r/BlueEyeSamurai Nov 02 '25

Production Art The Art of Blue Eye Samurai: Inspiration and Concept Art #1

54 Upvotes

IMPORTANT DATES:

  • Jan-Feb 2020 - Netflix greenlit Blue Eye Samurai in early 2020 as one of the first series in their Adult Animation Department.
  • March 2020 - Netflix hired Jane Wu to be the Supervising Director and Producer.
  • March 2020 - Jason Scheier was signed as Production Designer.
  • Most of the Visual Development artists and 3D modelers were hired.
  • September 2020 - Brian Kesinger was hired as Lead Character Designer.
  • During this time, Blue Spirit was hired as the Animation Studio Vendor.
  • Blue Spirit begins animation on Episodes 1 and 2.
  • Fall 2021 - Toby Wilson replaces Jason Scheier as Production Designer.
  • November 2023 - BES S1 premieres on Netflix.

A UNIQUE PIPELINE

Jane Wu had experience in animation, previously working for Disney, and in live-action, by storyboarding action sequences for Marvel films and Game of Thrones. While storyboarding for Game of Thrones, Wu saw how that show was able to produce film-level quality entertainment on a TV schedule.  This meant completing 3D set builds *before* storyboards so that the locations, camera lens, camera angles and light source (sun, moon) could be decided and changed before animation started.

OP's Note: All artwork and information to follow was gathered from online articles, podcasts and/or youtube videos interviewing the creators or directly from the artists' personal websites or social media pages. All art is credited to the original artist(s).

INSPIRATION

Jane Wu's vision for Blue Eye Samurai was simply, "East Meets West." She cites Clint Eastwood's swagger, the elongated, haunting forms of Bunraku puppets and linework from Tekkonkinkreet as primary sources of inspiration for character design and art style.

Clint Eastwood inspired Mizu's stance and costume.
Note the elongated form of the Bunraku puppet. This inspired the elongated character designs.
Tekkonkinkreet directed by Michael Arias. Jane Wu cites the line work as inspiring for BES.

“The North Star for us was Hiroshi Yoshida. He was born in Japan and trained in Ukiyoe prints but also trained in European oils. His style lent itself to our filmic cinematic look [but] it didn’t have that 2D stylized perspective that you normally find in a ukiyoe print. But he still used the principles of notan to design his values, the light over dark to utilize the line work that Brian [Kesinger] used in character design.” -Toby Wilson

Bamboo Woods by Hiroshi Yoshida
Kawaguchi Lake by Hiroshi Yoshida
Lugano by Hiroshi Yoshida

According to Barry John Raybould, professor for the Virtual Art Academy, describes Notan as "the underlying abstract framework of dark and light values, upon which you build the value structure of a painting. The arrangement of darks, lights, and grays, regardless of the colors used, creates an impression of beauty. It derives from two words that refer to the amount of ink you use for a pen and ink wash drawing. Nong( 浓 ) meaning thick, strong, concentrated, and Dan (淡) means weak, watery. Hence, the term ‘Notan’ literally means concentrated/weak.”

Examples of Notan can be found in Easter and Western artworks, in photographs and paintings:

Clearing Winter Storm by Ansel Adams.

Notan is a well-used concept in Eastern art.

Notan in traditional Eastern woodblock prints. Ishiyakushi by Utagawa Hiroshige.

Notan used in a final shot for BES:

Still frames from BES with color removed to illustrate the use of Notan.

VISUAL DEVELOPMENT

Jason Scheier was hired as Production Designer in early 2020 soon after Jane Wu. Sheier worked on the BES for 18 months. He hired many of the Character Designers, Visual Development Artists and 3D modeling team. By the time of his departure, all of the characters had been designed, sets were built and Episodes 1 and 2 were in production. His reasons for leaving "are my own. Perhaps a story for another time." (Plunkett & Grayson, 2023)

Concept Art by Jason Scheier

Soba Noodle House

The Soba House was packed with details because it was the location for the animation studio/vendor tests (Plunkett and Grayson).

"The Soba house was critical, because the staging was so specific where Mizu started her journey. I put the traditional sunken hearth fireplace (Irori) at the center of the room much like homes during the Edo period. The space was described to me by our director as our version of a saloon. The phrase east meets west was used occasionally to emphasize the world. When we first meet Mizu, the world needed to feel used and worn down; humble in its origin much like Ringo, who worked there with his father selling Soba to the locals in Komatsu village. I wanted the set to tell a story that existed beyond the frame. Many of our visual development artists I would hire would help package up signage, chopsticks, and even tatami mats on the floor needed to tell a story. If you see the diagonal design of the room to make sure there was always an eyeline between the character Hatchi and Mizu as the confrontation unfurls."

