THE WAY HE KEEPS ON BREAKING EYE CONTACT BECAUSE HE'S TOO EXCITED TO LOOK AT HER😭❤️

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5 months ago

Ever Think About How Master Eiji Was Testing Mizu's . . . Mettle ?

Ever think about how Master Eiji was testing Mizu's . . . mettle ?

*finger guns*

No, but really, it cannot be an accident with this show that Master Eiji taps Mizu in the same manner he does ore and blades to test their soundness. He is testing this child, seeing how the child responds to instruction and correction--and Mizu never complains. He never has to tap Mizu more than once in an instance to impart the lesson. We're even shown a repeat moment where Mizu loses the rhythm of hammering and Master Eiji's tongs rise to admonish but he doesn't have to carry through because Mizu has already resumed.

Mizu is hard-working, diligent, self-motivated and -directed. Mizu does as told, is unobtrusive, and doesn't give up. Mizu listens, asks good questions, and is clearly learning. Mizu is being refined and shaped under Master Eiji's tutelage.

It's a shame, then, that "all metal wants to be a sword" and that Master Eiji failed to recognize and hear to what degree Mizu framed himself (as they acknowledge between them) in the symbolism of swords: the purification of hammering out impurities, the sword as the soul of a samurai (perhaps even evidence of a soul), the sword as the line between life and death.

Master Eiji indulges Mizu's stated desire to become a great swordsman--the greatest swordsman--but it's clear that in the moment Mizu declares his intention to leave to go seek revenge, Master Eiji had hoped his lessons would seep in and take root over the years, grow and overcome this foolish idea, that Mizu would become the artisan who makes swords rather than throw himself out into the world as the sword itself. Master Eiji had hoped the days working at the forge would burn out the impurities of a heart's worldly desires to leave behind a distilled will to create. Master Eiji says revenge is like gold, it doesn't rust, implying it can be pursued at any point in the future, but what he wanted was to delay to win more time so that he might get Mizu to forget all about revenge altogether. Master Eiji doesn't want Mizu to throw away his life, to go off and die. For what? To what end?

Master Eiji couldn't see Mizu and so couldn't be turned off by the sight of Mizu, but as a consequence Master Eiji couldn't measure the shame that permeated Mizu's cells. Master Eiji wanted to present language of purity as freedom--let go of all things in order to pour all of yourself into one task, cleanse yourself to begin again with each new work--but he couldn't see that every mention of purity was a cut into Mizu's psyche, who could only hear it as an indictment of her person. A half-breed. A woman. What Mizu touched, she believed, was made unclean. The shame prevented her from hearing what he said: steel too pure made fragile swords. The shame only heard "pure" and named a lack that refused to be filled by Master Eiji's efforts.

"I did not train you to be a demon . . . or a human. I showed you how to be an artist."

[...]

"Do you think revenge is an art?"

"Swords, pots, noodles, death. It is all the same to an artist."

"Then I am a bad artist."

The thing is, the unspoken thing, is that both Master Eiji and Mizu do need that human spark, the affection. "The people you collected." Master Eiji admits he made his best swords with an apprentice. Mizu survived thanks to Master Eiji--whatever kindness and compassion and sense of worth she has derives significantly from him. Perhaps if they could have said it . . .

It's significant that Mizu returned the meteorite ore to Master Eiji--with interest--as steel with the bits and bobs of people that Mizu had collected on her journey. All of herself. All her deeds. All she'd been given.

At her first departure she took that steel without permission, the act of successfully forging the stubborn metal acting as the justification, as if she earned it through mastery of smithing. The next time she will have to earn the forged steel by agreement, through connection with another person, with mutual trust and esteem and respect. A sword that could kill a god . . . but perhaps one that might not kill at all, if her heart is finally at rest, purified of its burdens.

The final shot of Season 1 in which Mizu is seen she's not carrying a blade. If she hasn't taken any of Master Eiji's blades with her, she has left everything behind. She faces whatever is to come uncovered: no hat, no tinted glasses, no scarf to hide her throat.