Onmitsu kenshi

You know there are still grown men in Adelaide who giggle happily over memories of Tombei the Mist and Shintaro going "Waaaahhhrrrr" and slashing people around with his sword.

No school yard was safe from kids racing around with sticks and star knives made from cereal packets - oh remember star knives! Actually when I came to watch Kurosawa's samurai movies I really couldn't help expecting someone to suddenly jump backwards into a tree, which made Seven Samurai a bit difficult to watch. :) But watching the Lone Wolf and Cub movies was a real pleasure because there's a similar thing going on here.

Of course the stories in Wolf and Cub make considerably more sense than in The Samurai, but it probably didn't matter to use kids. In fact, even though there was, I seem to remember, some sort of continuing plot from episode to episode I don't think that they were actually played in order and it didn't seem to matter - or perhaps they were played in order and we just couldn't tell.

Great nostalgia and a happy memory. I was a grey ninja by the way.