History Characters / BlueEyeSamurai

* FreudianExcuse: Taigen mentions his father would beat him as a child if he did not bring back enough fish, which probably explains why he took part of the bullying Mizu endured.

* FreudianExcuse: Fowler regales Heiji Shindo with his past as a child during the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Years%27_War_(Ireland) Nine Years' War]] and the subsequent Ulster famine, during which [[spoiler: both his parents died and he had to cannibalize his sister's corpse to survive]]. This goes a long way to explain how he turned out to be such a nasty piece of work.

** She also gives a [[MercyKill quick, painless death]] to Kinoyu, and [[CradlingYourKill holds her frail dead body]] for a good minute. This is the first time a usually stone-faced killer like her is seen ''crying'' after taking someone's life.

* TomboyishVoice: Although her voice is still recognizably feminine (to modern viewers), she has a deep voice for a woman. Justified, as she travels disguised as a man.

* TraumaticHaircut: As a child, her mother would regularly shave her head so she'd pass for a boy (since the bounty on her head was for a girl). It only fueled Mizu with fear for her life and gender dysmorphia.

* WouldHurtAChild: Mizu cuts down a younger, teenage-ish member of the 100 Claws as he cowers in front of her. This was after she spared a young child who witnessed her leaving and another teenage member of the Claws, both of which [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished came back to bite her]].

* AccidentalPervert: While following Mizu, he interrupted her during a swim in a creak, [[UnsettlingGenderReveal catching sight of her naked and realizing she's a woman.]]

* SpannerInTheWorks: Had Mizu not ultimately decided to allow him to tag along, she would have been killed well before meeting Abaijah. He also plays a key role in [[spoiler: warning the emperor about the coup and ensuring that his family escapes.]]
* StealthHiBye: He is as he says "naturally stealthy" despite his large size, so much so that Mizu ties a bell on him so she won't be caught off guard.

* FauxActionGirl: Justified; while Akemi has a few kills under her belt as of the fifth episode, she is in no way a trained fighter due to the time period and is easily bested against men who trained their whole lives as warriors.

* BigFishInABiggerOcean: In the dojo where he trained, he was easily the best swordsman and a master of the craft, undefeated in every duel he'd taken part in. Then he encounters Mizu, someone actually on or above his level, and is humiliated. Subsequently, Taigen would prove to be an average fighter but is really nothing to really sing about, he just seemed that way because he's a decently talented swordfighter training at a dojo whose style is "easily learned, easily defeated".

* NationalStereotypes: Fowler is a redhead with green eyes, who often wears the colors of the colors of the modern Irish flag (orange, white, green) in the more casual clothing he's seen wearing while in his castle, has a propensity for brutal violence (which is sometimes done with a cheerful tone in his voice and a smile on his face), shows cunning and artistic talent that is underestimated by others who see him as a barbarian, survived a famine in his youth, etc. It's possible that there's a way to do more to code Fowler as being Irish, but it's difficult to think of ''how''.

* NormalFishInATinyPond: In the dojo where he trained, he was easily the best swordsman and a master of the craft, undefeated in every duel he'd taken part in. Then he encounters Mizu, someone actually on or above his level, and is humiliated. Subsequently, Taigen would prove to be an average fighter but is really nothing to really sing about, he just seemed that way because he's a decently talented swordfighter training at a dojo whose style is "easily learned, easily defeated".

* EveryoneHasStandards: Despite his hidden misogynist streak, Mikio isn't a believer in the MaritalRapeLicense; he respects Mizu's lack of desire for a physical relationship, and they only have sex when she wants to.

* WhatTheHellHero: Gives one to Mizu when he realizes she knew about Fowler's plot against the Shogun and Akemi being in danger but didn't say anything to improve her chances to get another shot at revenge on Fowler.

** She is compared to a pig by her father and her caretaker Seki much to her chagrin as an animal that can live in a sheltered position seeking freedom but does not have the tools to survive when it gets that freedom.

* CommonalityConnection: While at first he was annoyed at Ringo's antics, they bond somewhat after realizing both don't let their respective disabilities hinder them in their daily lives.