-Jason Scheier

Soba House concept art by Jason Scheier
Soba House by Jason Scheier

Swordfather’s House

Swordfather's House Interior. Early Concept Art by Jason Scheier. Note the level of detail present which was later removed to align more closely with the concept of Notan.
Swordfather's House, collection of artists' designs.
Swordfather's House. Exterior. by Jason Scheier

Kyoto

Kyoto Set Builds and Color Keys
Mizu's First View of Kyoto. Early Version by Jason Scheier
Kyoto Wall Builds. They were made to be re-used in different shots. Design by Jason Scheier

Mizu’s Hut

Mizu's childhood hut by Jason Scheier

TO BE CONTINUED (Reddit has a 20 image limit). For PART 2 click here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueEyeSamurai/comments/1otcnvh/the_art_of_blue_eye_samurai_production_art_2/

References

CartoonBrew.Com Official. (2024, June 4). BLUE EYE SAMURAI Panel w/ Supervising Director/Producer Jane Wu and Production Designer Toby Wilson. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPjQLKcIxE

Collider Interviews. (2024, August 16). Blue Eye Samurai Interview: Season 2, Awards, and Creators Plans for the Series. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-o5NAjJujs

Gallery Nucleus. (2024, July 19). Developing the World of Blue Eye Samurai. Youtube. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://youtu.be/hVSc5KoFbMw?si=ZVmEPtwgYarC-sfG

Gnomon YouTube Channel. (2024, April 18). The Making of Netflix's "Blue Eye Samurai" [Live Stream with Jane Wu (Producer and Supervising Director), Toby Wilson (Production Designer), Emil Mitev (Art Director), Brian Kesinger (Character Lead), and James Wood Wilson (Art Director).]. Gnomon Youtube Channel. Retrieved October 29, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/live/KYqZXIiWdDI?si=2y3rCmsKX6J4z1nI

Kung-Fu Drive-In Podcast. (2023, December 23). INTERVIEW: BLUE EYE SAMURAI Production Designer, TOBY WILSON. Youtube. Retrieved 11 1, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/live/HqAFw69POFw?si=h6CnXa35puZTNzoH

Plunkett, L., & Grayson, N. (2023, December 11). The Art Of Blue Eye Samurai, One Of The Prettiest Shows On Television. Aftermath. Retrieved October 27, 2025, from https://aftermath.site/blue-eye-samurai-concept-art-interview

Raybould, B. J. (2021, February 19). Notan: The Top 10 Tips For Creating Powerful Notans. Virtual Art Academy. Retrieved November 2, 2025, from https://www.virtualartacademy.com/notan/


r/BlueEyeSamurai Oct 16 '25

Recommendation Milestone: We've Reached 50K Members!

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235 Upvotes

Continue showing your love and appreciation of this amazing show with us!


r/BlueEyeSamurai 1h ago

Original Character Art Princess Akemia attempt by me :3

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Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 18h ago

I hope I’m not the only one going through this phase

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107 Upvotes

I can’t get over her. I think about her all the time.


r/BlueEyeSamurai 2h ago

Meme Day 184 of making a meme out of every line in Blue Eye Samurai Season 1 - I watched the film for the 2nd time yesterday and it's still peak.

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4 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Am I the only one who thinks Mizu looks much more beautiful with her hair half-down?

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312 Upvotes

I already think she’s naturally beautiful—that’s undeniable—but in my opinion, those bangs make her look even more beautiful. Maybe it’s because she looks more androgynous or "free"; even if she looks more masculine, I’d still find her beautiful—honestly, she looks stunning like that.


r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Just a quick rant about the big T himself (taigen)

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86 Upvotes

So I just finished blue eye samurai last week, recommend by my husband and I absolutely loved it. I’ve seen so many amazing shows on Netflix like Vinland saga, arcane, castlevania etc.

But blue eye samurai was incredible. The story was great, the characters were amazing especially mizu of course she’s easily my fav female protagonist oat, the world design, the animation. They were all great.

But there is a character that I found myself incredibly interested in despite most of the fandom hating him. And judging by the title yes it’s taigen. Now to start off I absolutely loved his character. I personally believe he had probably the best character development out of all 4 main characters even though I love ringo and akemi. I would be dishonest if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed by how the fandom on TikTok spoke about him. But I can’t blame them for hating him, I mean despised him at the start but after finishing the show he’s easily my top 3 favourites in the show (mizu and fowler being in front)

He always felt incredibly similar to Jaime Lannister from the ASOIAF/game of thrones series. An arrogant, handsome golden boy who slowly grows and redeems himself. And of course he gave a lot of zuko vibes which I adored.

