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As a samurai, she’s trained her whole life to become a lethal weapon, all in order to kill the handful of white men who were living in Japan at the time of her birth. Mizu battles childhood trauma as well as deep self-loathing - a powerful mix of internalized shame and internalized misogyny. Mizu, a female character who was raised as a boy, continues this performance into adulthood because it allows her to circumvent the strict gender roles imposed on women of the time.

It’s evident from the opening moments that Blue Eye Samurai is delicately animated, with an intriguing premise and a main character, Mizu (voiced by Maya Erskine) whose outcast status as a biracial loner in isolated Edo-era Japan immediately draws you in.

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That’s two days before the full series officially dropped on Netflix - a tantalizing teaser to increase the show’s status as a binge fest.

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One of the key things Netflix did to boost interest in Blue Eye Samurai is also something rare for the platform: It released the first episode of the show for free on its primary YouTube channel on November 1, where it has since been viewed over 3 million times. The spread featured gorgeous production stills, giving readers a taste of the stylized artwork they could expect from the series. In September, it gave an exclusive preview of the show, alongside a profile of series director Jane Wu, to Vanity Fair - an outlet not usually known for highlighting cartoons. In the months before its debut, Netflix positioned Blue Eye Samurai as a mainstream release rather than a niche one. Netflix focused on building mainstream interest in the series before its premiere What does a Netflix series feel like, exactly, and what is Blue Eye Samurai doing that’s different? Over the course of the show, Blue Eye Samurai displays an artistic excellence and narrative innovation that most Netflix productions never attain. Yet Blue Eye Samurai, for all it’s a “typical” anime, contains a few elements that not only feel fresh but, crucially, like a bold and innovative step forward for Netflix, away from its usual rote, formulaic storytelling.

(That means it’s not technically an anime, since it wasn’t made in Japan, but given its anime aesthetic and Japanese setting, most fans are hailing it as one anyway.) There’s the tremendous social media buzz the show received in its first few weeks of release. There’s the utterly gorgeous animation, for one thing, created by French Canadian animation house Blue Spirit. What is it about this particular show - the relatively familiar tale of a solitary samurai seeking revenge - that drew in the views, where scores of other anime titles on the platform have faltered? That was nearly a decade ago, and despite scoring some big hits with the anime crowd, like 2018’s Devilman Crybaby, and landing some premier titles, like the high-profile 2019 release of anime OG Neon Genesis Evangelion, mainstream success with anime titles has eluded the platform - until now. In its early years, Netflix delivered a slate of solid Japanese imports, including its first exclusive series, Knights of Sidonia, in 2014. This roster of wins makes Blue Eye Samurai an outlier for anime on Netflix. Critics are deeming it the best Netflix show and the best animated show of the year. It also got 4.8 million views over its eight taut episodes during its first two weeks and garnered a status, according to Netflix, as one of the most-liked shows on the platform. Yet in the month since its November 1 release, Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai has established itself as a bona fide hit, spending two weeks in the global top 10 and reaching the top 10 mark in 50 countries (according to Netflix’s stats site). The criteria for success on Netflix have always been slippery, particularly regarding the platform’s hit-and-miss efforts with anime.