The Emmy Awards will be held this Sunday in prime time — unless you’re here for the winners in animation, in which case you have your answer already. The Creative Arts Emmys are announced separately one week early, and Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai took home the most coveted award for Outstanding Animated Program. This was, once again, a tough year as BES was competing with Scavengers Reign, X-Men 97 and the usual veterans for the prize.
- WINNER — Blue Eye Samurai “The Tale of the Ronin And the Bride” – Netflix • A Netflix Series / 3 Arts Entertainment and Blue Spirit Productions. Michael Green, Executive Producer/Directed by Amber Noizumi, Executive Producer/Written by Erwin Stoff, Executive Producer Jane Wu, Supervising Director/Producer Nick Read, Producer Michael Greenholt, Animation Director
- Bob’s Burgers “The Amazing Rudy” – FOX • 20th Television Animation
- Scavengers Reign “The Signal – Max • Max in association with Titmouse Animation and Green Street
- The Simpsons “Night of the Living Wage” – FOX • A Gracie Films production in association with 20th Television Animation
- X-Men ’97 “Remember It” – Disney+ • Marvel Studios
This actually marks Emmy #4 for the critical darling. Blue Eye Samurai won three other Emmys in juried categories earlier this year, for character design, production design and storyboard.
Set in Edo-era Japan, Blue Eye Samurai follows Mizu, a solitary samurai on a mission of revenge. Mizu carries two secrets: one, she’s really a woman, and two, she’s mixed-race, given away by her striking blue eyes. That second fact makes her an outcast in her society, so she must hide her big blues behind colored glasses. Her goal in life is to seek revenge for her “shame” by finding and killing all four white men who were in Japan at the time of her conception.
As for when we could be seeing the second season, uhh….you’re not gonna like this. Series creators Michael Green and Amber Noizumi have told the press it could take until 2026 for Season 2 to be completed, and the season will be just six episodes long (though at 44 minutes an episode, the length could be about the same). This is actually a shorter period of time than it took to complete Season 1, which was in production for three and a half years.
There was one other animation-related award last night, Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance, which went to Maya Rudolph for playing Connie the Hormone Monstress on Big Mouth. They either love Big Mouth or Rudolph over there, because this is actually her FOURTH win (she won for the character in 2020, 2021 and 2023).