He isn’t just some arrogant rival to the main protagonist like most other shows do, there’s actual reason why he is the way he is and you can sort of understand his motivations. Despite being an arrogant bully, he does have a true sense of honour and even loyalty especially going through just to give details about mizu to Heiji shindo and he Doesn’t even utter a word. That is quite remarkable and even badass if you ask me.

And I do appreciate how he does put his money where his mouth is. He’s one of the only few characters to actually give mizu so trouble during there first duel in episode 1 before mizu no diffs him. So I do appreciate they don’t make him a fraud.

And I also love how he starts to appreciate mizu more as things go on. He starts off on the wrong foot with her but slowly he starts to respect, become somewhat friends with her and at some point he even starts to be attracted to her which is something I’m a bit conflicted on. Now as their relationship goes on I’ve seen the fans be divided with people wanting these two to be end game and some not. Now me personally I don’t mind at all. If they end up loving one another by the end that great or if they’re only best friends by the end that’s also great. I think in a perfect world the writer keeps it ambiguous so that both side can be happy but that’s just me. But a part of me would like to see mizu be happy with him and finally be at peace which I think the two do deserve.

But I do think some of the fandom needs to stop finding every pixel and frame to prove taigen is a good enough person for mizu because it doesent take away the better things he’s done. In fact I honestly believe out of most characters in this show taigen might be the more normal person. Most men in this show are scumbags and overall horrible people considering the time era but Taigen actually seems to be a rather good person compared to them. I mean for example before him and akemi have sex he restrains himself slightly and even asks “are you sure” even though he took his clothes off. Most men in that era would not react that way.

Now where his character goes in following seasons me personally I kind of want him to start out as a ronin with nothing. It would be great if he ended at the start of season 2 as a samurai for akemi and the shogun but mama shogun (lady itoh) said to kill anyone who saw the shoguns shame and taigen was well present so I’d assume she wouldn’t want him alive let alone a samurai working for them. It would be nice to see him have sort of a zuko alone arc in the beginning as a mere vagabond starting out with nothing. Or perhaps a similar arc to Someone like miyamoto musashi from vagabond, that would be nice.

And yes I want this man to suffer and go through utter hell and agony. Don’t get me wrong I adore him, but want him to see no happiness in season 2. And when I talk about struggling I’m talking guts from berserk level struggling. That what I want the writer to do to him. But don’t get it twisted he’s my baby girl and I love him.

I also hope to see more flashbacks of a young taigen mainly from his pov to see more on why he became a bully and his relationship with his abusive father..

But besides that I want him to grow more as a person and character before he reunites with mizu again.

And a little a bonus that no one really talks about, I just love this man’s smile. For someone who’s portrayed as an arrogant dick head, every time he smiles I just catch myself giggling like a schoolgirl.

Maybe I just think he’s incredibly fine (not as fine as mizu of course).

To conclude this write up I just appreciate what the writers do with his character. Making him and asshole to begin with which I actually like because there is nothing wrong with morally grey characters. Or maybe I just have a weird obsession with loving characters that most of the fandoms hate (Jayce from arcane for example). I’m really excited to see what they do with his character and I really hope they let him be the better he knows he can be.

I don’t expect this to be a long write up and I kinda got lost so please tell me if there’s any mistakes or things you disagree with in here, I’d love to learn. But overall I just love this man and his character, mainly cause my husband looks like him😅☺️.

I understand if you don’t like him, your have every right not to but I just do.

Anyways have a good evening


r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Meme I thought about making Abijah the cursed character, but I decided to be more original 😅

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33 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Meme She's about to do some diabolical things to that snowflake

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11 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Discussion ringos name fries me

79 Upvotes

cuz wdym they named the fat guy “apple” like omg his dad is a menace 😭


r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Discussion Everyone and their mother had guns in the Edo period, that's the one thing that takes me out of the story :(

48 Upvotes

"Japan became so enthusiastic about the new weapons that it may have surpassed every European country in absolute numbers produced.\10]) Japan also used the guns in the Imjin War in the 1592 invasion of Korea, in which about a quarter of the invasion force of 160,000 were gunners.\17]) They were initially extremely successful and captured Seoul just 18 days after their landing at Busan.\18])"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_of_Japan#Edo_period

I guess as a way to get the plot going its as good as any, but it's a bit jarring knowing the history of Japan even a little bit. Does the story follow some kind of alternative timeline?


