 Tenguiwa, a naive young wrestler in Tales of Zatoichi: The Sumo Wrestler Who Found His Way Home, is impressed with the skills of the blind masseur Zatoichi not for his surprising swordsmanship but for his gambling skills.
He begs Ichi to teach him to be a champion gambler, but Ichi tries to convince him to return home & not become part of the gamblers' world. But as the lad has been depressed &mp scarsely knows how to take care of himself, Ichi takes him on very reluctantly as an apprentice, & they adventure along the country roads together.
Matsugoro Akaiwa is a chivilrous ex-gambler who runs a noodle shop ever since washing his hands of the yakuza world. He is the father of the young sumo wrestler, a lad he lost track of in his difficult days of poverty & illness, when he abandoned his child. Ichi will be instrumental in getting Matsugoro back together with his sumo son.
Yajuro Soma, a ronin of great skill, hires himself to boss Nihei Haraichi who wants Ichi killed, but Matsugoro the noodleshop man is secretly protecting Ichi from the local yakuza. The gangsters are conspiring to take over Matsugoro's annual sumo event. They as much as kidnap wrestlers before the yreach the town, then induce them to gamble themselves into debt, losing even their wrestling aprons without which they cannot enter the wrestling matches.
[SPOILER ALERT] Ichi intervenes, doing one of his iai fast-draw tricks to win back the wrestlers & their aprons, but ends up having to fight all the bad yakuza who as in most of these episodes just can't ever do the right thing even by their own rules. And what exactly are the odds against these guys being able to defeat Ichi?
As coda, there will be one final duel with the ronin, which we are led to expect will be a quite a match. But after all it doesn't last long; Ichi defeats him with one swipe of his canesword. [END SPOILER ALERT]
 In Tales of Zatoichi: The Whirlwind of Kosoji Mountain,Ichi once again has a rural yakuza gang ticked off with him. He is caught between evading being attacked or killing multiple attackers.
A marksman, Yashichi, is hired by the local oyabun (gambler boss) Sahejii Ontake to take out Ichi from a safe distance.
Ichi with a gunshot wound takes refuge with a physician, Geria, who had been collecting herbs in the region, assisted by Omiya, his daughter. A few soap opera bits build around the doctor, his daughter, & the marksman who turns out to have once been an apprentice phyisician studying under Doc Geria, but is now full of drunken self-loathing.
Often as the basic Zatoichi story unfolds, the yakuza are attempting to horn in on honest industry rather than stick to the gambling world. This time it's a bit of a stretch to suppose the yakuza wants a stake in the mountain's valuable herbs, but they do, & in consequence have poisoned a few people.
It's all building to Ichi's march to the gangster headquarters for a somewhat surprising climax with Yashichi reclaiming his long lost dignity, though the main part isn't as surprising: Ichi slaughters everyone who has been mean to people.
Due to the beauty of the photography which is the equal of many feature films, this episode is as pleasant to watch as any, but it follows the formula for Zatoichi stories too closely. Fortunately, the next episode will have some refreshing ingredients.
 Humanity & Justice, the twelfth episode of the first season of Tales of Zatoichi, is a strong story, reassuring that no matter how many tales of the blind swordsman are told, there's always room for something not often seen.
Osei, the only daughter of an oyabun or gambling boss from Tamioka, is a so-so swordswoman, famous as "a delinquent who left home." When her father was killed, she put on the garb of a wandering gambler (flat-topped sedgehat & cape) & presenting herself with the general impression of being a young man, sets out with her sword on the road to vengeance against Boss Gonzo.
She meets the blind swordsman Zatoichi along the way. He assesses her situation pretty clearly, & warns her that among yakuza, a fair fight isn't likely. He seems to imply she won't be able to achieve her aim, but so far as Osei is concerned, until she either kills Gonzo or dies trying, she won't live a normal life.
Boss Gonzo is a real stinkpot. It takes him a while to realize Osei is after his life, but even when he figures it out, his hot-cha-cha-cha horniness at the idea of having a wandering swordswoman as his mistress is something he can't let go of. "Without her sword, she's just a woman," says Gonzo, who wouldn't think twice about raping her if she refuses to take it willingly.
