When Taigen finds out Mizu is a woman...
Many people believe he will be angry at Mizu. But I think they are wrong.
It’s MIZU who will get really, really angry. Her outburst will soften Taigen’s own reaction and help him understand what Mizu was going through all this time.
Ever since season one ended, there have been speculations about Taigen’s possible reaction to Mizu’s sex reveal. People keep saying that Taigen is a direct guy, an immature person and a huge drama queen, so he has to get angry at Mizu when he learns the truth about her sex. But my own personal opinion is that he won’t. Instead he’ll get angry at himself and here’s why:
Yeah, all these things are true: Taigen IS quite direct, he IS immature and he IS a huge drama queen. But he also possess natural gentleness towards women (check my post about his “sweetness”) and despite being a bully in his childhood, he knows how to be compassionate (check my post about Taigen’s “duality”). And, most of all, he considers himself an honorable person and he is determined to act like a true samurai.
Guess what’s forbidden by the samurai code of honor? Hitting women. In Japanese society of Edo Period women and children were considered the vulnerable ones and samurai were expected to protect them. So imagine the potential consequences of hitting a woman for someone like Taigen.
Do you see where I’m getting here?
Having those things in mind, we also need to take a third factor into consideration: Mizu’s reaction to Taigen finding out about her.
Because if you assume that she’ll act like Mulan, clumsily explaining herself with tail between her legs, then you haven’t been paying attention to the show.
If you DID watch the show closely, Mizu’s reaction is going to be quite easy to predict.
When Mikio saw Mizu’s masculine side, he called her a monster. When Master Eiji learned that Mizu hid “something” from him, he refused to listen, choosing to remain “blind” not only literally but also metaphorically. Although it’s quite obvious that he knows, because if he didn’t, why would he deliberately use the words “boy” and “man” – and Mizu is extremely perceptive about how people choose their words (proven by her conversation with Heiji Shindo), so she must know that Swordfather knows, and they keep playing their little game of pretending.
(Why Master Eiji wants to keep Mizu’s sex a taboo is a story for another post)
Taigen is a proud samurai, whose fiancé was Akemi, the very embodiment of traditional Japanese femininity (at least at first glance).
So, what is Mizu going to expect from Taigen when he learns about her? The absolute worst!
She’s going to assume the worst, and because she’s a natural warrior who never backed down from the challenge, especially involving Taigen, she’ll immediately go into the offensive. I can see it clearly: Mizu losing her shit, openly provoking Taigen to go on, call me a monster again, this is who I am, you’ve always said it, so why stay quiet now?!
Perhaps there will even be some physical violence, Mizu will get feral like a cornered animal, because that’s how she will feel at the moment. I think her intention will be to just make Taigen say whatever insult he has in mind, to just get it over with.
That kind of behavior will allow Taigen to see her vulnerable side. And I believe that’s something he really wants to see, because he is eager to know Mizu, to learn more about her, and – most importantly – he wants to see her without her mask.
Just look at episode three:
In one of my previous post, I mention how Taigen makes an important decision to act honorably and NOT to kill Mizu when she’s unconscious. Right after he sheathes his sword, he kneels next to his rival but not to immediately examine the wound (which would be logical course of action) but just to STARE. As if he was asking himself: okay, if you’re not a cold blooded monster, then WHO are you?
And he’s trying to find out through the entire episode three. EVERYTHING he does in this episode is an attempt to get some sort of reaction from Mizu. He wants to crack her shell, because the only face Mizu showed him until now was of a cocky swordsman, who was pretty good at controlling her emotions, and only losing her cool to some extent (like when Taigen called her a dog and she cut his topknot).
The whole point of throwing insults at Mizu during the Chopsticks Fight is to get a REACTION from her. Taigen wants to make her angry on purpose and even though he loses the fight itself, he gets what he wants, because Mizu is pissed and hits him really hard. That’s why he’s smirking when it’s over.
And later there are those awkward attempts to have a conversation. Taigen is quoting the Lotus Sutra and immediately glances at Mizu, as if wanting to say “I studied sutras in the dojo, did you study them too?” Then he talks about his abusive father and tries to push Mizu to reveal something about herself.
But she keeps her cool and even though you can say she’s listening very carefully, she keeps silent.
Actually, when you think about it, Mizu isn’t very talkative and I think it irks Taigen - partly because HE is very talkative, but also because he’s genuinely curious about his rival. Ever since they were children Mizu NEVER said anything while being bullied – whenever she got insulted, she reacted through actions but never words. And she continues to do it in her adult life. I think it makes Taigen even more intrigued, so he really, really wants her to break, to reveal her true feelings.
The closest he gets to seeing a “glimpse” of vulnerable Mizu is only twice in the whole show. First time is when she coldly tells him “I remember Kohama”, which in this context means: “Yeah, I didn’t forget how you bullied me.”