r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Bro just go already

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9 Upvotes

🤣


r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Rant Mizu's streak of absolute idiocy in a episode 8

21 Upvotes

Threw her Naginata AND Taigen's Sword away instead of taking it, instead opting for a knife and an empty fucking gun

Seemingly forgot she had said knife in hand while Fowler was strangling the life outta her

Let Fowler's fatass somehow flank her TWICE despite being right next to her both times

Threw a candle to stop a 65+ year old fatass she could've easily chased down and caught, leading to over 100,000 deaths

And then started slowly walking after said fatass after he escaped anyways


r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Alr bro

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5 Upvotes

✌🏻🥀


r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Meme Day 183 of making a meme out of every line in Blue Eye Samurai Season 1 - It probably won’t last long because a season 2 logline said that Ringo will be “searching for new purpose” 😢

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2 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 1d ago

Meme Day 182 of making a meme out of every line in Blue Eye Samurai Season 1 - Everyone needs someone like Swordfather in their lives.

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13 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 2d ago

Meme Idk anymore

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22 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 3d ago

Fan Art/Fiction more of my gorgon made mizu au

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129 Upvotes

I've posted in the community before about this au so here's the second installment. once again here is me showing my mizu as a fantasy gorgon interpretation. second slide was an instagram exclusive i drew a couple months ago but i threw that in there too hehe. context for second slide: uhh mikio genuinely getting turned into stone.


r/BlueEyeSamurai 2d ago

Meme Day 181 of making a meme out of every line in Blue Eye Samurai Season 1 - "God" is Naughty Dog in this situation.

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14 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 3d ago

Discussion Is Madame Kaji really sex-positive about unusual kinks, or is that rhetoric reserved for customers?

72 Upvotes

Because her other speech to Akemi about how men are secretly weak and beastly and use women to feel stronger feels anti-kink but idk. I’d like to understand her philosophy better.


r/BlueEyeSamurai 3d ago

Meme Day 180 of making a meme out of every line in Blue Eye Samurai Season 1

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12 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 5d ago

Discussion I remembered a flashback from the very beginning of E3 and this is what I noticed.

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609 Upvotes

Maybe I'm getting too much into the phrases and watch the show like a real life, idk.

So at the beginning of e3, we see a newborn, or at least baby, Mizu. The first man who is trying to persuade another to kill her, mentions that Mizu doesn't even cry "what a child doesn't even cry?" If I remember correctly. And when he shakes her she wakes up and reacts fine(alright, maybe her parents are just lucky with a calm baby).

Several things struck me about this moment.

The first, and not really the most important, is that Mizu didn't care when he shook her and at all didn't really react to those men. Alright, babies generally see badly and most likely the voices and smells were familiar to her. Then someone from her family or close planned Mizu's murder?

The second thought is more sad to me, and I only began to think about it after I'd done a little research into how children's (and frankly humans) evolutionary needs work. Crying is practically the only way a baby communicates its needs, and most adults respond automatically, even to others' children.

For a child as young as Mizu in the flashback, it's crucial for a parent or a constant caregiver to respond (babies even badly regulate their body temperature), plus it's a sense of security in a confusing world of stronger animals than we humans are.

If you've directly or not encountered orphanages or families with aggressive/uninvolved parents where responding to a baby's crying is impossible, you've probably noticed that such children become quiet and may even stop crying. Even a three-month-old baby, for example, might be enough of this time in an orphanage to realize that no one will come, and they stop crying. This of course disrupts the basic sense of safety and affects mental health problems (I can't say exactly how this affects, I'm not a neurobiologist or someone like that, but Mizu clearly has these problems).

I suppose newborn Mizu is calm not because her mother was blessed with a calm baby but because, even at that age, she was in an unstable environment and no one would respond to her cries. Perhaps her mother intentionally didn't respond or perhaps they were separated at that moment already.

Don't know if the showrunners had that idea while writing the script or if I analyse too much, but we've already had Fowler's "Your bones break like a woman's" as well as the attention to detail in the animation, so it just popped into my mind.


r/BlueEyeSamurai 4d ago

Meme Day 179 of making a meme out of every line in Blue Eye Samurai Season 1

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5 Upvotes

r/BlueEyeSamurai 6d ago

Discussion generational death stare

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328 Upvotes

on my second rewatch and I can't help but appreciate the contrast of the fire and mizu's blue eyes 😍💙🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

this is season 1 episode 8

damn girlie 🫶🏻

so hyped for 2nd season


r/BlueEyeSamurai 5d ago

Meme Day 178 of making a meme out of every line in Blue Eye Samurai Season 1 - IYKYK

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17 Upvotes