Sanbiki ga Kiru!

Sanbiki ga Kiru! (三匹が斬る!^?) or Three for the Kill! is a group of seven television jidaigeki series broadcast by TV Asahi in Japan. The show aired in the Thursday evening eight o'clock time slot.

The title characters are three men who wander throughout Japan in the late Edo period. In each episode they encounter antagonists, and in the final tachimawari (fight scene) kill them. The characters traveled sometimes together, sometimes separately. When they arrived in a town they might settle in the same lodging, but sometimes take up with rival factions. In the end, they work together to overcome evil.

For the first five series, these characters were the same.

Yasaka Heishirō, nicknamed "Tono-sama" ("Lord") is a refined, disciplined ronin played by Hideki Takahashi. The other characters occasionally speculate that he is a second son of a daimyo but his identity is never revealed. He is the informal leader of the group. Yasaka uses the Onoha Ittō-ryū style of sword fighting. He appears in the first six series; at the beginning of the seventh series he is written out of the script by traveling to America.

Kuji Shinnosuke, or "Sengoku," is also a ronin, or a spy for the Tokugawa shogunate, or a commoner, as suits the episode. His nickname refers to his wish to work as a samurai with a stipend of a thousand koku. A native of the Satsuma Domain, Kuji practices the Jigen-ryū sword fighting style. He appears in the first five series and returns in the seventh. Kōji Yakusho played the role of Kuji.

Tsubakuro Jinnai is the third member of the group. Nicknamed "Tako" ("octopus"), he describes himself as a descendant of the Kōga ninja and fights with a variety of weapons. Round-faced rakugo comic Koasa Shunpūtei portrayed Jinnai in all seven series.

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Wikipedia