For Blue Eye Samurai creators Amber Noizumi and Michael Green, animation was the only way to properly tell their story.
The creative partners always had animation in mind when writing and selling the now-acclaimed Netflix series, and recalled to TheWrap that despite a potential buyer suggesting they could also envision a live-action adaptation, they couldn’t imagine the show any other way.
“When we pitched it, we pitched it as an animated drama,” Green said. “Only one place we pitched it to said, ‘Well, would you consider it as a live-action film?’ It was actually the very nice executives at Apple. Our response was, ‘It’s an animated series.’ We didn’t know how to tell that story until we settled on animation. That was the medium for it.”
The decision to go with animation paid off. The series received nominations for Best Animated Program and Best Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half Hour) and Animation. The Netflix original has also already racked up a few Emmy wins. They topped the list of jury-selected Emmy winners in the categories of character design, production design and storyboard.
Noizumi mentioned FX’s “Shogun” — which also received a slew of awards this Emmy season — as a show that is partly set in the same time period. One show works as a live-action series while hers still lacks the animated flair.
“We always knew it was going to be animated because of that slight suspension of reality,” she said. “If you look at ‘Shogun’ now, a beautiful show set partly in that time period, our show still wouldn’t have worked.”
Green added that her show was not about creating “that documentary feel.”
“We’re definitely set in a historical time and place and we’re very particular about historical accuracy, but the heightened nature of the animation allowed us to take the story – I shouldn’t say enhance it, but it took the storytelling in a direction that would be unique,” he said.
The episode chosen for an Emmy was “The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride.” Coming mid-season, it combines the final revelation of Mizu’s (Maya Erskine) dark backstory with a current conflict that sees her fending off a number of combatants. Noizumi and Green agreed that it was fortunate that the episode that best summed up everything good about “Blue Eye Samurai” was also a fan favorite.
“I think this episode particularly showcased the cultural aspects of our show, the very personal emotional aspects and the intense fight scenes,” Noizumi said. “I think it really went all out on every level. Our artists really went all out.”
Green added: “It’s probably the most emotional episode and for good reason because Amber wrote it brilliantly. With every show I’ve worked on, you never know which episode the audience will respond to the most. There’s always one episode that they pick and say, ‘That’s it.’ We happened to feel the same way about this one because when we first saw it together, every aspect of the show just clicked together. The orchestra played as one.”
Season 1 of “Blue Eye Samura” will stream in its entirety on Netflix.
