into production on it and realized, “How can we tell this tale?” We realized, “We gotta do it in animation.” And we had to learn.
MG: Work with great people and learn a lot.
AN: Someone’s gonna have to teach us, and they did.
JM: Wow. Great perseverance. What kept you going for 10 years before you got into production on this?
MG: We just knew we had a great story. Once we got this idea of Mizu and her quest, it was too rich. A character who’s story, situation after situation, just presented itself. How could we ever shoot something like that? Adult animation was the answer. The second that clicked we were like, “We gotta pitch this.” Someone bought it. We wrote it. And then animation itself takes time. We’ve been in production ever since.
JM: Congratulations on making it happen. Amber, the character of Princess Akemi (voiced by Brenda Song), stands up for what she believes in, which is a powerful theme.
AN: She is a bit of a foil to Mizu. She lives this pampered life, and we have a lot of themes about what the available options for women were at the time. Mizu has to disguise herself because their vengeance was not an option. Being a samurai really wasn’t an option at the time. Akemi has kind of the best version of being a woman at the time but you still see that she’s miserable. She has to go on her own journey to find herself. They learn from each other.
JM: Michael, you have written all three Hercule Poirot movies for Kenneth Branagh who voices a character [Abijah Fowler] on this show. Did you have to convince him to come on board?
MG: We asked very nicely, and he very nicely said, “Yes.” He’s a lovely man and ridiculously gifted in so many categories. He loves animation. He read the script and said, “That sounds great. Let’s do it.”
JM: Terrific. How about the music, especially when it comes to the samurai scenes?
MG: It was about building the world. One thing went into making the music work: hiring Amie Doherty.
AN: She is incredibly talented.
MG: We showed her the scripts and early animatics of what we were working on. She was a very early hire. She went off and wrote a suite of music that is the suite of the show. We could feel what Mizu’s arc was going to be. We could feel Akemi. We could feel battle. It was a combination of asking her what she thinks it should be and us telling her what the emotions and space wants to be and what the tone is. And we learned by the end just saying, “Amie, what do you think we should do?” “Okay. We should do that!” We learned to trust our ridiculously talented composer.
JM: Nice. What goes into making a good flashback sequence? We’ve got a lot of interesting, pivotal ones here.
MG: Making sure the audience is oriented — so they can clearly see the transition. And making sure it doesn’t feel cuttable by making it be really integral to the story you’re telling. If you pulled it out, you wouldn’t understand. And because it’s animation, we made sure the flashbacks looked different. The color palette is different. It was always a memory play. Things are a little bit more intense and surreal. The skies are more purple. The rain is heavier.
AN: And also some credit goes to the editors, who definitely have to cut it at a pace to make you feel it — to make it visceral.
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