How Blue Eye Samurai team recreated Edo Japan for hit Netflix show [SCAD]

Blue eye samurai is one of Netflix’s most critically acclaimed animated series of 2023, with the show winning multiple Emmys and getting renewed for a second season. The original Netflix series Blue eye samurai Follows Mizu, a mixed-race female Japanese warrior who goes on a quest for revenge on four white men living in Japan. The show was praised for its mature story and themes, its action and superb animation, with these aspects leading to the show’s incredible critical reception. Blue eye samuraiHis violence and action are made beautiful by his animation style and fantastic production design.

The visuals of Blue eye samurai Led to the show becoming a darling of the season, with it winning all kinds of awards, including Four wins at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Blue Eyed SamuraiI won Outstanding Animated Program for the episode “The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride,” while it also won three Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation Emmys for Brian Kesinger’s character design in “Nothing Broken,” Ryan O’Loughlin’s storyboarding for “Hammerscale ,” and Toby Wilson’s production design for “The Great Fire of 1657.”

Blue eye samurai Production Designer Toby Wilson was at SCAD AnimationFest 2024 to talk about the production design of the Netflix series, with him presenting some of the inspiration materials and his process of recreating Japan’s 17th century Edo period for the show. Screen Rant Interviewed Toby Wilson after his Blue eye samurai presentation in order to further discuss his work on the series, with him giving an in-depth look at his process for creating the show’s beautiful visuals and locations. On top of that, Wilson also teased what he’s excited to work on Blue eye samurai Season 2.

Toby Wilson needed to be involved with Blue Eyed Samurai

“This is the kind of story I wish the industry was doing more of.”

Screen Rant: How did you first become involved with Blue Eyed Samurai?

Toby Wilson: I read the first three episodes and I was hooked. I was like, ‘I need to be on this project.’ This is the kind of story I wish the industry would do more of. This is the kind of project we all want to do. I have to be on it because I want it to be successful, to prove to the world that you can do it. Audiences want it. Let’s do more of it. And that’s why I called myself.

I got to meet Michael Green and Amber Noizumi, our showrunners. I spoke with Jane Wu, who I worked with in the past at Disney. And I worked with Earl Hibbert, our pre-vis and layout supervisor. And so there were familiar faces and it was just, ‘Okay, we have people who know what they’re doing, they know their business. And now we just need to collectively figure out how the heck we’re going to make these awesome scripts on a series budget and schedule.’ And that was the challenge. We were together.

Blue Eyed Samurai has a rigorous research process

“You can’t just rely on Google,” the designer explained.

Screen Rant: When you get the scripts, what is your research process? Go from ‘I see the words on paper’ to, ‘I have completely designed a building,’ for example.

Toby Wilson: So it’s a bit boring in the beginning. This is where I read the scripts, and in my position as the production designer, I have to design the production. How do we produce this visually? So I have to look at things like ‘What’s my budget? What is the screen time for these items? What are the most important story items?’ And I have to make sure I prioritize those things. So there is a little prioritization and budgeting at first.

Once you have that, you dig into the research. We have research consultants. We have specialists like our costume designers, Suttirat Anne Larlarb. We have personal consultants like my family. Many of my wife’s are still in Japan. So my brother-in-law helped me by sending me history books and things like that. Because you can’t just rely on Google. The Edo period is 400 years. It is much different at the beginning of the Edo period versus the end of the Edo period. So once you know the scope and you know where you want to focus, then you dive into the research and you use the specialists. Because you need to make sure you’re not researching and designing in a vacuum, and that you’re getting feedback.

Screen Rant: At the panel at SCAD AnimationFest, you said because of the COVID-19 pandemic, you couldn’t go to Japan. Is this something you would normally want to do in a project? And were there any other challenges that came with making it Blue eye samurai During the pandemic?

Toby Wilson: Oh yeah. This is something that everyone wants to do in every project. Research trips. Just be there and go through it, you see so many things. After we finished the series and the pandemic was over, I went to Japan on vacation. We went and visited family. I walked and walked through Himeji Castle and was shooting everything. And it was like, ‘Oh my God, we got it right! But it would be so much easier if I could just come here and take the photographs.’ Research trips help so much. But due to the pandemic or schedules, you can’t always do that. But I can say that they are super invaluable and we would love to do it.

