There is a 300,000-year-old precedent for humanity’s practice of social ostracization. Throughout history, the desire for self-preservation frequently resulted in the grouping of individuals based on shared qualities, particularly race, because evolutionary instincts dictate that the familiar is safest. As society has advanced throughout history, the efficacy of such basic playground discrimination should have been called into question; and yet, as empires continue to demonstrate over and over again, social homogeneity and the resulting dehumanization of the excluded party remains the name of the game. Japan’s controversial relationship with ethnic homogeneity and xenophobia throughout its history is a microcosm for history’s greater exclusionist trend. Amber Noizumi and Michael Green’s American animated show, Blue Eye Samurai, explores the magnification of Japanese nationalism and xenophobia during the Edo Period through its retelling of the classic samurai tale. Mizu, the protagonist, is a half-white, half-Japanese samurai whose tumultuous relationship with her own multiracial identity challenges the myth of the ethnically “pure” Japanese society. The show’s creators use Mizu’s journey to explore their Japanese American family’s experiences in the modern era, where their contemporary struggle to reconcile a multifaceted identity within an immigrant community built on the principle of social homogeneity reflects the division between Mizu and her fellow countrymen in isolationist Japan. While Blue Eye Samurai depicts the historical Japanese dehumanization of the “other” through its retelling, modern scholars such as Jane Yamashiro and Ayako Takamori examine the struggle plaguing multiracial Japanese descendants in the United States as a result of that historical dehumanization. In tandem, this intervening discourse demonstrates that, while the 400-year separation between the Edo Period and the modern day may span several centuries, the same myth of Japanese racial and ethnic uniformity must be dismantled by creating a culture that protects multiracial identities in order to sustain the strength of the whole community.
Japan is a notoriously homogenous country, in part due to actions taken by its government throughout history to preserve the “purity” of the country and erase the cultural diversity that might have stood to bring it strength, all in the name of national pride. As a result, contemporary Japanese Americans represent a multiracial community of immigrants and their descendants who perceive “Japanese-ness” as something so vital it must be measured. Terms such as “hafū,” which translates roughly to “half” in English, describe Japanese Americans in conjunction with identifiers like “issei,” “nissei,” and “sansei,” which identify how many generations separate one from Japan (Yamashiro 67). This intervening discourse leverages the power of a myth that has sustained since long before Japan first closed its borders in 1603: that being “purely” Japanese is the best thing to be, because it guarantees one a place in a society that values uniformity as a source of societal strength. Jane Yamashiro examines how Japanese Americans and multiracial Japanese choose to describe their relationship with Japan, particularly through the use of terms such as “hafū,” which Yamashiro notes has evolved from its original meaning as someone half-Japanese and half-white into a more complex term referring to someone distinctly western, and yet “looking Japanese enough for the majority to feel comfortable with” (66). Her perspective highlights the motivations behind this intervening myth fueling ethnic pride: comfort. Humanity has created smartphones, vaccines, and machines that fly, but has not yet managed to evolve out of the desire to reject others to protect the uniformity—and thus the comfort—of those who get to belong. This practice weakens the community by amputating pieces of the whole until there is nothing left to sustain centuries of history and culture, leaving them unable to evolve for fear of becoming impure.
