Underrated Netflix series defeats X-Men ‘97 for Emmy Award

Despite being a shoo-in for a major animated Emmy, X-Men ’97 has been vanquished by an obscure Netflix show.

While the Primetime Emmy Awards won’t be televised until September 15, many people managed to snatch up early wins during the Creative Arts Emmys.

Unfortunately, not every project took home a coveted award, including X-Men ’97, which saw a major upset in the Outstanding Animated Program category.

The Disney+ series saw massive success during its early 2024 run, but ultimately lost out to the relatively unknown Netflix anime Blue Eye Samurai.

X-Men ’97 wasn’t the only big name series to lose to the Netflix show as the other competitors included Bob’s Burgers and The Simpsons.

On top of winning the top prize in the animation category, the series also won three Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation Emmys for character design, production design, and storyboard.

Blue Eye Samurai, the latest project from the French studio Blue Spirit, premiered in November 2023 for a total of eight episodes.

The series follows Mizu, a half-white half-Japanese onna-musha (female warrior) who is living a life as a man in order to avoid discrimination over her mixed race status

Season 1 of Blue Eye Samurai sees Mizu go on a quest of revenge against four men, one of which is her father, for many complex reasons, including the fact that they are currently living in Japan illegally as the borders were sealed off by the country’s militaristic government known as the Tokugawa shogunate.

Netflix

The series tackles lots of complex themes including race, class, gender identity, sexual exposition, and more.

Blue Eye Samurai’s voice cast is stacked with some of the biggest Asian American actors including George Takei (Star Trek), Masi Oka (Heroes), Maya Erskine (Pen15), Brenda Song (Dollface), and Darren Barnet (Never Have I Ever).

Despite flying under the radar of more mainstream Netflix users, the show is currently sitting at an impressive score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.

In December 2023, Blue Eye Samurai was renewed for a second season, which will consist of six episodes and premiere sometime in 2026.

For more, check out our roundup of the 50 best anime movies of all time. You can also keep up with the new shows premiering this month along with the new movies coming in September