Spoilers Below The Cut - Tumblr Posts

Amphibia - Earth Epilogue Thoughts

This was originally going to be about the entire last episode but then it got way too long so I’m breaking it up into parts with this one coming out first because, while this is the last section of the episode, it is somehow the section I finished first.

I can’t believe Amphibia is over. It was an amazing ride from start to finish with some of the highest highs I’ve seen in animation. When I first started watching the show in May of 2020 I wasn’t expecting how attached I would become to the world and characters and it really did help me through a turbulent time in my life. I’m really happy that this show has garnered the following and been given the love it deserves.

I had to sit on this for a few days because it was hard to process all that had happened and I have a lot of thoughts on The Hardest Thing. I am conflicted about some aspects of the finale but overall I loved this goodbye to the series. Amphibia has once again made a season finale that will stay with me long after that first watch-through. This one was a bit difficult to get through because I had so many emotions about a series so important to me ending but I’m really happy that it existed and got to be a part of my life so I wanted to get this out there.

I just hope all of you could get the enjoyment and connection to Amphibia that I found these past two years watching the show because it really was a wonderful experience and this is an amazing show.

I’m glad I took a few days to sit on this because the Amphibia cast and crew have been very active on social media and some of the things said have eased a few issues I had with the finale. One of them was that Matt Braly came out and said that Marcy did visit after she moved away and that all the girls did stay close after Amphibia even if they slowly drifted apart over time. They still keep up with each other on social media and try to show interest in what they are each doing. But I will stand by the fact that the dialogue in the episode doesn’t get this across.

The way the dialogue is makes it sound like they didn’t talk hardly at all after Marcy left and she was out of the loop and Anne and Sasha drifted apart soon after. Marcy asking if Anne and Sasha hung out after she moved doesn’t seem like the kind of question that would be asked if they kept in close contact and Sasha’s comment that Anne and her drifted apart in high school makes it sound like they drifted apart 1-2 years after amphibia (given that they were 13-14 pre-timeskip and would have entered high school the next year). I know logically that the girls would always be close and important to each other even if they lost contact due to time and distance. That’s why I didn’t understand the dialogue choices and still don’t entirely. 

Amphibia is about change but the entirety of the show was also about the friendship of these three girls falling apart and forcing them to grow separately as individuals before coming back together as true friends. A huge part of The Beginning of the End and All In was all about Sasha and Anne coming to understand Marcy and wanting to make their friendship with her and each other work despite their past issues. Season 3b is dedicated to Sasha and Anne rebuilding their friendship into something stronger than before (Anne literally says “just look at what you and I have now”). So to make it sound like they drifted apart so casually bothers me. I don’t think I can get behind how they had Anne and Sasha’s relationship drift apart like that especially since they live so close together and likely go to the same school during this time.

I understand that this is a friendship that wouldn’t easily be broken. That is exactly why the dialogue bothered me because I don’t think it properly conveyed that.

It’s not an issue with the message. I love the message that people do grow apart and that they can come back together again. I love how they meet up on Anne’s birthday, bring her presents, catch up, and take a new photo. I love the idea that things aren’t permanent and that sometimes you will grow apart but that doesn’t make your experiences together and the love you share pointless, it just takes on a new meaning. I love that all these years later they could come back together and reconnect.

I love all of that. My issue was that the dialogue made it seem like they drifted apart soon after Amphibia which didn’t sit right with me. But with Matt’s tweets about the subject and assurance that this will be shown in Marcy’s journal I have hope that this could be addressed.

Now for the things I loved about this epilogue. There are a lot.

The first thing I want to talk about is how perfect each girls’ profession is. Marcy creating a popular webcomic is a great outlet for her love of fantasy and escapism. She can put all that passion and love that initially blinded her to the consequences of her actions in Amphibia into something healthy and connect with many people through her work. She can find that connection through media that she tried so desperately to establish in the flashback in The Beginning of the End (that flashback makes me emotional even mentioning). And Sasha even read her webcomic trying to show interest in Marcy’s passions which I loved.

This is once again really relatable. I know a lot of gifted kids who excelled academically and had great things projected for their future in science and engineering only for them to burn out and discover their true passion was tied to the media they consume and creating something of their own. Marcy has always been relatable and this just hit it home.

Sasha becoming a Child Psychologist to help kids work through their emotional baggage was really fitting. I liked the nod to how all of her actions in Amphibia were brought on by her baggage from home. She was struggling with the effects of her parent’s divorce and the breakdown of her relationship with them. Her inability to understand the relationship between Anne and the Plantars, the jealousy/bitterness she shows towards Anne’s relationship with her parents, her need for control, etc all stemmed from a turbulent home life. The fact that she’s using the lessons she learned in Amphibia and her own mistakes to help kids work through their own issues so they don’t take that same path is heartwarming.

