Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise
In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.
Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.
I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!
Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.
In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:
I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."
Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.
I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.
This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.
There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:
When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!
By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.
It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:
(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)
If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.
Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:
Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:
No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol
So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.
And yet no one spots that she's female.
Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.
Let me explain.
She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.
But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:
I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."
Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.
Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.
One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:
Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)
And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:
Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.
Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol
There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:
After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.
So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.
May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.
Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."
435 notes
·
View notes
@triforce-of-mischief
okay, i maybe spent like the last few days looking at elephant pictures now too and theyre so cute and we had a really fun convo about Lege and Fable (the Zelda) aaaand maybe I couldn't get it out of my head.
aaaaaaalso a non coloured version because i like my art as colouring pages too and so other people can have fun (and if anyone does @ me I wanna see it!!) and so I can also colour it with markers too because it is fun
image descriptions on the images thru tumblr, but also below:
[img 1:
The trio of A Link to the Past Zelda, Link, and a baby elephant are walking down a dirt path between carnival canvas tents.
Legend (Linked Universe) wearing his green tunic and blue had carrying a basket of green and red apples. His hair is blond with a touch of pink at the ends and he has silver stability-rings on the joints of his index and pinky fingers. With his left hand, he is holding his hat tight to his head, and his right is holding the bushel of apples. He is leading in the trio.
The baby elephant has hold of Link's hat and is tugging Link back. Little tusks frame the smile-like expression, and the elephant is standing sturdy and leaning back into the tug.
Zelda brings up the rear of the three of them in her blue-and-white dress. She is laughing and carrying a bundle of straw under her left arm.
In the background Ravio (a combination of the ALttP and LU designs) can be seen peeking around a tree at the group saying "Cute, but- scary…"
The forest is a smattering of shades of green with the yellow-and-purple canvas tents and unpainted, brown wooden barrels strewn around. There is a purple backpack at the base of the tree Ravio is sheltering behind.]
[img 2:
An uncoloured version of the above image
The trio of A Link to the Past Zelda, Link, and a baby elephant are walking down a dirt path between carnival canvas tents.
Legend (Linked Universe) wearing his tunic and hat carrying a basket of apples. He has stability-rings on the joints of his index and pinky fingers. With his left hand, he is holding his hat tight to his head, and his right is holding the bushel of apples. He is leading in the trio.
The baby elephant has hold of Link's hat and is tugging Link back. Little tusks frame the smile-like expression, and the elephant is standing sturdy and leaning back into the tug.
Zelda brings up the rear of the three of them in her less formal dress. She is laughing and carrying a bundle of straw under her left arm.
In the background Ravio (a combination of the ALttP and LU designs) can be seen peeking around a tree at the group saying "Cute, but- scary…"
The background is a forest with canvas tents and wooden barrels strewn around. There is a backpack at the base of the tree Ravio is sheltering behind.]
62 notes
·
View notes
“Here Halara! I made you some of my coffee! Just like I did in Ginma! This will heal your body right up from your terrible cold!”
“I’m not sick Fubuki…it’s just allergies…”
Whew! I finally got this doodle done ;w; I have officially drawn all of the detectives of the Nocturnal Detective Agency at least once yay :3 I never thought I would tbh... x'D
I think Halara came out pretty good, but I think I could've done better on Fubuki ^^; This pose was complicated but once I got Halara to a nice pose, I had a bit of trouble with Fubuki x-x
Yet another ship I could kind of understand due to Fubuki's DLC.
How Halara suffered such an awful allergy attack? Lets just say that Fubuki took them to a cat cafe somewhere in Ginma...this was before she learned their deep dark secret. And Halara couldn't resist the cuteness so...they went anyway despite the penalty... x'D
Fubuki regrets it the minute Halara suffers a sneezing fit on the way back to base and has to lay down due to their head pounding from the sinuses. They end up not only with a runny nose and eyes, but they sadly got a few skin rashes too... yikes, the poor thing x-x; They make sure to have an extra sweet lollipop to help with their mood, as well as act as a substitute lozenge for their dry throat, some nasal spray for the stuffiness and an ice pack for their headache.
Fubuki tries to do whatever she can to help, even if the cause of it was her fault to begin with... xD And Halara cannot move much so...they just take whatever the ditzy time detective throws their way. Fubuki lovingly babysits the stuffy postcogditive detective while they recover.
This was my first time experimenting with allergies as an ailment so...I tried to read up on it before I drew so I could at least be accurate. Allergies isn't really the same thing as being ill. But it was still fun to draw it out :3
(tfw halara looks sicker than everyone else did... lmao improvement?)
Anyway, hope you enjoy this snack Clockmare Nation🩵🩷
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Viviakou Kokobolt
57 notes
·
View notes