Yukio Hashi -- Kozure Ohkami （子連れ狼）

Ahhhhh....yes, memories of my childhood in Toronto. Watching "Happy Days", "Hockey Night in Canada" and some samurai cutting up bad guys like firewood while his kid watches placidly. Yup, "The Iron Samurai" was a must-see for my family on Monday nights at 11 on the local multicultural channel, CFMT-TV (now known as OMNI 1) in the 70s. But it was better known (and more accurately translated) in the comics as "Lone Wolf and Cub", i.e. Kozure Ohkami.

Back in Japan, "Kozure Ohkami" has carved (uh, sorry) a legendary niche in popular culture. The lone wolf warrior has an even more mystical aura in a society which prides teamwork whether in the neighbourhood or the corporation, and of course, having a cute kid around is a no-brainer. First created as a manga by Kazuo Koike（小池一夫） in 1970, the world of "Lone Wolf and Cub" expanded to include six movies, four plays and two television series 30 years apart. Just to give some background on the story, a falsely disgraced and ousted Shogunate executioner, Itto Ogami（拝一刀）, escapes with his son Daigoro（大五郎） to travel a lonely path as father and assassin-for-hire while slowly wreaking revenge on the Yagyu Clan which had concocted the scheme in the first place. I always enjoyed how Ogami (and the guys on "Mito Komon") managed to slaughter an entire battalion of swordsmen while nary leaving a mark on them. But even more than "Mito Komon", Daigoro's baby cart was the Edo Era equivalent of James Bond's weapon-filled Aston-Martin; you did not cross this kid without suffering major consequences...either from his dad or his cart.

Now, the original series which lasted from 1973 to 1976 was divided into three seasons. My family saw either Season 1 and/or 2 for which the theme song was "Tetego Hashi"(ててご橋...Tetego Bridge) sung by Herb Satake（佐竹ハーブ）. However, even before the Lone Wolf and Cub entered our apartment via the small screen, my parents had played the 45 rpm single that would become the theme song for the third and final season, "Kozure Ohkami". Sung by enka singer Yukio Hashi（橋幸夫） and released on Christmas Day 1971, the song was originally created as an image song for the manga and then used as the theme song for the 1972 movie, before getting its place as the TV theme. The video above has the original theme but the opening credits are of the more recent TV series in the early 2000s.

I remember the song for the children's chorus which sang the first notes as onomatopoeia, and the overall sad child-like melody although the lyrics made direct reference to what Ogami did for a living. Those lyrics, by the way, were written by the originator of the manga himself, Koike, while the melody was composed by Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正） who had created Mood Kayo classics such as "Yurakucho de Aimasho"(1955) and "Tokyo Nightclub"(1959) years earlier (both are already profiled). I gather that in the song, Hashi represented the Lone Wolf while the kids represented Daigoro.

"Kozure Ohkami" not only became a well-known TV theme song but it also managed to win a Japan Record Award and hover at the No. 10 spot on Oricon for a total of 6 weeks. In addition, it also got Hashi his 13th appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen in 1972. The above video is of that appearance, and boy, do I have a piece of juicy trivia for you here. On the stage were several young ladies providing the children's chorus. According to J-Wiki, three of the ladies to the left on the video ended up becoming one of the most famous kayo kyoku groups, Candies. The 1972 appearance was just before their official debut.

Another piece of trivia is not so cheerful, though. The first child actor on the TV series to play Daigoro, Kazutaka Nishikawa（西川和孝）, left show business and eventually became an assemblyman for Shirone City in Niigata Prefecture in 1995. In 1999, after dropping out of politics, he was arrested for the first-degree murder of an acquaintance and was given a life sentence which he continues to serve out. I was in Japan when I saw the coverage of this news; my jaw was thoroughly dropped.

Yukio Hashi -- Kozure Ohkami