I do wish we got some sort of expansion on Sasha’s home life outside of implications, the two separate letters, and interviews because we got at least some insight into Marcy’s parents and situation that kept her from wanting to go home but with Sasha it is all subtext. We also don’t get a clear motivation for why she’d want to go back outside of “it’s where she’s from” and I feel there should have been some expansion to this point to round out her arc. 

This didn’t hurt this episode for me but it makes Sasha’s ultimate decision to go home and leave behind Amphibia and Grime not feel as integral to her arc as it is Marcy’s (because it was very clearly the trajectory of her arc after the True Colors reveal) or as earned as Anne’s (she’s self explanatory. Her goal has always been to go back home and she has missed her family and home since day 1) for me.

I also think Marcy’s parents should have been shown. Her parents deciding to move is what kicked off the entire story so it seems odd not to show them at all.

It didn’t hurt how much I liked the episode. It just felt weird that they were teased with Anne sending the letters and the phone call with the Boonchuys in All In only to never appear.

Anne becoming a herpetologist who works at an aquarium was perfect. It makes complete sense. She can be surrounded by what she loves and create a homage to an important, formative part of her life. The “Get Lost in Amphibia” sign with the Plantar farm, toad tower, the three gems on the wall, mother olm above the doorway, and the frog she named Sprig all hit in the most bittersweet way. The Plantars and Amphibia will always be a part of her just like it is for Marcy and Sasha. She just found a different way to build it into her life and career.

I think the idea that they could come back together after all the time and distance that has come between them is really beautiful and it makes me tear up. I love this idea. I love how they meet up on Anne’s birthday, bring her presents, catch up, and take a new photo. I love the idea that things aren’t permanent and that sometimes you will grow apart but that doesn’t make your experiences together and the love you share pointless, it just takes on a new meaning. (My conflict comes from the things I pointed out above.) 

This aspect of the epilogue makes me really emotional especially considering Anne’s narration “But of the things you let go, you’d be surprised what makes its way back to you.” The girls reuniting and hugging with Sprig in the foreground and the Amphibia setup around them was the perfect ending frame for this show. 

There’s also more than one interpretation of this ending line. There’s the obvious one that the girls always find their way back to each other but it also has to do with how Amphibia has come back around and stayed in their lives long after they left it behind. That last shot is a recreation of the picture on the calamity box as well which brings it all full circle.

It’s also all of their adventures surrounding them and bidding them farewell. They spent months of their lives here and it has irrevocably changed them. So having one final goodbye even if they can’t see their found family again tugs at the heartstrings.

Amphibia is and will always be a big part of the girls and they all have things to help them remember it by. Anne has her job and setup at the aquarium which is one big homage to her second home. Sasha has the twin heron sword patch on her jacket and ornament on her rear view mirror along with the heron on the back of her jacket and the ax beetle guitar sticker on her mirror (and she was supposed to have a Grime eye tattoo on her wrist). She has reminders of her time there all over. And I am convinced that Marcy put aspects of their adventures in Amphibia in her webcomic. They all carry their experiences and memories with them even if they can’t return. And I love seeing how they all carried those experiences into their new life back on earth.

(I wish I could get a higher quality photo of the new polaroid)

I would be remiss not to talk about that final shot in the credits of the new bff photo the girls took. It’s a beautiful bookend to their story. The polaroid was such an important thing for every girl throughout the story but it grew and changed in significance with each of the girls. This new one symbolizes their new change in dynamic and friendship perfectly.

Anne is in the center rather than Sasha. Before Amphibia Sasha was the leader of their group. She made herself the center because of who she was. But now Anne is the center, the heart, of the group. Because she is the glue that holds them together. She is a big reason for Sasha and Marcy’s individual growth. They have their hands interlocked to show this but also because they will always be connected. Even with time and distance they will find each other and come back together because they are irreplaceable parts of each other’s lives.

The fact that our first sighting of the group was this polaroid stuck in a tree in the rain during the opening and that this is the last sighting of the group right before “Complete” appears in Thai bringing the series to a close is so poetic. This friendship started turbulent and bound to break apart but because of their individual growth their bond is unbreakable. They may not have talked every day over the past ten years but their importance to each other has never waned and the possibility of being close once again after this moment of connection is there. It’s open to the individual.

I love this series and I love these characters. I know this series will always hold a special place to me and I hope others manage to find connection in it as well.

Also Sasha Waybright is Bi and I love it.

