An independent producer and SBS made a documentary about The Samurai phenomenon in Australia in the 1960s, entitled Shintaro! The Samurai Sensation That Swept a Nation. It was broadcast on SBS on Wednesday 4 November 2009 at 8.30 pm. A DVD was released by SBS in April 2010 for $19.95. This was just the documentary as broadcast as it runs 60 minutes. No extras or extended versions of interviews or material not used as some fans hoped. It is available in places like JB Hi Fi and ABC Shops and Centres or via mail order through companies like Madman Entertainment.
Siren Visual began releasing all 10 stories ( 128 episodes) of The Samurai from February 2010. These have been remastered (though still have those rather naff cobbled together intros instead of the original ones) and offer the original Japanese soundtrack (with subtitles in a whole new translation) as an option as well as the English-dubbed version we are familiar with. For more information visit Siren's website.

Phantom Agents

Please note that I do not know where you can obtain videos/DVDs of this series dubbed into English. A "Best of" compilation of 33 episodes running 900 minutes has been released, undubbed, in Japan on DVD as boxed set for US$216.42. However, you will need a multi-region DVD-player as it is Region 2, only (though some DVD players do seem to be able to play all regions even if nominally coded for Region 4 (Australia). Yesasia.com sells it. It’s listed here (Thanks to Graham R. for alerting me to this).

From time to time episodes dubbed into English are offered on e-Bay from someone in the Blue Mountains (NSW). Or you could try searching the web under the Japanese title of Ninja Butai Gekko in case any of the various sites (mainly in the USA) which sell various Japanese films and TV series on video/DVD have dubbed copies for sale.

LINKS

Glen Johnson's Samurai site

Milesago Samurai page

Rocket's Samurai site

Glen Johnson's Phantom Agents site

plus a site devoted to the ninja film series Shinobi no mono

IMDB has page plus comments on The Samurai

There is even a Facebook entry. (It or one was set up in early November 2009 then disappeared shortly after. This one seems to have been set up in August 2010). However, you'd better have a Facebook account if you don't want to be driven mad by a persistent pop-up asking you to log in.

Shintaro! page on the SBS website

SBS has a blog with comments on the Shintaro documentary

Heroic Cinema's review of the the Fuma Ninja DVD set.

TV Tonight has a section on Shintaro! with comments. TV Series Galore has a blog on it as well. There are even comments on the ABC website (and the suggestion the ABC repeat the old TV series! Well, I suppose it's nearly as violent as Doctor Who...)

Here is a Philippino remembrance of the series (it was big there, too)

Vintage Ninja.net An American site which does what it says on the tin, looks at ninja in all different media. This is the page on The Samurai

John Barnes Blogsite Contains an article on the SBS Shintaro documentary

There's a Wikipedia entry now (as of Nov. 2009)

Monkey (Saiyuki) A great site devoted to all aspects of this popular 1978 Japanese TV series starring Sakai Masaaki. (Includes article on the series I wrote for Multiverse #6)

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