* AbusiveParents: Mizu's mother kept her hidden as a child due to the bounty on her head, forced her to present as the opposite gender and creating severe gender dysmorphia, then abandoned her after faking their deaths in a housefire, leaving her to starve on the streets and with buckets of trauma. When she by-chance encounters Mizu again as an adult, she steals from her, then uses emotional blackmail to get her to marry a local horse trainer solely so she can indulge in her drug habit on his expense, all but outright selling Mizu to a man who is fortunately ''not'' enough of a brute to indulge in MaritalRapeLicense. [[spoiler:And top it all off, she's one of the two people who might have sold out Mizu to her enemies for more opium, and at the very least doesn't care that Mizu would have died.]]

* AgeGapRomance: In the past, Mizu was married to a man older than her by at least a decade. [[ForegoneConclusion It didn't last]].

* ArrangedMarriage: "The Tale of The Ronin and The Bride" reveals she had one in the past to an exiled samurai called Mikio, arranged by [[spoiler:her mother]]. Though it started as nothing but an exchange of services [[spoiler:to care for her ill mother and help with his farm]], it turns into a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage when Mizu and Mikio get to know eachother and genuinely start to fall in love. [[ForegoneConclusion It unfortunately didn't last...]], as [[spoiler:Mizu's location was revealed to bounty hunters by [[AmbiguousSituation either her mother or Mikio]], who throw the blame at eachother]], which ruins their marriage and Mizu [[spoiler:kills him]] before dedicating the rest of her life to revenge as a result.

* EtTuBrute: Twofold: [[spoiler:either her mother or her husband sold her out for their own selfish gains, though both blame eachother. When Mikio kills her mother, Mizu kills him at his turn and leaves as an angry, bitter orphaned widow with nothing else to live but revenge]].

* AmbiguouslyRelated: Violet as he appears in the flashback to his murder is physically identical to Mizu, but Fowler doesn't seem to consider Violent her father, and it is possible that Mizu was only projecting herself over him, as the flashback [[UnreliableNarrator is presented from her perspective]].

* InternalizedCategorism: She's been hated and demonized her whole life for being biracial, and the only Europeans she's ever met were absolute monsters. As such, she believes herself to be monstrous, is on a mission to find and kill her white father to avenge her own birth, and during a hallucination, she sees a completely white version of herself and strangles it.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: While he goes down quickly, dying with a knife throw at your head isn't a pleasant way to go...

* DeathByWomanScorned After he left Mizu to die to bounty hunters and may or may not have betrayed her in the first place, she kills him by throwing a knife at his head.
* DirtyCoward: After Mizu proved herself to be better than him in combat, Mikio avoids her and leaves her to die when she gets cornered by bounty hunters (surely with the petty motive that she can take care of herself). Though he decides to come back, he attempts to plead for his life when he sees Mizu covered in blood and with murder in her eyes by calling himself a coward. It's true, but doesn't work in his favor.

* MeaningfulName: Mikio can possibly mean "husband". That's his role in Mizu's backstory.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: [[GainingTheWillToKill Mizu lacks the ruthless attitude]] needed for a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, and nearly gets killed by some opium traders she'd have carved through in the present day. It's being rejected and betrayed by Mikio [[LoveIsAWeakness after falling in love with him]] that makes Mizu become a "demon".

* PimpingTheOffspring: Arranges Akemi to be forced into a marriage to the Shogun's son, who is hinted to be a brute that beats his wives, for his own political gains. When Akemi begs him not to go with it, he outright spits out that he could easily sell her to prostitution instead.

* TooDumbToLive: While he survives his encounter with Mizu, insulting the ancestry of someone who just sliced off two of your fingers was an ''extremely'' stupid move, and sure enough, he loses more fingers for it.

* IJustWantToBeHappy: Says this verbatim to Akemi in the season finale, after a full season in order to regain his honor.

* CrualAndUnusualDeath: While he goes down quickly, dying with a knife throw at your head isn't a pleasant way to go...

* ThenLetMeBeEvil: She's not actually evil, just incredibly ruthless, but this ruthlessness was born from a lifetime of ''utter'' shit, from being abused by almost everyone she encountered to being betrayed by the only people she ever loved. This mistreatment was largely due to everyone already believing her to be a monster, and its resulted in her self-identifying as a monster.

