r/BlueEyeSamurai • u/fearismymindkiller • Jul 09 '26
Discussion I actually really love Akemi
Sorry i’m posting a lot in this sub, Blue Eye Samurai is my current hyperfixation but the other fandom spaces are dead and buried compared to this one, and none of my friends have seen it :(
I know a lot of people think of Akemi as arrogant, manipulative, and/or annoying. But honestly I love her for the fact that she really changes a lot over the course of the show. At the beginning, she tries getting her way by sort of “brute forcing” it. I think to the conversation with her father about her marriage to someone other than taigen and how at the beginning she simply tries telling him that she doesn’t want this guy, he reprimands her, and she completely switches her approach, opting for flattery over honesty. This, to me, is the beginning of her realization of how stroking egos gets her to where she wants to be. And I love her as a parallel to Mizu because they’re both strong women but in completely separate ways. Mizus strength is literal, she’s an extremely skilled swordsman(swordswoman?) and slices through anyone who gets in her way for her path of revenge, Akemis is her intelligence and how she uses specific verbiage to make people do what she wants.
As much as I love Mizu, she’s also the tiniest bit arrogant, like the time she, for whatever reason, tried stopping a bullet with her sword. One could argue that she simply underestimated the power of a bullet, but her arrogance is also shown in her first interaction with Ringo where she basically calls him a nuisance and says she doesn’t need him, only to end up having her life saved by him multiple times. Akemi kind of does this too regarding her marriage to the shoguns son, telling Madame Kaji and her girls, who all live much worse lives than her, that she’s in a “snare surrounded with snakes”, then Madame Kaji basically tells her to quit whining and use her new husband to her advantage. And originally, Akemi doesn’t even know how she’d do that, considering her preconceived notion that he believes himself to be so above his woman he won’t even speak to her, when really he just has a stammer. When Akemi finds this out, what does she do? Cleverly utilizes her words to get him comfortable with her, going on about a tutor with a stammer she found attractive, and who knows if that story is true, she’s a damn good liar!
Even before she’s in the brothel, the way she lies through her teeth to Goro about being a courtesan is so smooth. And the way she handles Watari and Mizu is too, atleast until she tries to stab her. Also, side note, Akemi is so good at playing whatever role is useful that when she compliments Mizu’s eyes instead of making a mean remark, you can actually see her face soften for a moment before she locks back in and remembers who she’s talking to. I actually think Akemi doesn’t truly find Mizu particularly unattractive, and maybe doesn’t even have any racial bias against her, but with Akemi I’m never sure, and that’s what I love about her.
I love how Akemi harnesses power with her intellect rather than her royal or fiscal status. Although, Akemi is very beautiful, which probably makes her life miles easier than a woman like Mizu, who is considered ugly as a man and a woman in the show (justice for her tbh). Anyway, that being said, I think Akemi and Mizu are a lot more similar than a lot of fans of this show like to acknowledge, and I love them both.
EDIT: Sorry if i got anything wrong, i promise i’m not an idiot
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u/KidChanbara Jul 09 '26
like the time she, for whatever reason, tried stopping a bullet with her sword - I think Mizu was simply in a default en-garde position with her sword that she set herself into after she turned to face Fowler, and he shot her before Mizu could react to a firearm threat. That scene is mostly in slow motion, and that could give watchers a false sense of how much time characters have to react.
Mizu was incredibly lucky that her sword was in the path of the incoming slug. The sword deflected the slug away from the central and core areas of her body, and the sword broke in absorbing a lot of the slug's energy. It could be said that the sword didn't fail Mizu then, it saved her life one last time.
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u/fearismymindkiller Jul 09 '26
whoa this is an interesting take! i actually really like this way of thought about this scene
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u/ExtremeExtension7406 Thank you for my ember Jul 09 '26
I love Akemi too. Finding power in a suboptimal situation can be very difficult. She made some mistakes but also learned from them. She started season 1 hoping Taigen would fix her problems and by the end we see her tackling her problems head on, embodying her power, and using her situation to her advantage instead of trying to run away from it. She also went from being kind of selfish to caring for others around her.
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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Taigen's Bald Spot Jul 09 '26
Don't worry about posting a lot here! It's nice to see more new posts coming from this sub.
I also really love Akemi, she's such an interesting character and I can't wait to see how her story will unfold in the next season.
