Me: Mizu’s gender in Blue Eye Samurai is complex and ambiguous even to him/her/them and that’s part of the richness of the story, not a reason for the fandom to get upset at one another or especially at the show creators for saying they envisioned Mizu as a woman struggling to survive in a society hostile towards her racial background and women in general. Mizu’s upbringing was, to put it lightly, supremely fucked up and I respect the show for leaving Mizu’s gender identity and sexual preferences fairly ambiguous because I think they’re ambiguous even to Mizu, who doesn’t exactly lead a life or display an internality in which this question is any kind of priority for Mizu to answer, even if Mizu had a cultural context that gave the tools the answer it, which Mizu does not. Mizu’s relationship with all aspects of their identity, including their race, gender, sexuality is an ongoing question and dialogue being actively explored in the show itself, without a strict conclusion offered, and a conclusion might never be offered, even in later seasons, as Mizu continues to grapple with identity. In this essay, I will…
Just How "Weak” is Dabi? (Or: Lots of Thoughts on Marginalization in My Hero Academia)
I got an interesting ask about the way that Dabi relates to his limitations and how the manga repeatedly calls attention to the fact that he is weak, and I think this whole issue is fascinating, so I’m going to try to break down some thoughts on it. If Horikoshi carries through on even half the promise these tendrils of plot could hold, it would be a very refreshing take on villains, which types of characters are allowed to qualify as “threatening,” and what it really means to be a marginalized person in a “super” society.