Blue Eye Samurai Thoughts

These thoughts are sort of scattered and don’t cover everything I think makes this show great but I wanted to get something out about this amazing show.

Every once in a while an animated project comes around that makes me sit back in awe that something this phenomenal was allowed to be made. That something this rife with creativity, care, and emotion was given the freedom necessary for the people behind the scenes to make an authentic experience that really pushes the boundaries of what animation can do. And Blue Eye Samurai did just that. 

The last time I felt that way about an animated show was Arcane.

Blue Eye Samurai follows Mizu, a child of mixed race that was deemed a monster due to her parentage, and her journey to kill the man who sired her. It’s a dark, tragic tale that blends 2D and 3D animation to create a story that centers themes of prejudice, class, identity, found family, revenge, and loss.

It’s one of the most gorgeous shows to come out in the last few years. With pretty much the entire show having the ability to leave you breathless. The action scenes in particular are standouts (shocking I know).

In these action scenes the show really embraces the freedom its rating gives it without falling into the usual trappings shows with a mature rating tend to. Blue Eye Samurai has an abundance of bloody gore filled violence that never becomes gratuitous. It all feels purposeful and poignant within the story itself and how it explores its themes. It gives the consequences of Mizu’s revenge depth. Not just in how it effects the people around her and the collateral, but also in how the violence Mizu perpetrates effects her.

This is best explored in episode 5 (The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride), which is probably the best episode in the season, where we get to see a glimpse into Mizu’s past and how her path towards revenge is solidified.

The hopefulness of the past is directly juxtaposed with the bloody carnage of the present, while the story of the bride and the ronin is told over the course of the episode. There’s a foreboding that is layered over top of every scene in the past, the knowledge that in some way this goes wrong and leads Mizu to this point. To become this force of nature capable of cutting down men without hesitation.

It shows those parts of Mizu she’s lost through the hardships her life threw at her and those parts she’s been forced to discard herself to accomplish her goals.

The loss brought on by the hardships her life threw at her is shown in the past with her mother and husband and their betrayal and death. And the parts of herself she’s had to discard is shown in the present when she initially spares the boy that turns her in and almost gets the women in the brothel and herself killed that she ultimately kills in the end when faced with the same choice.

This is all just scratching the surface of this exploration, but I think it gets across the point that this show does a good job of exploring the nuances of revenge and what led Mizu to this point.

It’s the show’s meticulous exploration of aspects of Mizu’s character that makes her such a complicated character and an amazing protagonist. I don’t know if anything I write would really do her justice, but the complexity and nuance of her character alone make this show worth watching.

The second most interesting character to me was Akemi. 

Akemi’s arc is incredibly compelling. She goes from feeling trapped and trying desperately to escape to learning how to use her cunning to try and become great. But because this arc is occurring in Blue Eye Samurai it isn’t as straightforward as that description makes it seem on the surface. That arc is flipped on its head and to show what I mean I want to look at the scene on the bridge.

That scene on the bridge after Seki dies was one of the most intriguing of the final episode. That moment you can see the shift in Akemi’s desires from that of freedom to that of greatness. In many ways this isn’t the victory that it should be.

The wording seems like that of someone taking control of their own destiny and deciding to pull themselves up to a position higher than anyone thought possible, but the framing with the city in flames behind her, the shogunate’s enemies burning alive, and Seki dead on the ground put it in a more tragic/sinister light.

And those words she speaks that are on the surface sound triumphant echo sentiments that her father has said to her (telling him he’s only alive because of her and the belief that she can control the shogun, etc). Her desire for greatness even reflects his own. 

This isn’t really freedom and considering the almost naive quest for that freedom she went through during the season and was even hopeful she could obtain just moments before, living out her days with Seki on his family farm, make this feel less a victory and more like she’s becoming what she has to. That she’s hardened. That she’s starting down a path that mirrors Mizu’s in some ways.

And this mirror between Mizu and Akemi is clearly intentional. The show itself visually mirrors the two within this same episode in the exact scene I was just talking about.

And throughout the season she is the most direct foil to Mizu. Both found different ways to try and work around the inherent restrictions being a woman in 1600s Japan would entail, to gain any semblance of freedom from those restrictions, but were ultimately hurt by those expectations/restrictions in a way that forced them to change.

They took how they handled it in two completely opposite directions (Mizu presenting as a man and Akemi using her sexuality and forced marriage to her advantage. In broad, over-simplified terms: rejecting femininity vs embracing it to achieve their goals) which is what makes them such interesting foils for one another.

This parallel/contrast to Mizu makes her the most interesting of the supporting cast and her end point puts her into what might be the most compelling spot out of all the main characters heading into next season.

