Welcome to The Samurai TV Show Website

This Samurai Fan's Website was launched May 1st 2020. Over the next few months we will be adding a lot more content including photos and newspaper clips of Koichi Ose's visit in 1965/1966, photos of Samurai fans' celebrations, more trivia regarding the various TV episodes and more.

The Samurai is a Japanese program that debuted in Japan in October 1962. It first aired in Australia on December 28, 1964 on TCN 9 Sydney weekdays Monday to Friday. It wasn't until April 6, 1965 that GTV 9 Melbourne showed the program. I suspect they weren't as confident as TCN 9 and only aired the program on a Sunday night, and for some strange reason also on a Tuesday night. About 6 weeks later it was moved to a daytime format and GTV-9 began screening the program Monday to Friday at 4pm. Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth all began airing The Samurai also in 1965.

The 'Samurai' boom in 1965 saw the introduction of Scanlen's Samurai Cards (73 cards - one in colour) as well as two different coloured Shintaro kimonos, a ninja outfit and some very flimsy plastic swords and daggers. Star knives were often homemade and created from jam tin lids.

The biggest thrill came in late 1965 when Koichi Ose, who starred as Shintaro, came out to Australia. He arrived in Sydney on a very hot Christmas Day. His first show was on Monday 27th December at Sydney's old Stadium. After 6 days of matinees in Sydney he then flew to Melbourne. On January 5, 1966 he arrived at Melbourne's Essendon Airport to a crowd of over 7,000 fans. This was the biggest crowd at Essendon Airport since the Beatles visit in 1964. (Note 'since' ... some have reported incorrectly as the 'biggest crowd.') After 2 weeks in Australia he returned to Japan due to other film commitments.

Koichi Ose came out again for a 'meet and greet' in December 2016 in Sydney.