* DefiantCaptive: When he is captured and brutally tortured by [[spoiler:Heiji Shindo's henchman]], it's not enough to break Taigen's mind, who remains cold and insolent towards his captor.
-->'''[[spoiler:Heiji Shindo]]''': Why suffer so much to protect an enemy?

* NormalFishInATinyPond: In the dojo where he trained, he was easily the best swordsman and a master of the craft, undefeated in every duel he'd taken part in. Then he encounters Mizu, someone actually on or above his level, and is humiliated. Subsequently, Taigen would prove to be an OK fighter but is really nothing to really sing about, he just seemed that way because he's a decently talented swordfighter training at a dojo whose style is trash.
* SchoolyardBullyAllGrownUp: He grew up in the same village as Mizu and used to bully her for her heritage. However, he is more sympathetic than most uses of this trope because, despite his racism (which is very much the product of the culture he was raised in) and his arrogance, he is still very much a man of honor. When he reflects on bullying a younger Mizu, it's indicated he regrets that he went along with the bullies.

-->'''Taigen''': [''coldly''] You really are a demon!

* ActionSurvivor: Has no fighting skills and can easily be overpowered by experienced fighters, however she does manage to kill two men during the attack at Madame Kaji's brothel.

* BloodSplatteredInnocents: Gets ''drenched'' in blood after Mizu saves her from an enemy by slicing through the man with her katana.

* HateSink: A truly reprehensible sleaze who treats his daughter more like a means to advance his own station, couldn't give less of a shit how that affects her, and is willing to [[spoiler:sell out his own country for power]]. The man is also so misogynistic he can't even reminisce of his late wife without talking about how "proper" a woman she was.

* VillainHasAPoint: For all his misogynist beliefs when it comes to his daughter, he's not exactly wrong in saying that she grew up pampered with little experience outside wealth.

[[folder:Chiaki]]

* KarmicDeath: Killed by Madame Kaji and other prostitutes. By the claws of his own henchman no less.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Despite just losing two of his fingers to Mizu, the first thing he does upon learning her half-Cacasuain ancestry is to call her a half-blood demon bastard.

* InformedAttractiveness: Inverted. In the looks department, she not quite bad. In fact you'd go as far to say she's beautiful, in an androgynous fashion of course. However, due to her half-Caucasian appearance, she's constantly referred to as hideous or undesirable.

* SweetPollyOliver: Mizu disguises herself as a man, when growing up it was because the bounty on her head was for a girl; now she does so because of the limited options for a woman traveling through Edo-era Japan.

!! Flashback Characters

Mizu's mother, [[spoiler:or at least the woman Mizu believed to be her mother, anyway]], who died some time ago as a result of the bounty on Mizu's head for her white ancestry. The circumstances of her death directly drive Mizu's quest for vengeance.

** With the reveal that [[spoiler:she was never really Mizu's mother, but just a maid hired to take care of her]], two more are created. Firstly, whether she ever actually cared about Mizu in the first place, and her later abusive mistreatment solely the result of her drug addiction poisoning her personality, or [[spoiler:did she only take care of her for the money, and always solely saw her as a meal ticket]]. Secondly, the fire that seemingly killed her, was it the fault of bounty hunters tipped off to Mizu's location by her going outside, or did Mama herself set the blaze to fake their deaths, [[spoiler:since the money paying for her to keep care of Mizu had ran out and she no longer had reason to keep care of her.]]
* EntitledBitch: Despite treating Mizu terribly, she still acts like Mizu owes her money and favor. [[spoiler:While she and Mikio each blame the other for selling Mizu out, Mama tries to get Mizu to take her side despite the possibility that she sold her out and the certainty that she abused Mizu throughout her life.]]
* KickTheDog: Pretty much non-stop after she reunited with Mizu she abused her in some form. Putting aside the fact she abandoned her and gave a pretty terrible excuse for it, but she then went on to steal from Mizu, guilt her into marrying a horse trainer solely to leach off of them, and spitefully taunted her when they had a fight. This is without getting into whether she [[spoiler:sold Mizu's location out to the soldiers looking for the bounty on her.]]
* ParentsAsPeople: If there's a generous interpretation of her actions [[spoiler: and you don't believe she sold out Mizu]], she might have cared for Mizu as a child. Her [[spoiler: pushing Mizu into an arranged marriage could be chalked down to era-specific attitudes and she may have seen it as an opportunity for security for the both of them. She may have convinced herself it was a win-win situation and it was better for Mizu to have as close to a traditional means of living rather than to live life as an assassin.]]

