Ghost of Yoteifeatures a new protagonist in the form of Atsu. She’s a woman,which is terrible news for gamers who haven’t left their parents’ basement in a hot minute. Putting all these ridiculous complaints aside, however, the idea ofSucker Punchintroducing a new lead instead of building on Jin Sakai’s stagnant character arc is a wonderful surprise.
While Jin’s story went to some subversive places in the Iki Island expansion as he learned of his father’s true nature, it’s difficult to imagine where his tale of vengeance could go following its conclusion. Some players are miffed that the choice you make regarding your uncle at the end is being thrown aside, but I admire Sucker Punch’s determination to remain ambiguous.
Not everything needs to be explained to us, especially the finer details of a tale in which the moral justification of revenge is far from black and white. So now we move onto Atsu, a woman on a similar mission of hard-fought vengeance three centuries in the future. Moving forward into the 1600s allows Ghost of Yotei to explore deeper history, increasingly complex technology, and a setting that is unchanged in some ways, but unrecognisable in others.
Yet another western epic that takes place in the twilight years of feudal Japan isBlue Eye Samurai. The mature animated show debuted on Netflix last year and ended up as quite a sleeper hit for the streaming service, with it picking up amazing reviews, sweeping the Annie Awards, and winning the Primetime Emmy for Best Animated Program. It’s great, and if you have a hankering for katanas and bloodshed after the reveal of Yotei and thesudden delay of Shadows, this is well worth sinking your teeth into.
When Ispoke to showrunners Michael Green and Amber Noizumiahead of its release, they exuded an almost defeatist attitude. Netflix hadn’t bothered to market the series at all, while the story Blue Eye Samurai wanted to tell spanned several seasons at the very least. When it turned out to be a hit and was suddenly renewed, those behind it were blown away.
But I’m not recommending Blue Eye Samurai purely because it’s also about a samurai. There are many fascinating parallels between the show and Ghost of Yotei. Both feature female leads, and during the 17th century women in Japanese society were expected to birth children, serve as sex workers, and/or do whatever was expected of them from powerful men.
Atsu, through her existence as a samurai, is defying societal conventions. She has become infamous as a killer that exists outside the norm, her silhouettes found on posters across the land warning locals and Ronin alike of her presence. A female protagonist in this sort of time instantly adds a new layer of intrigue to the narrative.
Ghost of Yotei would be foolish not to delve into the role Atsu should be playing in society, and how going against that potentially paints her as an outsider. We saw a female samurai in the last game, but one so young and several hundreds years in the future will no doubt be quite different. This shouldn’t be the focus of her story, but an omnipresent element that influences her words, actions, and how she goes about her inevitable pursuit of revenge.
Blue Eye Samurai is much the same, with protagonist Mizu, a mixed-race woman who is born to a white father and Japanese mother during an age when foreigners are not just barred from entering the country, but actively frowned upon by natives. Mizu’s piercing blue eyes all but give her away, while it’s impossible to be a female samurai without existing under intense scrutiny.
So she binds her chest, shields her eyes, and wanders the land in secret searching for the men who ruined her life. Her gender is intrinsically tied to how she operates, and this is consistently parallel in other characters occupying traditionally female roles before daring to subvert them.
Aside from having a cracking story and characters, Blue Eye Samurai is gorgeous, violent, and surprisingly compelling in its narrative. There is one particular episode - The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride - which is utterly perfect. It follows Mizu falling in love, as the subject of a bitter betrayal, and being told that the only way for her to exist is to give into the violence she’s so desperate to leave behind.
It turned what I expected to be a relatively generic samurai show into a personal tale of tragedy with so many layers. Ghost of Tsushima only reached these heights in its brief expansion, but Yotei could take things so much further.
Ghost of Yotei
WHERE TO PLAY
Discover a bold, new story of a warrior in Japan who is on a mission of vengeance all her own.Set 300 years after the critically acclaimed Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yōtei is standalone experience set in 1600s rural Japan. The story follows a haunted, lone mercenary named Atsu. Thirsty for revenge, she travels through the beautiful, rugged landscapes of northern Japan, hunting those who killed her family many years earlier.
