i wanted to give my opinions on blue eye samurai as a genderfluid person who is sometimes trans masc.
sometimes, i do think people tend to project western ideas on non-western shows and you miss out on a lot of critiques on misogyny.
I think that it's important to recognize that Mizu is not a man because she wants to be (as far as this season) she is a man because she has to be. Mizu was extremely, in her own way, empathetic toward women in their various situations but could not allow herself to show it or to even hint of her real identity because she literally sees and understands how women are treated.
Either wives, prostitutes or highborn women, and either have no actual control of their lives. In order to commit to her goal, Mizu cannot fall into either of those roles. In order to stay safe, she has to be a man.
She has to be a man to survive, even if it's highly implied that's not what she wanted, and if things went differently with her husband, she would've been happy being a wife.
There are many perspectives of women in Blue Eye Samurai and Mizu's herself cannot be discounted because she does give us a clear perspective of a woman. And that is the perspective of one who must hide herself to stay alive.
It's not what she wants - her whole NARRATIVE is a critique on the misogyny Japanese women faced during that time. And how in order to survive she must go through extremes.
We saw that even for women like Akemi, as high born as she was, she had little to no control over her life until the very end, and even then, she is still bound by the laws of what women can do . LIKE YES, she IS GREAT she is, But she is still going to be expected to be a dutiful wife and be behind her husband, not in front of him or beside him.
That was also a huge point in conflict that Mizu has to also correct herself on. Just because Akemi is a princess doesn't mean her life is better. Mizu projected a lot of her own jealousy on Akemi because in her mind, Akemi was allowed to exist as a woman and have everything handed to her. She did not realize how similar they were until the end.
think a certain level of understanding about cultural differences and how misogyny plays a part in certain societies needs to be applied to her character. She is miserable with how she is. Having to be forced to be a man is not something she wants to do. She has to conceal herself.
That is why it was significant at the very end, before she fought fowler, that she presented herself as naked, hair down, breast exposed, as a woman. Because part of her probably thought she was going to die and she wanted to embrace her true self, the self she wanted to be, before she did that.
