Mikio

**Mikio** is a character in the Netflix series, *Blue Eye Samurai*, who is voiced by Byron Mann. A disgraced samurai and expert horse-trainer, he was married to Mizu until a tragic betrayal tore them apart, leading to his death.

## Biography

Mikio is a samurai who was banished by the lord. He raises horses for the lord and hopes to raise the perfect horse for his lord, so that he can forgive him. Mizu's mother arranges that he marries Mizu and they go to live in his house. In time, Mikio and Mizu fall in love; however, after Mizu bests Mikio in combat, he becomes angry and leaves the next day to take the horses to the lord. While he is away, a group of samurai arrive to kill Mizu for a bounty, only for her to slaughter them with a *naginata*. As Mikio returns with a sword (leaving it uncertain if he was retrieving it to defend Mizu, or to help the samurai kill her), Mikio and Mizu's mother blame each other for betraying Mizu for her bounty. As they argue, Mikio ends up killing Mizu's mother and is then killed by the enraged and hurt Mizu when he tries to follow her.

## Personality

Mikio is more easygoing than many other samurai. While he seeks to climb back to his former station in his lord's favor, it has not made him bitter or cruel. He is somewhat blunt and aloof, escaping to work with his beloved horses whenever he can't find something to say, but avoids berating Mizu or her mother when they don't perform their social roles as wife or mother-in-law perfectly, merely laughing at Mizu's bad cooking rather than insulting it. He also gently informs her 'mother' that she should stop taking opium, having discussed it with Mizu.

He only becomes briefly angry with Mizu when she accidentally disturbs his work with the horses, since he sees them as his path back to status and power. He also does not touch her during their wedding night and afterwards for some time, claiming he isn't a brute; while this might be interpreted as him not desiring her physically (since his first words to her were "you're not as hideous as I expected") he does leave her the choice of initiating physical contact. As time goes on, he and Mizu warm up to each other as he teaches her to ride and she helps him train Kai, leading them to eventually fall in love and consummate their relationship. He confides in her that he's had a fantasy of bringing his lord the perfect creature to retrieve his station, but eventually accepts he will not return and that he enjoys his life with Mizu, choosing to gift Kai to her. She in turn confides some of her past life and her sword training, intriguing him; he claims he wants to see "all" of her, not just the traditionally feminine parts her mother pushes on her.

However, like many men raised in the male-dominated culture of Edo-Period Japan, despite his more open-minded nature, Mikio proves to have a prideful ego, and still views men as the mentors and leaders of the household. Unaware of just how skilled Mizu is, he is stunned and offended when she easily bests him with both the *katana* and the *naginata* in their first duel (things that are supposedly made unclean by a woman's touch) and teases his desire to restore his former title, as well as unnerved by her visible pride and enjoyment in dueling, despite Mizu taking care not to physically hurt him. Verbally rejecting her as a "monster", he storms off, taking a prize horse he had promised Mizu to the Lord instead. When he rides off briefly during the subsequent attack after looking her in the eye, it remains uncertain whether he really was retrieving his sword to protect Mizu or called the samurai to kill her in the first place. Regardless, he once again reacts to the extreme when his pride is injured afterward: When he and Mizu's 'mother' each accuse the other of turning Mizu in, her mother calls him weak. In response, he angrily grabs her and stabs her to death with his *tanto*. Hurt by this and his previous betrayal, Mizu ignores his insistance that he loves her, killing him when he follows her.