Another thing for the pandemic that was tricky is you had to figure out how we were going to do the show 100% remotely. There are challenges to this because you can’t just get into a room face-to-face and hash it out or draw something on the table and pass it over. But there are digital ways. As I mentioned in the panel, it allows me to be able to work with artists from around the world that I wouldn’t necessarily be able to work with. So you could be in Spain and I could be working with you, or you could be in Los Angeles, and our interaction is exactly the same.

Production design for an animated series like Blue Eye Samurai has some major differences when compared to live action.

Although it may come as a surprise, “It’s actually a lot different…”

Screen Rant: Also in the panel, you said that as a production designer for an animated project, you also have to think about things that a DP would be in live action, like camera lenses. Are there any other challenges to a production designing animated project that production designers working in live action wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with?

Toby Wilson: Well, yes and no. Because every project is different. Every production designer works differently. And there are things that we do in animation that they all have to do in live action. It’s just a little different. Well, it’s actually a lot different, because none of it exists in animation. We have to build everything. In live action, they have to do everything practically. Everything we do is thought out.

And I have to think about camera and composition and things like that, but I lean on Earl Hibbert, who was our layout lead. He and Jane Wu are really driving the lending. I was more on the color and lighting design, but I had to work and think about the camera lending and things like the focal depth and all that. Typically, in live action, production designers are more about the practical set, and you have a DP who is thinking about the color and the lighting and the lending. Animation is a different workflow, a different pipeline. So the roles are a little different. An animation production designer oversees everything visual. So that means color, lighting, effects, sets, and all that.

Screen Rant: What is the process of a production designer, a character designer, costume designer, and all those roles working together in forming a consistent visual style, while also making sure that everyone has their own creative input and brings something unique to the table ?

Toby Wilson: This is one of the main responsibilities of a production designer. To make sure there is visual cohesion. In the early stages, some of the early concept art for Blue Eye Samurai was looking more textured. Not photo-real, but a little more realistic looking. And that’s when we shifted it to be more 2D. We embraced the Ukiyo-e look, so we pushed it that way.

You may have character designs where the design and the shape is the same, but the way you surface, shadow and light it can completely change the visual perception of it. That’s where I get involved and work with Brian Kesinger, our character design lead. Jane Wu, our supervising director, had a very clear vision of what she wanted the look of the show and the characters to be. So I got to kind of come in, and she pitched what she was looking for. I said a few things ago, ‘Oh, you mean that?’ And she was like, ‘Yes, exactly!’ So we just have a volcano view report, and it’s just riffing like jazz from that point on. I have the pleasure of working with some amazing people and I got to partner with them and create the vision. So it’s a team thing for sure.

How Blue Eyed Samurai Balances Entertainment with Accuracy to the Edo Period

“As scripted, he sneaks through the sewers. There are no sewers.”

Screen Rant: Since so much of the show’s production design is based on being very accurate to the culture and feeling grounded, are there any situations where you have to choose between accuracy and entertainment? When these problems came up, how did you address the issue?

Toby Wilson: Yes. I’ll give you a simple one, case in point. Spoiler alert! In episode eight, Ringo needs to sneak into the castle. And as written, he sneaks through the sewers. There were no sewers. You think of the catacombs and the sewers under Paris and things like that. Edu didn’t have that.

But they had the channels. And so that’s where we would then talk to the consultant. I do my research and find, ‘Okay, well, they have to have a water source. They have a well, and they would get the wells from the water source. It could be from the canals. He could swim through the canals and up into the well. He would have to hold his breath for a very long time.’ But this is where we make sure it’s founded in some foundation of reality. It’s only Ringo can hold his breath for six minutes. Because he is amazing.

Screen Rant: Is there any conflict behind the scenes when addressing issues like that? Did some say “let’s just cut it out and change it to something more accurate”, while others wanted to go the route of adding more historical fiction?

Toby Wilson: Yeah, it’s always that. When you do something creative, there will be creative differences. But the thing is, you come to them knowing that we all just want to make this the best thing it can be. So everyone’s opinion comes from nothing but good intentions. Sometimes you have, not heated discussions, but difficult conversations. But that’s really, really good because it means you’re scratching at something that’s really important.

