Once upon a time, there was a ground-breaking Japanese TV series called Onmitsu Kenshin (or Onmitsu kenshi), starring Koichi Ose as Shintaro, wandering samurai detective protecting his half-brother the Shogun from various conspiracies and assassins. It was popular in Japan, but when the series shifted gears and integrated ninja as both friend and foe, it blew up and as The Samurai became an international sensation.
International? Sure, it had a HUGE English-speaking fan base! How could you forget in 1965 when those early seasons were dubbed into English and aired on TV daily? Remember when Ose did that promotional tour, greeted by thousands of screaming fans at the airport ala The Beatles? Remember how each subsequent season got more and more popular, with more and more ninja action? Wasn’t it great how they were syndicated for decades after, followed by other dubbed shows like Phantom Agents! Does anyone still have their officially licensed plastic swords they got for Christmas, or the wildly popular Shintaro trading cards?
No… Drawing a blank…
Well, that’s because it all happened in fucking Australia!!!
Not here, NOOOOOO. Why would Americans want to see dozens of hours of Republic-serial like ninja warfare dubbed into perfect English? Fuck it, we’re fine with direct-to-video bullshit like Full Metal Ninja and Seven Lucky Ninja Kids. Give us turtles and leave us alone, we don’t want any of those historically credible martial arts espionage epics here. No way.
OK, bitter rant subsides for now – to the point.
TONBEI THE MIST!
If Shintaro was Japan’s (and fucking Australia’s) Lone Ranger, then Tonbei was the Tonto. Played by career ninja legend Maki Fuyukichi – who would go on to the Watari the Ninja Boy live action film, play White Shadow in Masked Ninja Akakage, Henshin Ninja Arashi and dozens of other TV and movie shinobi roles – Tonbei was sort of half ace-in-the-hole / half comic relief.
Sure, he was Shintaro’s shadow – scout, spy, saboteur – but the character was so prone to capture and to showing up at fights just as Shintaro put the last ninja down, he became the butt of some unintentional humor.
Either way, Maki’s ‘man of Iga’ is a hugely important character in the development of the genre. Born in the mold of more serious ninja fare like Shinobi-no-mono, he was there to show off outre tools and arcane spy gadgets, give clinics on commando tactics and shadow skills, and get in all sorts of cool ass reverse-grip sword fights.
So, we’ll be looking a lot at both The Samurai and Tonbei the Mist in coming months, and Maki was such a prolific ninja regular, he’ll be turning up constantly. Consider the below images a primer, and seek out the now out-of-print season box sets of the show on DVD. The best source of info on both the original Japanese show and it’s success in Oz can be found here.
Amusing as the ‘sidekick-in-peril cliches’ become over the seasons of The Samurai, there are just as many great ninja battles, commando raids, trick weapon duels and other shinobi staples to keep things real. I absolutely love this series, and all jokes aside, if there’s one property I truly resent discovering now instead of in the 1980’s, it’s this one. And it was already in English! What’s the excuse???
A company called Siren Visual put out seven ‘series’ (13 episode arcs) of the Australian TV broadcasts on DVD a few years back, but lost the license in 2008 and they’ve since been out of print. I’m told the series starting at 8 and 9 were totally amazing, too, so once again we’re shit out of luck… However, one of two feature-length films has made the trading rounds under the stiffly translated title “The Detective Fencer.” (I’d have called it ‘Samurai Sleuth’ LOL) The movie is one step above the show in production values, and delivers a relentless barrage of ninja combat. Highly recommended!
Eddie Mort
I never quite figured out why in Australia he was known as ‘Tombei the Mist’…maybe it was just bad dubbing
Still one of my alltime fave series. If only there was a way to track down the remaining series that SirenVisual didn’t release, notably ‘Phantom Ninja’, ‘Puppet Ninja’ and Shintaro’s swansong (sob), ‘Contest of Death’.
Come on KR – work those DVD contacts of yours…
Eddie Mort
…and it really didn’t matter how dodgy looking the ‘men of Iga’ were; you knew they were all going to die after the next commercial break.
daiwai
Hey dude, Daiwai the Aussie here, great site, great intro to The Samurai series! You are in luck, Siren has just re-released The Samurai ( Shintaro), it will be the complete 10 series apparently and for the first time in 45 years we get to hear it in the original Japanese!! with subtitles. Check out
http://www.sirenvisual.com.au/Product/354.php
Regarding your “bitter rant”, I hear ya, yes we Aussies were very lucky to get Shintaro back in the 60’s ( though my Mum ended up banning it and had to sneak off to mates place to see it!). HOWEVER we have only been seeing Kurosawa’s films and the host of Samurai flicks out there since the late 90’s!!! Yes we had Shintaro but that was it. I remember watching that lame ass Kevin Costner film bodygaurd and the only cool part was when he takes the chick to see Yojimbo, I thought “where the heck can I see that movie? What is it?”
