Hammerscale is the first episode of the first season of the Netflix adult animated action Blue Eye Samurai.
Synopsis[]
Lone-wolf warrior Mizu gets stuck with an unexpected travel companion, while Princess Akemi grasps for a way to control her future.
Plot[]
Mizu travels to a small village not far from Kyoto, in the middle of winter; she is followed by a group of children intent on harassing her, but they quickly scatter when she gives them a brief glare. She stops at a soba tavern, where she is served "bad tea, great soba" by the handless, talkative and friendly cook Ringo.
When Ringo accidentally spills soba on a customer, Hachiman the Flesh-Trader, Hachiman draws a flintlock pistol. Mizu interrupts his threats to kill Ringo (whom he refers to as a "dog", an insult she has often been called) by loudly pushing her table back, approaching and stepping between them to comment on the weapon's unusual (and probably illegal) design, since it is more advanced than any Japanese firearm. She then reveals she's been following him for some time. Uncomfortable with her inquiries, Hachiman tells her to fuck off and sits down, but when Mizu demands to know who sold the weapon, he jumps up, aiming at her. Before he can fire, Mizu snatches up a cleaver and chops off both the pistol's barrel and two of his fingers, claiming he doesn't deserve to be cut by her katana. As Hachiman howls in agony, she slams him against the table and demands the name of the pistol's seller again, lowering her glasses to reveal her eyes. Given the name "Heiji Shindo", she releases Hachiman and starts to go, already knowing where to inquire about the Shindo Clan. However, Hachiman makes the mistake of calling her a "dead-eyed, half-blooded demon bastard" and saying she looks like an onryo, not realizing how this will trigger her past trauma involving her 'mother' and Mikio. Mizu whirls around, slashing off two more of Hachiman's fingers with her katana before she leaves. Mizu travels some way into a frozen bamboo forest before she realizes Ringo is following her, and stops him at sword-point, telling him to go home. He claims he hates home and can be useful to her, but she dismisses him, saying "A breeze, can throw a crane off-course. You... are a typhoon." Ringo tries to empathize with her by saying they are both "deformed" but strong, and implores her to let him serve as her apprentice, but she simply ties him to a tree and continues. She makes a brief stop at a Shinto shrine and lights an incense stick, asking the Gods to watch over "Swordfather" Eiji, to guide her to the men she seeks, and to either give her the strength to kill them, or let her die. By the next day, she comes within sight of Kyoto, the Imperial Capital and her next destination.
Joining the queue at the gates, Mizu notes a basket saleswoman and her daughter denied entry to sell their wares in the city (her husband being dead, and women not being allowed to travel without a man despite having her husband's travel pass). Not having a travel pass, Mizu bribes her way past the guard and enters Kyoto. Unable to find directions to the Shindo Dojo from passersby, she soon runs into a trio of arrogant samurai from the Dojo, who insult her. They misdirect her to the Shindo House, a brothel run by the same clan; she refuses the prostitute's invitations and finally receives directions to the actual Dojo. However, she is interrupted by a disturbance caused by Ringo, who managed to get free and follow her into Kyoto. Exasperated at having to deal with him again, but correctly guessing he is a virgin, Mizu pays the prostitutes to keep Ringo busy for three nights, giving her the chance to lose him again. Crossing a bridge along the way, she is told to make way by a procession of porters carrying a gilded palanquin, and spots Princess Akemi through its' windows.
Mizu hikes to Shindo Dojo in the hills on the city's outskirts. Knocking at the door, she is told they are not admitting new students, but Mizu claims to have a message for the Dojo's master which she can only deliver personally. She is directed inside to the Master's second-in-command, who tells her to leave the message with him, as he speaks for the Master and the Master will not see anyone in person. Mizu insists she cannot deliver it to anyone secondhand and the Master will make an exception for her, provoking the Second's anger at her 'disrespect' of the Dojo's prestige. He tells his followers to throw her out of the school, but she points out that they are obliged to feed travelers who visit, and she is tired and hungry after her journey. The students lead her to a cold, dark room and leave her a meagre bowl of rice gruel, telling her to eat, then leave. As she eats, Mizu watches the students training in the courtyard and smiles, recognizing their combat form (Shindo-Ryu) as one she observed at Eiji's forge as a child.
