Yeah, why don’t Nine put The Samurai on GO! They’re prepared to show the Jetsons and The Flintstones from the same era, so why not our first Japanese superstars? That terrible dubbing was funny then, now it’d be a riot!

These days he’s a private business man ( the CEO of some noodle restaurant empire) and a fan gatecrashed one of his meetings with a friend with a video camera and tried to interview him, with Koichi Ose not knowing one word of english.

This footage later appeared on one of “The Samurai” vhs video releases, by Hollywood House Video.

Watching some of the DVD releases, I can understand part of the reason for that fascination. Sure, it was full of action, but it looked like nothing we’d ever seen before. Back then, pretty much all that people of my age knew of Japan was that our parents’ and grandparents’ generations had fought them in a major war, and that they made cheap electronics. But here was a show with people whose dress, culture and architecture were like something from another planet, and groups of incredibly cool, seemingly superhuman warriors!

I’ve sometimes claimed- only half-jokingly – that “The Samurai” probably did more to interest Aussies of my age in Japanese history and culture than anything else – regardless of the bad dubbing! And of course, when _our_ kids got interested in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we already half-knew what they were on about!