(Plus she’s voiced by Brenda Song aka Anne Boonchuy and London Tipton)

Honestly all of the characters are given nuance that makes them at the very least entertaining.

The show even manages to make a character that could have just been comedic relief an interesting character and an avenue to expand on its exploration of themes with (season MVP) Ringo.

This is best shown through Ringo’s views of greatness. They at first seem shallow and naive. Not really looking deeper than the surface at what this idea entails and he floats from one thing to the next so easily that it can initially seem unfocused, but I think that’s the point. Ringo doesn’t really know what greatness is so his view of it is constantly changing and what he believes he can be great at is constantly changing too. 

Just like the audience he is awed by Mizu’s strength and ability in battle, but as the brutality and reality of what that skill brings comes to light the idea that this skill and determination is greatness slowly dims. It never entirely dies out because this isn’t meant to destroy his idea of greatness, but instead change it from a black and white binary to something that is more blurred. He still sees greatness/potential for greatness within Mizu, but he doesn’t see her as the pinnacle anymore. The end all be all.

And what he can do to be great constantly changes because he’s suddenly had so many opportunities he never could have dreamed about, due to his disability and being stuck at his father’s noodle shop, opened to him that he needs the time to explore what he wants. He’s still trying to find his calling and by the end of the series he might have found the start of it in the same place that Mizu did– With Swordfather. 

The one thing about Blue Eye Samurai that didn’t quite work for me is the use of music. The show’s score is beautiful and used to great effect, but the music it chose to put over scenes would pull me out of the moment almost every time because it used highly recognizable songs that I’d heard in so many pieces of media it felt inauthentic and jarring.

This is a small complaint because there are only 2 scenes where the music choice did this, but I felt I should mention it because of how important these scenes were supposed to be. The rest of the show easily makes up for this small gripe.

I could probably ramble about this show all day but I’ll cut this off here and say this: Blue Eye Samurai easily lives up to the hype that everyone has been giving it. It’s a visually stunning show with compelling characters that explores its themes in such depth that I can’t wait to see where it goes from here. 

Random thoughts

I love the shot of Mizu in The Great Fire of 1657 where she’s staring Fowler down, flames behind her and eyes a piercing blue, because of the perspective of this shot. This is shown through the eyes of Fowler, the man who just brought an army to the shogunate’s doorstep with the plan to take over Japan, and yet he’s afraid of Mizu and the lengths she will go to achieve her goals. It’s such a chilling shot that absolutely shook me to my core. (Man Blue Eye Samurai is amazing at these types of shots)

Taigen is a character that I had a lot of fun with, but didn’t make as much of an impression on me as the rest of the characters. He isn’t as complicated and compelling as Mizu and Akemi or as thematically interesting as (season MVP) Ringo. I wish I had more to say about him, but I don’t. I do think his dynamic with Mizu is interesting though.

Fowler is a really fun villain and I can’t wait to see how he plays off of Mizu now that he is going to be her guide in London. I can’t wait to explore those bombshells he dropped in the finale about Mizu’s origins.

The fights in episode 6 were the most visually stunning to me in the season. The way it played around with lighting and perspective was incredible. 

I didn’t talk about it much above but I thought the way Blue Eye Samurai explored Mizu’s relationship to her gender to be very compelling and nuanced. The way it’s handled lends itself to a fascinating exploration of identity and gender that I think is important.

Swordfather has such a great relationship with Mizu. He knew she didn't leave his house the night before and just decides to adopt her and teach her everything he knows, giving her a stable relationship that doesn't reinforce her shame. He doesn't recognize her mixed heritage as a point of shame instead embracing her for who she is and letting her know that her mixed heritage doesn't make her impure, standing up for her when the bandit threatens to hit her and insults her origins. This genuine care is something Mizu desperately needed as a child and it was amazing to watch.

I think I want to go into greater depth at some point on my points on Mizu and Akemi being mirrors to one another and how The Ronin and the Bride explores violence and loss and how they're intertwined in Mizu's life at some point.

It’s shows like this that make me even more frustrated at Netflix. They were on such a role in animation and were (and sort of still are) a driving factor in changing the landscape of adult animation that they were frequently the platform that I was most excited to see new animated projects on, but then they absolutely gutted their animation division and showed little to no respect to the work of those that made the animated properties and I lost a lot of respect for them as a result. I really hope projects like Blue Eye Samurai keep being made and that platforms start respecting animation like it deserves.

I kind of feel like adding a few adult animated recommendations on netflix to this so here goes: Arcane (duh. It’s a masterpiece), Pluto, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Castlevania, Carol and the End of the World, Skull Island, Inside Job, and Tear Along the Dotted Line.