As soon as she has finished eating, the three swordsmen try to force her to leave, but prove physically unable to. When she insists it would be easier on them if they let her see the Master, they use her 'threatening' response as an excuse to kill her, drawing their swords. However, Mizu easily bests them without even drawing hers, throwing them through a screen and into the main training hall of the Dojo. She faces eight students armed with wooden bokken, taking one up herself and dismissing their Shindo-Ryu combat form as "trash... easily learned, easily defeated". Using her knowledge of a wide variety of kendo forms (having watched swordsmen from all over Japan come to practice at Eiji's forge), Mizu outmaneuvers the students, using her hands and bokken to break bones, noses, teeth, and in one case put out a student's eye with a broken tooth. Ignoring their demands to know what Dojo she learned at, she is finally challenged by the Second with a sword, but refuses to draw hers, saying he will die if she does. Mizu quickly drives the Second off with a heavily bruised face.
While defeating more of the students who challenge her, she is confronted and knocked down by Taigen, the Dojo's champion (who the Second had summoned to deal with her). Mizu recognizes Taigen as her chief childhood tormentor from Kohama, and remarks that he's "climbed some heights... to be the prize of a miserable lot." Taigen dismisses her request to see the Master, saying she will only leave as a corpse. Despite being slightly drunk (having been celebrating his new engagement to Akemi) he proves much stronger and more skilled than any of the Dojo's other students, and both he and Mizu take lumps from one another until he finally throws his bokken and breaks hers, throwing her backward and knocking off her glasses. With her blue eyes revealed, Taigen finally recognizes her and is startled. The Second insists Mizu must die so that neither Taigen nor the school are disgraced, and the duelists move to the Dojo's snow-covered courtyard, drawing their katanas. Taigen is astonished to see that Mizu's is apparently one of Master Eiji's blades by the hilt inscription (unaware that she forged her own blade), while she thanks him for the chance to fight, saying no opponent has deserved her sword yet. After both of them attempt to counter-predict each other's strikes, Taigen charges when a snowflake blurs Mizu's vision, but she uses her sword to create a diversionary spray of snow, disorienting him. In the initial clash, she draws first blood by grazing Taigen's neck, but when they lock blades he slices the front of her left shoulder and throws her back, disarming her. Holding his sword to her neck, he claims she will die today, then kicks her and moves away, offering her the chance to pick up her sword before he delivers the killing blow. However, Mizu suddenly unbuckles the armored training weights around her calves and forearms, revealing she was fighting with a handicap the entire time. They charge again, and this time Mizu cuts Taigen on the leg and side within seconds, disarms him, and pins him down with her blade against his throat. Before she can kill him, she is interrupted by the Dojo Master, Lord Shindo, who finally allows her to deliver her message. Mocking that his students "need better training", Mizu reveals she actually came with a question: where to find his brother Heiji Shindo, a black market merchant. Astonished that she wreaked so much destruction on his school for one question, Shindo reluctantly reveals his brother is on the island-fortress of Tanabe, protected by the Genken clan, and predicts that she will never reach Heiji alive. Unperturbed, Mizu sheathes her sword, bows and starts to depart, but pauses when Taigen shouts after that she is "still a dog." Whirling around, she slices without fully drawing her blade and perfectly severs Taigen's chonmage, marking him as defeated and disgraced. As she leaves Kyoto by nightfall, she comes across the girl and her mother from earlier, huddling together for warmth outside the gates; she leaves them a decorative gold comb that Taigen had used to decorate his topknot.
Journeying through the wilderness, Mizu comes across an onsen and stops to rest. Removing her disguise, she disrobes and enters the hot water, bathing and stitching up her shoulder wound. However, while relaxing she hears a disturbance nearby and snatches up her sword. Confronting the intruder despite being naked, she discovers it is once again Ringo, who is astonished to learn she is actually a woman.
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Maya Erskine as Mizu
- Masi Oka as Ringo
- Brenda Song as Akemi
- Darren Barnet as Taigen
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Master Eiji
- George Takei as Seki
- Randall Park as Heiji Shindo
- Kenneth Branagh as Abijah Fowler
Guest[]
- Eric Bauza as Inspector, Browny Samurai, Naked Man
- Marcus Choi as Shindo Samurai 1, Townsperson, Even Brawnier Samurai
- Holly Chou as Shindo Samurai 2, Angry Cook
- Patrick Gallagher as Daichi
- Judah Green as Young Taigen
- Orli Mariko Green as Young Mizu, Bully Kid
- Takaaki Hirakawa as Tengu Crest
- Brittany Ishibashi as Momo, Ragged Female Merchant
- Matt Yang King as Brawniest Samurai
- Clyde Kusatsu as Elder Domo
- West Liang as Hachimon the Flesh-Trader
- Daisuke Suzuki as Hulking Teacher
- Gedde Watanabe as Kenzou, Sentry
- Keone Young as Dojo Master
Gallery[]