** Which one betrayed Mizu to the bounty hunters, him or her Mama. He watched Mizu be cornered by them and rode off, only returning after all was done, claiming to have had a moment of cowardice but returned to help. However, if he had, it was a ''very'' huge [[DisproportionateRetribution overreaction]] to her besting him in a friendly spar, and considering his prior character before that point, also hugely out of character. Doesn't matter which one did it however as [[spoiler:he kills her mother and she kills him right after, as whether he was guilty or not, he did still leave her to die.]]

* CynicismCatalyst: [[GainingTheWillToKill Mizu lacks the ruthless attitude]] needed for a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, and nearly gets killed by some opium traders she'd have carved through in the present day. It's being rejected and betrayed by Mikio [[LoveIsAWeakness after falling in love with him]] that makes Mizu become a 'demon'.

* DeathByWomanScorned: Is killed by Mizu who throws a knife at him, after he left her to die to bounty hunters and may or may not have betrayed her in the first place.

* AloofDarkHairedGirl: Has jet-black hair and is a stoic antisocial woman with a cold demeanor.

* ArrangedMarriage: Had one in the past to an exiled samurai called Mikio. Though it started as nothing but an exchange of services [[spoiler:to care for her ill mother and help with his farm]], it turns into a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage when Mizu and Mikio get to know eachother and genuinely start to fall in love. [[ForegoneConclusion It unfortunately didn't last...]], as [[spoiler:Mizu's location was revealed to bounty hunters by [[AmbiguousSituation her mother or Mikio]], who throw the blame at eachother]], which ruins their marriage and Mizu [[spoiler:kills him]] before dedicating the rest of her life to revenge as a result.

* BloodSplatteredWeddingDress: During her marriage, she put on a white bridal kimono to symbolize her devotion to her new husband [[spoiler:after he rejected her for her prowess in combat. Then her enemies arrived and her husband left her to die]], and she slaughtered them, drenching it in blood.

* ElementalMotifs: Her name means "water" and there are many scenes in which she is seen bathing or exercising or fighting near water. It also represents her CreepyBlueEyes, and she definitely sits more on the "[[RoaringRampageOfRevenge dangerous]], [[{{Determinator}} unstoppable]], and [[DarkAndTroubledPast full of sorrow]]" side of the water symbolism than anything life-giving or nurturing. Mama even compares her to water, being "impossible to catch".

* EveryoneHasStandards: Mizu might be utterly ruthless in pursuit of her revenge, but even she is horrified when [[spoiler:her shortsighted attempt to trap Fowler by setting fire to the room they're in dominoes into the entire city of Edo burning down.]]

* HeartbrokenBadass: Mizu's less than rosy life has left her jaded with one purpose left: revenge.

* LadyLooksLikeADude: She doesn't have to do much to pass as a man, only bind her breasts. Other than that, men and women alike think she is a young man. Only Ringo knows her true gender.

* RevengeBeforeReason: Mizu does not care if she's walking into an obvious trap - if there's even a small chance it gets her closer to vengeance, she's taking that chance.

-->'''Master Eiji''': No. That child would see you and run.

* WomanScorned: [[spoiler:After she thinks her husband left her to fend for herself, and the ambiguous possibility that he alerted her presence to the authorities in the first place, she stops his attempts to an apology by throwing a knife at him [[OffhandBackhand without even looking]], killing him in the process]].

* YourMakeupIsRunning: After [[spoiler:Mikio abandons her when she is about to be attacked by bounty hunters]], Mizu starts to cry and her makeup washes off with her tears, and later the blood of her enemies.

* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Akemi accuses him of this after she becomes disillusioned with his advice, and he admits that he's never been much good at anything.