Everyone says what’s really important from their perspective, and that’s where we can find the right solution together. So yes, it can happen. We have to make some calls. We didn’t have to cut anything, we just had to meet in the middle or agree with ‘yes, this didn’t really happen, you absolutely can’t do this because it would offend the culture’. If it was a very western kind of thing, we would have to change that. Or it would be, ‘The story absolutely needs this. This is a known deception, and we will all have to hold hands and be okay, because this is exactly what history calls for.’ We actually made some concessions from both sides, and we also met in the middle.

The world-building of Blue Eyed Samurai started out big and then handed down the specifics

“You start big, to get a nice solid foundation to inspire history.”

Screen Rant: Since the animation process takes a long time, there are many situations where a story will change when you’ve already started animation. What kind of precautions does someone as a production designer on an animated project take to make sure that if the story changes happen, you haven’t wasted too much time on something that’s getting cut?

Toby Wilson: On Blue Eyes Samurai, we have a luxury where the scripts don’t really change. To Michael and Amber’s credit, they wrote solid scripts. They were so tight, and they really didn’t change that much. They just wrote really big compelling scope scripts, and the challenge was figuring out ‘how do we do all this?’ Because we wanted to make all this.

In my past experience in feature films, it was a little different. They feel it and it is an investigation and an understanding that it will go down in history and then it can change, and we will have to figure it out as we go. This is where the production designer and everybody needs to look at what feels the most solid, and how we can work on something that is basic and essential to the project. Where we know that this is the heart of the project and it is safe to work on, because in any way, shape or form, it will be there. So you start broad and big, and hopefully plan it so that, as the story figures out the specifics, you can hone in on the specifics. You push the little details. You start big, to get a good solid foundation to inspire history. So it’s a challenge that you just use your experience to make sure that you plan accordingly.

What were Blue Eye Samurai’s movie and TV inspirations?

“We didn’t want to be an anime,” Toby Wilson clarifies.

Screen Rant: You’ve talked a lot about the artwork and the puppets that inspire the visual style of Blue eye samurai. What are some of the movies and TV shows that you and your team referred to during the production process?

Toby Wilson: Well, as I mentioned, the classic Japanese Kurosawa and Ozu films. Samurai films. It’s the interesting thing where you see the spaghetti westerns and you look at the Japanese samurai and you’re like, ‘Yeah, clearly the spaghetti westerns are looking at the same material.’ This was a huge inspiration. We didn’t want to be an anime. We’re not trying to be an anime because we haven’t animated in Asia. But we wanted to be inspired to have this kind of action.

Jane came to him and said ‘I want the martial arts to feel right’ and that comes from her wushu training and from live fighting. So that’s why we did the trick. We used a live action technique there where you work with the stunt choreographer to achieve that. We pulled from live action, we pulled from animation, we pulled from anime, we pulled from historical art, and we pulled from Japanese cinema and Westerns.

How Blue Eye Samurai Season 2 deals with the show’s big location change

“It would be a shame to go to season 2 and turn the crank, and everything is exactly the same.”

Screen Rant: Moving forward into season 2, there’s a big location change to London. How is your process changing as you begin to work on building this new world, and what are you excited to get to work on as the show continues to develop?

Toby Wilson: Yeah, okay. The process does not change too much. Obviously, you learn a lot from Season 1 where, ‘Okay, let’s not do it like that.’ Now we know how to do it better, because now we have worked with our partner studio and we have a tighter relationship. So now it’s muscle memory like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s how we did it. Let’s do it better this time.’

I’m excited because it’s a whole new culture. There is so much research and referencing that we have to do. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also a fun, creative challenge. That’s the juicy creative thing. Something new! It would be a shame to go to season 2 and turn the crank and everything is exactly the same. I mean, it’s not a shame, but how cool is it to do a season 2? And there are all new juicy visuals that I can explore while the story continues. We have the same challenge though. It’s like doing a pilot episode all over again because it’s all new assets. We have no European anything.

More about Blue Eye Samurai Season 1

Set in Japan, Blue Eye Samurai follows Mizu, a self-trained samurai on a mission of revenge..

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Blue eye samurai is now streaming on Netflix.