Japan’s history of nationalism and xenophobia is similar to that of any other community—which is that exclusionism is as old as the country, and humanity as a whole. However, the beginning of the Edo Period (also known as the beginning of Japanese isolationism, or sakoku) marked a particular milestone: the manifestation of “the other” and the myth of Japanese homogeneity. Blue Eye Samurai is set soon after the Tokugawa shogunate closed Japan’s borders to all but a select few traders through the port of Nagasaki, creating a nation almost entirely isolated from the international world. This political maneuver fueled the rise of black-and-white “Japanese” and “not Japanese” identities in the national psyche (Kazui). Takamori emphasizes that Japan had “no significant racial minorities” and “a broadly unified culture” at this time, which reinforced the myth that, not only was the country separate from the rest of the world in order to protect national ethnic purity, but that it was this purity which made the country superior (Takamori 555). Mizu is not just the only character in Blue Eye Samurai who is not entirely Japanese (with the exception of the show’s antagonist, whose whiteness is used as a metaphor for his moral corruption), she is the only person the other characters have ever encountered who is not 100% ethnically Japanese. As the show’s title implies, Mizu’s striking blue eyes betray her heritage, and alienate her from her isolated nation. In her infancy, opening her eyes prompts an unnamed man offscreen to declare that she is, “a half-breed…hardly human” (“A Fixed Number of Paths” 0:26). He equates being Japanese with being human, a form of dehumanization that will haunt Mizu throughout her journey. As the audience discovers that she is so flawed and pained that she could be nothing but human, everyone she encounters reiterates the opposite: that she is not purely Japanese the way they are, and thus does not belong. This journey is painful, but not uniquely so. Rather, Mizu’s story is a fictional exploration of the cultural attitudes that dominated the Edo Period, as Japan’s isolation fueled the sustaining myth of Japanese racial homogeneity as a morally superior alternative to the concept of the outsider.
Blue Eye Samurai allows Mizu to fumble with her own identity in order to demonstrate the greater societal harm caused by the prevailing myth of Japanese ethnic and cultural homogeneity. As Mizu’s sense of self fractures, so does the world around her. Takamori explores this fracturing in terms of the destabilization caused by the presence of modern Japanese Americans in Japan, because they are “simultaneously Japanese and not-Japanese in ways that destabilize both categories” (Takamori 488). Mizu challenges the fragility of the homogeneous Japanese identity by questioning herself, and finds that society crumbles beneath her fingers. Before the audience even learns her name, they learn that the other characters believe she looks “like an onryō,” characterizing her not just as something less-than-human, but rather a creature so dead-eyed and monstrous that she must be a vengeful spirit come back to haunt the Earth (“Hammerscale” 7:20). Yet, in every way except for her eyes, Mizu appears Japanese. She speaks only Japanese, and is a master in the art of swordmaking and fighting with a katana—both distinctly Japanese traditions. This contradiction destabilizes those who “belong” in her society, as demonstrated from the reactions she prompts—ranging from fear to disgust. In the season finale, the show’s antagonist bargains for his life by telling her that he knows a “magic” word she doesn’t know: “London” (“The Great Fire of 1657” 42:55). From Mizu’s shock, the audience gains the chilling understanding that she is perceived as an outsider in the only country she has ever known. The juxtaposition of Mizu being “simultaneously Japanese and not-Japanese,” as Takamori phrases it, not only causes her a great deal of pain, but destabilizes the society she inhabits by challenging her peers’ sense of identity (Takamori 488). The very fabric of Mizu’s world stands on the intensifying belief that Japan’s homogeneity stabilizes the nation in times of turmoil. Mizu challenges this myth by daring not just to be “other,” but exceptionally Japanese at the same time, which prompts reactions from her contemporaries that expose the true fear and bias motivating Japanese exclusionism.
Blue Eye Samurai does more than simply highlight the discomfort experienced by Mizu’s peers—it shines a light on the myth of pure Japanese homogeneity in the Edo Period, as well as its modern consequences. The dehumanization necessary to properly exclude someone from a community does more than hurt feelings; it creates a culture so focused on ethnic uniformity as its only means of cultural preservation that those—such as Mizu and her modern Japanese American counterparts—who could aid in cultural preservation while furthering the evolution of a multicultural society are made powerless, and their contributions lost. Yamashiro examines the value of belonging through the modern implications of the Japanese term for “Japanese person,” nohonjin (日本人), by uncovering its additional connotation: “being of pure Japanese blood,” once again reiterating the myth that Japanese purity is superior (Yamashiro 65). Even by these modern standards, Mizu would not be fully nihonjin, despite knowing no country but Japan. Takamori investigates how Japanese Americans choose to identify, and finds that they experience many of the feelings Mizu describes in relation to the concept of Japanese purity: experiencing life as a “living oxymoron or a conceptual anomaly,” simply too “other” to be Japanese, while simultaneously being too Japanese to fit comfortably into a society ruled by white privilege (Takamori 487). The Japanese American community’s experiences during World War II demonstrate the deep cultural loss experienced when an outside party weaponizes the myth of Japanese homogeneity as a means of racial discrimination. The assumption that all Japanese immigrants and their descendants were at risk of engaging in espionage against the American government resulted in the unconstitutional incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans. For fear of further consequences, including deportation, many Japanese American families renounced Japan as their place of origin and set their sights on assimilation. As a result, many second, third, and fourth generation Japanese Americans cannot speak Japanese and cannot participate in or help to preserve Japanese cultural traditions. In Blue Eye Samurai, Mizu’s contemporaries also lose her cultural contributions. As the only apprentice to Japan’s most revered swordmaker, as well as a student of samurai methodology, her knowledge and values would have contributed greatly to her society if she had been given the opportunity. Instead, just as Japanese Americans found themselves alienated from both the United States and Japan, she finds herself entirely alienated from her country, and all communities experience an irreversible cultural loss as their growth stalls.
