Makayla Marucci
December 5, 2024
Global Literature – Professor Nic Helms
Project #2
In both Throne of Blood and Blue Eye Samurai, the female characters, Lady Asaji and Mizu play pivotal roles that transcend the traditional gender roles in film and media. Lady Asaji, in Throne of Blood, is a manipulative figure who drives her husband, Washizu, to murderous desires. In contrast, Mizu from Blue Eye Samurai is a complex and dynamic character shaped by her past experiences and trauma. Throughout the story she is trying to navigate a world that doesn’t cater to women and promote intense violence. While Asaji’s character is defined by her ability to manipulate situations to her advantage and seems more sociopathic, Mizu is more characterized by her internal struggle to find her identity and justice in a world that marginalizes her. Despite their differences, both characters reflect the ways that women can be both the driver and the victim of a narrative with their actions being rooted in the culture and social contexts of their stories. Through their nuanced portrayals, both Lady Asaji and Mizu challenge stereotypes of women in media, showing the many different roles that they can play in a story. In Japanese media, women seem to fall into two categories.
“A variety of blogs begin to comment on the deeper meanings behind Kill La Kill, and the commentary related to the female perspective seemed to fall into two general categories: self-confidence in sexualization and weaponized femininity” (UOregon Student).
Although this student is referring to another anime, they talk about how these themes are commonly seen in other Japanese media. Throne of Blood and Blue Eye Samurai follow these characterizations like the author’s anime, Kill la Kill.
In Throne of Blood, Lady Asaji is driven by her ability to manipulate situations and people which makes her the powerful and destructive conductor in the story. She uses her tactics of manipulation on her husband, Washizu, and convinces him that killing the king is the only way to secure his position and fulfill his destiny. Her mastery of psychological control is the leading contributor to her downfall because even though she did not physically commit the murder of the King or the death of her unborn child, she feels the guilt and reaps the repercussions of her actions. This is shown in the end of the film when she is trying to wash off imaginary blood from her hands. She is hallucinating while she is decompressing from all of the tragedy and coming to the realization that she was the ringleader in all of it. Her motives are rooted in her desire for power and she knows that she can use her femininity and emotional manipulation on Washizu to get what she wants. Asaji is extremely one dimensional with no clear reason as to why she has such evil ambitions and goals.
I explored several threads that had people’s speculations and opinions about Lady Asaji as a character and her backstory. “Why is she given no motivation for her evil? There is no attempt to give even the sketchiest indication as to why she is so relentlessly ambitious and paranoid” (Akira Kurosawa Info).
A sliver of her humanity is shown when she breaks down and imagines the blood on her hands, but that is still emphasizing her insanity.
Mizu from Blue Eye Samurai is another example of a powerful woman trying to use men to gain more power, but she is using men in a different way than Lady Asaji. She is motivated by her traumatic past and her desire to make a better future for herself. She is forced to live in a society that is patriarchal and violent, and doesn’t believe in people like her. Because of her mixed heritage and her being female, society had dubbed her, and people like her, as less than everyone else. She decides to take hold of her own fate and change that narrative.
“Now an adult, she has disguised herself as a man in order to seek her revenge – an act women are not culturally permitted to engage in. Dubbing herself a ‘creature of shame,’ Mizu sets out to kill these men, including the one who is her father, all while keeping her blue eyes hidden” (White).
Her desire for revenge against those who wronged her is warranted, unlike Lady Asaji who seems to only be motivated by her intense need for power. She isn’t just seeking revenge to spite her father, but also to prove to them that she has a place in the world and her lack of conformity isn’t something to fear or be ashamed of. She pushes the boundaries of femininity by having a hard exterior and active survival instincts at all times. In more traditional stories, women are softer and easy to take advantage of. Mizu knows this to be true, because that is the way that women are perceived in her environment, and fights off those traditions. She does not just want to survive; her goals are to change the system that seeks to define and suppress her.
Despite Lady Asaji and Mizu’s differences, they are both pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a woman in their societies and in the world in general. They are both women trying to navigate through a man’s world by using their resources to their advantage. Lady Asaji is living in a hierarchical and rigid Japan where power and control are achieved through violence and strategic manipulation. In her world, women are not permitted to have much personal agency or political influence. Although she is the villain in this story, one could sympathize with her because of the hierarchy that she lives under. It is not explicitly stated why she goes through life with such evil intentions, but one could infer that she has gone through something that could have driven her to be angry with the system and want to take it over herself. She is unable to take over the system because women are supposed to be subordinate. Mizu lives in a similar violent society, but her past trauma didn’t make her intentions impure. One woman wields power through manipulation, while the other seeks power through defiance, showing how women navigate their societal realities in vastly different, but equally profound ways.
Works Cited:
White, Abbey. “How ‘Blue Eye Samurai’s’ Exploration of Mixed Race Identity Helps It ‘Break All of the Boxes’ in Animated Storytelling.” The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Dec. 2023, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/blue-eye-samurai-michael-green-amber-noizumi-interview-1235636619/. Accessed 06 Dec. 2024.
“Throne of Blood: Lady Asaji, Psychopath or Victim?” Akira Kurosawa Info, akirakurosawa.info/forums/topic/throne-of-blood-lady-asaji-psychopath-or-victim/. Accessed 06 Dec. 2024.
Rdinitto@uoregon.edu. “Main Menu.” Contemporary Japan, 19 Apr. 2015, blogs.uoregon.edu/postbubbleculture/2015/04/19/nude-in-the-kitchen-the-complex-role-of-women-in-japanese-media/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.
Sprockets and Springes 