In the following year, the horror story Route 666, the wuxia comedy Way of the Rat, and the samurai drama The Path were released.

The original two series were set in feudal Japan and were, essentially, tokusatsu versions of the samurai dramas that were extremely popular at the time.

The show's first half was made up of samurai dramas, but the second half was filled with singing and dancing.

Between Ishigami and Michiko, Harry felt as if he had wandered into a samurai drama.

Murders, though increasing, are rare here - only 1,338 in 1998, in a country of 125 million people - and fratricide is usually little more than the stuff of bad samurai dramas.

Taiko drum performances and samurai dramas will be presented.

And once again, declaring that Japan's aggression was just, they posed sternly like extras in a samurai drama for the throngs of photographers and the curious.

Cutting into samurai dramas and soap operas, the World Cup consistently drew huge audiences in Japan.

In the samurai dramas that attract millions of Japanese television viewers, crafty warriors from Japan's feudal past always meet at some out-of-the-way inn, plotting the overthrow of their masters.

Over the years, Garo went through many artistic phases, including Shirato's leftist samurai dramas, abstract art and surrealism, erotic/grotesque, and punk.