Its like watching Tarantino and the Magnificent Seven and so many other Hollywood appropriations of Japanese flicks- we just didnt get that connection because no one showed us Japanese film , so dont feel too hardly done by regarding Shintaro and Tombei the Klutz…keep up the good work man!
daiwai
They were called Art House Cinemas, daiwai. I used to see Japanese films in the ’70s. My mother tells me she also saw such films in the ’50s and ’60s in Sydney.
Oops
Sorry for name confusion. Goofed up.
Slim
Grew up as a kid watching Shintaro and the Phantom agents in the 60’s. Loved it. We were running around dressed up as ninjas trying to jump up into trees !!!! and mainly out of them.
Then went to school and got beat up during the week.
At least on the weekends I could live out my dream as a ninja.
Started doing karate few years later and realised what begins in your childhood stays with you for the rest of your life.(for me anyway)
Shintaro fan
Grew up watching this series in Australia in the 60s and LOVED it!! Our Aussie ABC did a doco on the HUGE popularity of the series here….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLAkrBeb3Y4
Cheers!
Shintaro Akikusa
Grew up watching this too in Malaysia during the sixties, never forgot, still love watching it after five decades..
Daiwai
Been loving the Japanese version with subtitles- so cool to learn Japanese language whilst watching Shintaro!
Your website rules by the way! Thanks for turning me on to Zipang! Crazy cool!
Mark_L.S
Yes it does get deep in there.. I was born in Sydney in 1965, and grew up watching re-runs of The Samurai. When I was 17 started training with the only Australian who had trained with Hatsumi and was teaching in Brisbane (1984). Got my Shodan (Black Belt) 2yrs later, then returned to Sydney and Founded the first Bujinkan Dojo (Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu) in Surrey Hills near Central Station. Within the year, I had 132 Students, most probably due to the Shintaro mania of the 60’s. Though Stephen Hayes and Robert Bussey had schools in America, and Doran Navon in Israel, I think the Sydney Bujinkan was the largest Traditional Ninpo Dojo in the world outside Japan, [someone please correct me if I am wrong]. Today, the senior students of that school have, in the majority, attained the Rank of Shihan [10th Dan-Master]. 5 years later I moved to Japan and immersed myself in the Culture. Some years ago I did some Research on Tonbei’s name. Though he is Known as, ‘Tombei, The Mist’ here in Australia; if I remember rightly, the translation should be; ‘Tonbei, The Imperceptible’. Probably a mocking jibe at his ability to get constantly captured, and be ‘imperceptible (unable to be seen), when Shintaro needed him in a fight, turning up when the battle was over. lol! Perhaps though, his supposed ineptness was a ruse. Getting captured to gain ‘Intel’ on the enemy, turning up late because he was patrolling the surrounding area making sure there were no sneaky reinforcements hiding in wait. There is a saying in the East; “In dangerous times, the wise man plays the fool”. When clouded in Mist, the True Form of Things cannot be easily known, it appears one way, then another, and shifts again; all the while concealing what it Actually is… Back at the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan, Japan, for the first time since the Second World War deployed Troops overseas. A Unit of Soldiers from their Defense Force’s Engineering Regiment. To help re-build schools and infrastructure. As the were prohibited from carrying Weapons of any description, they askedand infrastructure. As the were prohibited from carrying Weapons of any description, they asked the U.N to provide Soldiers from another county to Protect them and Watch their backs. They didn’t ask for Americans. Nor, British, Germans or Russians.. They asked for Australians. Perhaps Tonbei is Known only as ‘The Mist’ in Australia, because there is something Imperceptible in the Link between our two people. Something we ‘get’ about the Japanese that others don’t. Sayonara, Mata ne’
Greg Newman
Curious as to why in the 2011 pilot episode of Person Of Interest – John Reese (played by Jim Caviezel) is watching The Samurai (Black Ninja series). How did this come about? I think the show may have been shown on a US cable channel … but why randomly pick this program virtually unknown to Americans?
Daiwai
We here in Oz just had a visit from the main man, Shintaro Akikusa aka Koichi Ohse, for an intimate 30 person only fan meeting! It was a very touching event for all of us including Ohse San who got choked up at the end (as we did too). Tombei and Shusaku and Kongo of Koga were there in spirit as we all remembered them.
Scuttlebutt has it that something bigger is in the works. Douzo yoroshiku! Abayo!
Jennifa
Biggest nostalgia rush..how I just loved to watch it..couldn’t get enough of it..It would be good to see it back on telly..Jx