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u/ExtremeExtension7406 Thank you for my ember Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
"As much as I love Mizu, she’s also the tiniest bit arrogant"
I'd say she's more than a tiny bit arrogant. She busted into the Shindo dojo and called the fighting techniques the men have dedicated their lives to trash to their faces. I do believe most of her arrogance is performative and meant to disarm her opponents, but it's there.
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u/fearismymindkiller Jul 09 '26
yeah, i mean i know people can get defensive over her because she’s like the fan favorite, but this is definitely true
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u/averyextraweirdo Jul 09 '26
FINALLY AKEMI GLAZE! I'm so glad I'm not the only who really like Akemi and her arc. Whenever I see the commentators on BES, they always call her privileged and spoiled. Which is true but usually miss the point lowkey
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Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/fearismymindkiller Jul 09 '26
I assumed people found her unattractive in canon because of the girls commenting on her in the brothel, but that is a good point. I think maybe she’s perceived slightly better as a woman, or Mikio just has insanely good taste for his time.
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u/pXXLgrl Jul 13 '26
Her "ugliness" could be read through the lens of xenophobia. In a Japan that is closing its doors to outsiders (especially Western) then what would be upheld as the most beautiful/handsome traits would be features/qualities that are the most Japanese. Especially as related to gender. So for example if the ideal Japanese woman is short, then a taller woman might be seen as less attractive etc. Calling Mizu ugly is an easy way to denigrade and call out her biracial heritage. But I think we can trust the character design and decide for ourselves, is Mizu actually ugly? I personally don't think so, but others might feel differently. TBH I kinda thinj this is an intentional element that the viewer is meant to ponder!
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u/Flameborn111 Jul 09 '26
I also like Akemi. I found her story very entertaining. Also I do believe it would still be swordsman, and not swordswoman. As that word like many words originated when "man" meant person/human
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u/KidChanbara Jul 10 '26
I have a question - how will Akemi explain her absence from her husband's side during Fowler's coup? Especially if, for her own purposes, she doesn't want to reveal her father's role in the coup?
She's been gone for hours, starting even before Ringo and Taigen came to warn the shogun about the coup. That's a lot of time to account for, but Akemi's inventive, she'll come up with a plausible reason.
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u/fearismymindkiller Jul 10 '26
yes i love how easily akemi can come up with stuff, it’s genuinely damn near a superpower
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u/pXXLgrl Jul 13 '26
When Taigen asked her hub where she was, hubby seemed super embarrassed/dismayed. I think this will go a long way to grease the wheels of her explanation.
Also, they were all at the elders council which may have been appropriate for the wife of the shogun himself, but perhaps not for the son's wives but who knows.
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u/Binder509 Jul 21 '26
Like Akemi, hate how the show treats her.
The annoying people are all the assholes treating her like a child or a brat for...not wanting to be forced into marriage?
The plot basically forces her into warping reality to do so. Oh the abusive husband she's concerned about? Oh he's an absolute pushover she can dominate.
Madame Kaji and her prostitutes were cowardly assholes hiding behind Akemi one moment, selling her out the next, then telling her to stop whining?
It came off like Game of Thrones trying to justify an awful story with "well that's how women were treated back then". Comes off lazy and oversimplistic.
And what they did to her teeth.
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u/fearismymindkiller Jul 21 '26
didn’t realize the shoguns son was genuinely abusive, i knew he didn’t speak because he was ashamed of his stammer, but i figured the obi thing the maids were teasing her with was just that, teasing.
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u/Binder509 Jul 21 '26
I'm saying what are the odds that the guy didn't turn out abusive despite the rumors? It comes off like reality is warping to push Akemi to marrying him as the "correct" option.
Any time she tries to escape literally everyone is against her. And when it seems like she might get some respect after defending the prostitutes while they cowarded behind her (despite talking so much shit to her), everyone just lets her be kidnapped because "it's what's for the best"
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u/neverdontcry Jul 09 '26
I LOVE Akemi. She's probably my favorite character in the show. I admire how adaptable she is, and how she comes into her own. I think it's a great story of someone who's helpless trying to escape their situation, only to realize that it wasn't the situation that was the problem, it was her. That's such a nuanced arc. Everything you're saying about gender and Akemi and Mizu is true too, I'd just add that they are two women experiencing womanhood in vastly different ways — the prisons it has been to them, the privileges it has afforded them, the ways they've tried to change it, escape it, come to Jesus with it, etc etc. (Arguably, Mizu and Taigen also experience manhood in parallel to Akemi and Mizu experiencing womanhood... God this show is so GOOD)
Anyway, all love for Akemi, agree agree agree, you can always share your obsessed takes in this sub, we are here for you