This is the first Zatoichi film to feature graphic content such as: the use of bad language, a female character speaking in a provocative and sexualised way, showing bloodied dismembered stumps and multiple forms of suicide.
In the film they refer to a character receiving a hook. This refers to the Japanese jitte, which translated means 'ten hands', and was a weapon carried by police in the Edo Period of Japan and was given to Constables to denote their rank.
This is the first Zatoichi film in which the protagonist is not repeatedly referred to as a masseur in the English subtitles, instead using the Japanese term Anma. Anma was both the term used for the practice and the generally nomadic practitioner of Japanese massage. In fact, edicts were passed so that massage was solely a vocation for the blind, forbidden to be learned by any with sight.
The sixteenth of 26 films to star Shintaro Katsu as Zatoichi.