For the past couple of months, I've been watching an episode of Zatoichi every morning right after I wake up. I genuinely believe that half if not more of the episodes of this series are better than the majority of the Zatoichi movies, although it's not quite fair to compare the two since the films and the series are very different tonally. Yesterday morning I watched my last morning Zatoichi episode and I want to get some of my thoughts out about this incredible series.
This will be long.
It's difficult to talk about the series as a whole because every episode is scripted and/or directed by a different person. Some episodes are long and talky and feel like not very much was accomplished in their 45-minute runtime, but others are exceptionally good. These stand-out episodes aren't really confined to one season, and are spread out pretty evenly throughout the whole of the show, making watching it in order a very rewarding experience. Letting a variety of people handle Ichi is immensely beneficial to his character development - I don't think Zatoichi as a media phenomenon would be as popular and lasting if the version of him presented in The Tale of Zatoichi, or even in the original story, was all we ever saw of him. Ichi has many facets, developed continuously from the early '60s through to the present day.
Every episode contains guest stars, many of them appearing a handful of times - Renji Ishibashi and Shin Kishida both have at least five appearances across the series, and several other notables have two or three episodes - and the directors are some of the biggest names in jidaigeki. The episodes directed by Shintarō Katsu himself are consistently some of the best (and most experimental).
Because the series doesn't adhere to a chronological timeline - episodes seem to take place at various points during Ichi's life - it doesn't make sense to say that Ichi evolves as a character over the course of the show. The bulk of the show does not see him follow a linear path of character development, changing in response to the weight of everything he endured thus far. That being said, though, Ichi does seem markedly different by the fourth and final season. He talks less. He feels more physically guarded, wearing a headscarf and his cloak wrapped tightly around him. It seems like everything is starting to get to him. He struggles with himself, and the show itself struggles with him too.
The fourth season turns inward and begins to look at itself, to examine Ichi on an existential level. At this point the series feels like it's allowing itself to rest now that it's so well-established, resulting in several episodes that have remarkably spare plots. The swordfighting is more and more like an obligation - often, the insertion of some group or another of shady crims who want Ichi's head for whatever reason is laughably formulaic. Although it does interesting things with the format of the series, the fourth season is not my favorite, as I feel that many of the episodes just do not land; however, it also contains some of the most stunning stand-alone episodes of the series, culminating in an unbelievably avant-garde two-part finale scripted and directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara.
In part one, The Rainbow Journey, Ichi is allowed to experience sensuality for the first time in the entire series. But for him, the joy is taken out of this encounter by a group who essentially turns it into a ransom demand: they get Ichi to admit he slept with a nobleman's concubine, then threaten her family with the exposure of this transgression unless they're given a chest full of money. The experience was completely consensual and wanted by both parties, but Ichi doesn't get to have things like that - not without complications.
In part two, The Dream Journey, the encounter with the concubine continues to haunt Ichi. Most of the episode takes place in a dream sequence. To attempt to unpack the symbolism fully would take me years, so instead I'm going to focus on one element of it. I hope you'll forgive me if it seems like I'm going off into the weeds for a bit here, but I have a confession to make: from very early on in the series I began viewing it with a deep and unshakable headcanon that Ichi is gay. I would - and I will, if you're still listening - argue that the entire series is rife with homoerotic undertones, and it all comes to a head in the final episode.
Ichi can't let go of the only time, as far as we the viewers know, that he's slept with a woman in most of his life. His feelings about it are complex and tortured. This was something he wanted in the moment - but the memory lingers uncomfortably. In his dreams, Ichi sees himself as a normal man: sighted, desiring of women, dressed in fine clothing. He has fantasies of interacting with women in sexual and sensual ways, something that he never did up until this point. These interactions feel less like something he wants and more like something he feels he should want - he has never demonstrated a desire for a sexual relationship with a woman, and in fact, due to his blindness, he is able to interact with women in friendly, commensurate ways that transcend traditional gender roles.
During the dream, Ichi finds himself in an onsen with a group of other men. This is where things start going wrong. One of the men has the remnants of white facepaint and lipstick on, and leers at Ichi sensually before standing up and revealing that he has a woman's breasts. As Ichi watches another man toweling off, he reaches up - touches him - and then it all ends. Ichi is chased by laughing men until he runs out of land and plunges into the sea. He is pursued by ugly, malformed manifestations of maleness: he is confronted by his own desires and, further, his own status in society as a man, and it terrifies him.
Zatoichi as a series is about a man who never gets to have anything he wants. Because of his position as an outsider, Ichi is never able to form lasting relationships. He always has to leave. In his travels through film and television he's rescued many, brought joy to even more, been an enemy to the unrighteous and a savior of justice. But he never gets to hold on to anything. He doesn't get to marry or have children - whether you believe that this is due to his disability and outsider status or due to his own deeply repressed sexuality is up to you. He has no real reason to save money; whatever he earns just goes towards food and lodging; since he doesn't have anyone to support besides himself and he lives on the road, wealth is useless to him.
Ichi is a complicated and fascinating character. To criminals and evildoers all across the land, he's almost a bogeyman; this shadow figure they all fear because they know that to encounter him and be on his bad side means sure death. But he's also really good at skipping rope. He loves children. He's a little afraid of dogs. In one episode he guides a woman through a dense fog bank, warning her to watch her step, and then immediately falls down a hill. There's a minute of silence, the woman he's with isn't sure if he's even alive or not. But then he climbs back up and he's clutching a bunch of flowers he found down there. That's Ichi in a nutshell, I think: falling to - one might even say continuously existing in - the lowest possible depths, and still finding flowers. His life is hard, and he's often deprived of the most basic human pleasures for no real reason other than the childhood illness that left him blind. But he does, throughout all of it, always find flowers.
Some more stand-out episodes: The Winter Sea, Ichi Hears a Lullaby, Spring Arrives for the Eyeless Daruma, Here Comes the Amazing Masseur, The Naked Crybaby Assassin, The Song of a Traveler, The Ghost That Called To Ichi, A Drunken River, Suicide Song of Lovers, A Long Time Ago, The Woman Who Betrayed Cbuji, An Unforgettable Flower, and of course the two-part finale.
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