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Great manga, tv series and cinema movies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Lone-Wolf-Cub-Boxset/dp/B002MPTIYK/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1383899619&sr=1-1&keywords=lone+wolf+and+cub I have watched the seventh movie of the set in 1983-1984 in my youth without knowing the original story and the first six movies. I have discovered the series by watching the original TV series episodes uploaded by user named as japaneseclassics in Youtube. For TV series, there are three seasons, each season 26 episodes, each episode is 45 minutes long. I strongly recommend to watch TV series before purchasing the DVD set. Kinnosuke (Nakamura) Yorozuya played Ogami Ittō in the TV series. In my opinion, as an actor, Kinnosuke Yorozuya of tv series is much better than Tomisaburo Wakayama of DVD set. Kinnosuke Yorozuya's interpretation of the character really reflects the soul of Bushido. The only disadvantage of Kinnosuke Yorozuya is about the actions scenes, since he is not a real martial artist, but an actor only, his action scenes' level is not high. On the other hand, Tomisaburo Wakayama of DVD set has a 4th dan black belt in Judo and he practiced kenpō, iaidō, kendo, and bōjutsu. Thus, in action scenes, Tomisaburo Wakayama is naturally much better compared to Kinnosuke Yorozuya. The TV series and the DVD set are complementary to each other. TV series are much successful in story, the reality of the story, the acting, etc. The DVD set are successful in action scenes. Although the story is complete fiction, (comes from a manga) it reflects the Japanese society culture very well. One more point should be mentioned: Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616 A.D.), the founder and first shogun of Tokugawa Shogunate, is a really important figure in Japanese history. He brought peace to Japan ending the bloody civil wars between daimyos. Thus, there were no civil war in Japan between 1600 - 1850 under the rule of Tokugawa Shogunate. Tokugawa Ieyasu is portrayed as an evil man in the seventh movie, but not in in the original story and the six movies. His character is much more balanced in TV series. Please remember that, in real life, there had been no Kogi Kaishakunin (the Shōgun's executioner) and no Ogami Ittō, no Lone Wolf and Cub. The complete story is fiction and has no relation with real historical persons and events. Just to be fair to historical reality and historical characters, one should remember that Tokugawa Ieyasu was one of the greatest leaders in Japanese history and respect must be shown to his memory.