Though hardly deserving of love, he does have an insanely devoted mistress, Ohatsu, whose jealousy is extreme. When she finds out the oyabun has Osei captive, she storms about yelling, "There's a she-man in there! I'm so pissed off!"
[SPOILER ALERT!] Ohatsu decides to help Ichi help Osei. She asks him not to kill Gonzo, but she wants Osei to get away & never come back. One almost feels sorry for her, because even if Ichi honors her wish not to personally kill Gonzo, it's not difficult to tell that he'll be helping Osei get the bastard.
The climactic duel is arranged. Osei has been tied up prisoner, & Ichi weighs into the group of yakuza with his reverse-draw sword flashing. Well knowing Ichi's almost preternatural abilities, the gangsters have set up a series of fireworks, setting them off to hamper blind Ichi's hearing.
Ichi takes everyone down except Gonzo before whom Osei stands with sword drawn. Alas, she's not strong enough, & Ichi has to step in at the last. Though she failed to do it alone, Osei nevertheless is avanged against Gonzo, & says, "I am reborn as of today."
In the coda when we see her beautifully feminine in kimono. The person she most wants to impress with her beauty is Zatoichi, who even blind is a good judge. Alas, she cannot find him, as Ichi once more wanders on. [END SPOILER ALERT!]
Though I'd've liked this mini-film even better had Osei's skill been as impressive as her baring, there's no denying this one was a particularly great story.
 Season 1 episode 13 Tales of Zatoichi: The 1,000 Ryo Raffle co-stars alongside Shintaro Katsu the highly impressive Yoshio Harada (of the Trail of Blood trilogy). He's introduced at the start of the tale as a drunkard sleeping it off in the middle of the road. Foot travelers step over him, or kick him, or spit on him, but when the blind masseur stumbled upon him, he helps to get him to his feet & puts him up at an inn to sober up.
He is Shinsuke of Kitsuura, a fishing village harrassed by a yakuza gang. He's been released from prison after three years. Awakening sober, he's annoyed that Ichi bothered to help him, as he hates to incur a debt. So he gives ichi a lottery ticket as payment for his assistance, & when the ticket pays off, Ichi feels he did nothing to deserve a thousand ryo, so sets out to find Shinsuke at Kitsuura, & return the valuable ticket.
Shinsuke returns to his fishing village discovering that his wife has taken up with a nose-picking yakuza oyabun (gambling boss), who she prefers to Shinsuke until she learns he may have a winning lottery ticket, though he's refused to take the ticket back from Ichi.
He'd been sent to the Sado Island prison colony for having killed a rival boss. He got ten years, but an amnesty went out in celebration of the birth of the Shogun's sun. At fist his wife Ohama pretends to be glad to see him, but in fact Boss Gorozo wouldn't mind killing him to keep Shinsuke's wife. Shinsuke at first ponders revenge, but bows to his wife's opinion that he & Gorozo should make peace. She turns out to be such a bad & faithless person, however, that it's a wonder such a decent sensitive killer as Shinsuke ever fell for anyone so awful.
His younger sister Ohatsu has grown to be quite beautiful. She's the one person in the story so completely innocent that it's inevitable Ichi will slip the winning lotter ticket to her. But as the plot thickens, the yakuza want to give Ohatsu to a corrupt magistrate as bribe, as he likes to rape virgins. She's kidnapped, & Gorozo's plan is to kill Shinsuke when he goes on a raid intending to save his sister.
Harada was a bigger star than generally appeared in the television series & someone decided to really let him dominate the tale. Most of the episode focuses on his angst & sorrow, & most of the action is his. However, he is finally captured in a net during his final raid, & without Ichi's insistent friendship, it'd be the end of Shinsuke.
The gangsters are afraid to get close to Shinsuke even in the netting, so Ichi, having already been hired to kill the guy, steps forth saying, "I will skin him alive for you!" With a couple swish-swishes of his rapid iai draw, Shinsuke is cut free of the netting, & assisted by Ichi completes his vengeance.
It's a splendid episode having two rather than one magnificent heroic presences sharing the screen.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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