The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride is the fifth episode of the first season of the Netflix adult animated action Blue Eye Samurai.
Synopsis[]
During a desperate battle, Mizu remembers another life — and a lesson she learned the hard way.
Plot[]
In "The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride, Mizu initially confronts the Thousand Claws outside the brothel. Fueled by her rage- both at Hamata's cruelty, and her own failure to keep the mercy-killing a secret- she quickly dispatches the first five of the yakuza, causing the others to hesitate long enough for her to retreat inside and bar the door. Madame Kaji berates her for having brought doom on all of them, but Mizu orders everyone to hide in the cellar, giving Ringo a kitchen knife to defend them, having used it herself to great effect in the past. She then douses the lights and moves into the darkest corner of the brothel, lying in wait. As Hamata's men break down the door, she experiences flashbacks of her childhood spent in hiding, and the loss of her home and 'mother' during the fire.
As the yakuza advance through the teahouse, Mizu ambushes them one by one or in small groups, killing five more before their leader manages to intercept her attack, trapping her sword between his Tiger Claws, grabbing her throat and pinning her against the wall; he then stabs her in the left hip, exactly where she was originally stabbed by the black marketeers years before, causing her to cry out in pain. Managing to wrestle herself from his grip, Mizu dodges his blows and finally severs both his claws, fleeing deeper into the brothel to catch her breath, even as more Thousand Claws enter the building. Briefly remembering her reunion with her mother and her wedding, Mizu moves through the house until she corners a teenage Thousand Claw, who she reluctantly spares. Discovering a hidden passageway, she retreats inside it and briefly sits, but is soon discovered and cornered by a group of six yakuza. She manages to kill all of them, but is left weakened; as she gets up, she is attacked and throttled by the leader she declawed earlier.
As she loses consciousness, she dreams of her awkward marriage to Mikio and their subsequent growing closeness, even as Akemi rescues her by stabbing her attacker; she does not stir when the Princess slaps her. However, as two yakuza advance on them, Mizu suddenly wakes up, cutting them both down and offering Akemi her hand. They flee through the hidden passage back to the main room, where Mizu tells Akemi to run to the others when she 'strikes' by smashing an urn. As another team of Thousand Claws arrives, Mizu draws them away from Akemi, towards the door. Cutting down one of the support beams to delay them, she pulls the fallen door up behind her and jams it back into place with a burst of strength.
However, as she struggles to hold it against their assault, she sees that the rest of Hamata's thugs are still waiting in the street, right behind her. A sudden lunge by those inside knocks Mizu down, trapping her underneath the door, and the yakuza pile in top of it, slashing at Mizu around its' edges and slowly crushing her beneath its' weight. As she begins to black out, she remembers the day Mikio rejected her, the samurai who came to collect the bounty on her head, and the betrayals by her husband and/or her 'mother'.
Experiencing another adrenaline-fueled burst of rage, Mizu manages to cut the legs from under one of the yakuza and knock him down, displacing just enough weight to flip the door off of herself. After clearing some space with swipes of her katana, she removes her calf-and-forearm weights, relieving herself of her handicap. Remembering Mikio's advice that a polearm is the best weapon when outnumbered, she swiftly rolls the weights into interlocking sections of pipe around her sword-hilt, transforming it into a naginata. Engaging the Thousand Claws, she cleaves relentlessly through their ranks, killing everyone who comes at her. As the remaining two flee from her, she comes across the teenage yakuza she spared earlier, and stabs him in cold blood.
Making her way to Hamata's gambling house, she drags the now-undefended and hopeless crime lord out into the streets, leaving him at the mercy of Madame Kaji and her women for what he did to Kinuyo; Kaji praises Mizu as "more man than any, come through my door." As they finish Hamata, Mizu staggers away, briefly collapsing from exhaustion and dreaming of her mother and Mikio's deaths. Ringo wakes her and expresses his astonishment at her achievement. Mizu dismisses his uneasiness over the 'darkness' he felt when killing a Thousand Claw to protect Akemi, saying he cannot hide from the dark if he wants to be like her.
Suddenly, a pair of riders sent by Akemi's father, Lord Tokunobu, arrive to retrieve her; Akemi claims she isn't going anywhere, looking to Mizu for help. However, Mizu makes it clear she has no quarrel with the Tokunobu samurai, and wearily lets them take Akemi, ignoring the young woman's cries for help. When Ringo protests her inaction, Mizu claims Akemi is 'better off' and starts to leave. Ringo angrily says she is no samurai because her action wasn't honorable, but Mizu snaps that she never said she was a samurai in the first place; Ringo merely assumed she was. She declares she is on the path of revenge and has no time for love, friendship or 'weakness', clearly alluding to Ringo's compassion. Insulted, Ringo removes the bell she gave him, ending his allegiance to her; after staring at it for a moment, Mizu accepts it and angrily leaves- alone again.
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 Assassin Samurai, Red-Faced Ruffian, Head Tokunobu Guard
- Orli Mariko Green as Young Mizu
- Ann Harada as Mama
- Clyde Kusatsu as Boss hamata, Tayu
- Byron Mann as Mikio
- Amber Noizumi as Woman in Red, Skinny Clawman
- Ming-Na Wen as Madame Kaji
- Keone Young as Shogun Itoh, Bald Clawman, 2nd Tokunobu Guard