Second one is when Taigen brings her the dumplings and she mutters “I’ve never tried them. Remember? I was just a dog who ate gutter scraps.” Which in this case means: “yeah, being rejected by people and being hungry actually hurt me, I do have feelings”. And she calls herself a dog – the very same insult Taigen always used. She's disappointed in herself, acting all defeated and resigned, there are cracks in her armor, and you can tell it really gets to Taigen, so he immediately tries to "pick up the pieces of her soul" (symbolized by her sword in this scene), to somehow help her get up.
So Taigen sees two metaphorical “drops” of water (Mizu). But they are only drops. Now imagine yourself poking a hole in the rock, and they are tiny droplets of water coming from it, so you get irritated. But then, there is a huge secret revealed, it’s like a bomb, so the rock crumbles all at once and there is this huge tsunami of emotions coming out. It must be shocking and unexpected!
So my guess is that Taigen will be shaken by the discovery that Mizu is a woman, but not because he will feel angry or betrayed, but because he will realize that all of his childhood he was bullying a little girl (I expect another flashback of little Mizu staring at him with those big scared eyes).
And he will be extremely disappointed in himself. He will become aware of Mizu’s self-hatred and it will shock him. He will finally realize how much emotions she was suppressing till now and it will crush him. The realization will hit him that it’s partly because of HIM that Mizu grew up to be tough and cold, suppressing her sweet and gentle side.
Even in season one Taigen already KNOWS Mizu is capable of being gentle and sweet, and he was in awe both times he saw it (first after their friendly spar, second when she begged him not to follow her and Fowler). I think season two will deliver more of Mizu’s gentleness and that will make discovering her secret by Taigen even more painful.
So, Taigen will be disappointed of himself and it will show on his face, but Mizu will interpret it as a rejection and will lash out at him, forcing him to defend himself, verbally and (possibly) physically, which he will probably do rather clumsily, because he won’t be sure how to handle all of this shit and he doesn’t really want to hit A WOMAN, but that will rile up Mizu even more. Taigen may try to calm Mizu down, but being an idiot he will probably do so through yelling back.
Anyway, after the fight ends, Mizu might want to distance herself from Taigen like she tried to do with Ringo at the beginning of the series. So, ultimately, it won’t be Mizu who will have to explain herself and work hard to win Taigen’s trust back. It will be Taigen who will have to prove that he accepts Mizu as she is and therefore deserves her trust.
I don’t see it happening in any other way.
And seriously, if the creators decide to pull “Mulan shit” and present Mizu as the one who was in the wrong for hiding her true sex, I will be very disappointed. Because, hell, she WASN’T in the wrong – she didn’t become a boy because of ambition or any selfish reasons. It’s the truth that she CONTINUES to live as a man for her vengeance quest, but that’s not how it had started. Mizu’s mama forced her to become a boy and Mizu even made an attempt to live as woman.
Also, putting aside all of this, she still has a bounty on her head as a woman! She really has nothing to apologize for. Not even for not trusting Taigen and not telling him the truth, because what kind of person would in her situation?
How will the reveal happen? I think Fowler will tell Taigen, because him doing so would create such a perfect drama.
Imagine this: Taigen and Mizu go to London, Fowler escapes at some point, they eventually corner him (I imagine it happening somewhere at the end of season two) and Fowler teases Taigen with words like: You follow your WOMAN everywhere.
Taigen is confused, and there’s more teasing: Wait, you didn’t know? I was sure you were f*cking her!
It would be just TOO good. And imagine how difficult the fight would become, with Taigen distracted with this shocking discovery and not having the time to process anything. Just too good.
And I can easily image a conversation that would occur afterwards.
Mizu (angrily): You’re disgusted with me! Don’t pretend you’re not!
Taigen: (yelling) I’m not disgusted with YOU, I’m disgusted with myself. All my childhood I was bullying A GIRL. Do you know what it means to me? To my HONOR?!
Mizu: You think those stones you threw at me would hurt LESS if I had a dick? How is attacking a girl with five other brats MORE DISHONORABLE than attacking a boy with five other brats?
And they will quarrel like that, with Mizu expressing her self-hatred and probably also – for the very first time – openly expressing her true feelings about being bullied in childhood, and Taigen trying to explain himself.
And, like I mentioned before, I think that at some point Taigen will notice that Mizu is hurt, seriously hurt, he will acknowledge her suffering and his own role in it, and it will calm him down. I imagine Taigen becoming gradually more and more quiet, watching Mizu intently, while Mizu continues to yell at him.
I imagine it happening in the rain, so it would be hard to tell whether Mizu is crying or not.
I also kind of hope Taigen will kiss her just to shut her up, although realistically I think it would be much too soon for something like this to happen right after the sex discovery. So my guess is that the reveal will happen in season two (in the last episode or the one before last), while taimizu will begin in season three.
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