By laying out the progression from cultural homogeneity to dehumanization, it becomes apparent why the myth of Japanese racial and ethnic uniformity must be dismantled for the greater societal benefit. And yet, the myths prevail. When revisiting Takamori’s commentary on the presence of Japanese Americans in Japan as “destabiliz[ing] both categories,” the reason becomes apparent (488). Xenophobia and exclusionism do not manifest from nothing, rather they represent the growth of a social movement in Japan justified largely by fear—the same fear that led the Tokugawa shogunate to close the country’s borders in 1603, and the fear that resulted in the incarceration of Japanese Americans in 1942: the fear of the other. When Mizu encounters other samurai in Kyoto, they exemplify this fear that her otherness will result in cultural corruption by leveraging their traditions against her. Her opponent declares, “be warned, you face my shindo-ryu [emphasis added],” referring to a highly coveted and secretive form of martial arts only taught in the best samurai schools—schools Mizu would have been barred from attending (“Hammerscale” 42:37). The samurai upholds his knowledge of tradition as proof of his belonging. This scene reflects the fear of cultural loss and corruption motivating the myth of Japanese homogeneity. And yet, this myth only stands in a vacuum. Yamashiro explains that many Japanese Americans and children of Japanese immigrants use Japanese markers in their names to “more clearly express their ethnic backgrounds,” demonstrating a desire not just to be recognized as Japanese, but to preserve family history and language (Yamashiro 71). When confronted by the reality that many multiracial Japanese not only work to preserve Japanese history and culture, but seek to bring it to their own countries and communities outside of Japan, the true motivation behind Japanese exclusionism emerges. While the fear of cultural loss sounds convincing, the reality is that the prevalence of the myth of Japanese ethnic uniformity stems from a desire to prevent history and culture from being tarnished by diversity. By treating culture as something that can only be preserved by pure Japanese, exclusionists allow it to stagnate and decay. Closing off culture to a growing world out of fear and personal bias does not protect it from corruption, it simply ensures that the only community that may uphold these traditions never grows, and eventually dies out.
This intervening discourse is so greatly ingrained into Japanese history and culture through national values, historical precedent, and tradition that the desire for group cohesion and cultural preservation has manifested the “other” and resulted in its dehumanization. Noizumi and Green establish Mizu’s “Japanese-ness” as a fact so indisputable it appears almost ridiculous to the audience that she would be shunned for something as trivial as the color of her eyes, and then demonstrate what happens to a society that chooses to dehumanize their minorities: it fractures. A community cannot properly preserve its history and continue to evolve while amputating pieces that threaten its uniformity. Dismantling the myth that Japanese racial and ethnic homogeneity contributes to national power makes space for the healing and evolution the community requires in order to thrive in the modern age. The prevailing myths surrounding Japan’s ethnic makeup and the exclusionist attitudes they foster are not unique. Rather, Mizu and her modern Japanese American counterparts represent a case study for the larger human race’s tendency to build barriers and reject the unfamiliar, resulting in a crying need for cultural diversity. The myth of Japanese racial homogeneity speaks to a larger societal failing to embrace diversity, but true historical progress and cultural renaissance cannot occur until society ceases its dehumanization of that which is unfamiliar and makes room for everyone to belong.