Fugitive Samurai

Ogami Itto:
Here we go, Daigoro... down the path that leads to hell!

Ogami Itto:
[realizing he has been set up] This is all a Yagyu plot! Now it's clear... the Yagyus were behind it all!

Ogami Itto:
[to Yagyu Retsudo] Retsudo! Come what may, I will have revenge! Yagyu, I will have your head... if not in this life, then in the next!

Yagyu Retsudo:
[to Ogami Itto] I do not lower myself to fight with samurais who acquire their standing by default.

Yagyu Gunbei:
I won that duel, and you made me look like an amateur before the Shogun!

Ogami Itto:
You exaggerate. You were not so bad as all that.

Shogunate Official:
[Retsudo has just offered Ogami a deal for his freedom if he defeats Yagyu Kurando in a duel] My lord Retsudo! You know you cannot make such promises! You know we are all bound by the decree!

Yagyu Retsudo:
Be quiet! I'll explain it to the Shogun without your help.

Ogami Itto:
[he is surrounded by drawn swords] You expect to kill me with your incompetence? You really believe you can kill Ogami?

Yagyu Retsudo:
[he's just learned of his son's blunder in the duel against Ogami] Gunbei's a stupid imbecile! What he should have done was just kill him! Gunbei is my eldest son... if only he weren't so vain, he'd stop making a fool of himself!

Narrator:
This is the story of a samurai and his small son. They lived in feudal japan in the time of the Tokugawa, when feudal lords held the power of life and death over their subjects and everyone bowed to the absolute ppower of the Shogun. The samurai, a man of honor, lived by the age-old warrior's code; when the Shogun ordered him to become his High Executioner, the samurai obeyed. Wearing the Shogun's chrysanthemum crest, he insudred that the condemned men met their deaths with honor. Some called him assassin, but it was his duty to obey the Shogun for he was samurai. Then he was betrayed... branded a traitor... his wife and household brutally murdered. Only the child survived. Stripped of all honor and sentenced to death, the samurai and his son fled. To his enemies, the wandering outcast became known as "The Wolf"... Itto Ogami... the Fugitive Samurai. Many were the men who hunted for him, hungering for the reward put on his his head, yet The Wolf and his Cub survived to become legends... to live as long as the code of samurai itself.

Yagyu Gunbei:
Itto Ogami! To think that I took the trouble to spare your life that day! A mercenary... a hired killer! They say you get five hundred gold pieces per head now! While I've been upholding law and order, you have been dealing in personal emnities and filthy lucre!

Ogami Itto:
Let us say that my alliegance lies elsewhere. The standard I have sworn to defend is the right of all those whom you and your clan have sworn to destroy... under cover of the Imperial seal.

Shogunate Official:
[Ogami has just destroyed the written Shogunate decree ordering him to die; waving the torn paper, the official has called his guards] He refuses to commit seppuku! He is flouting the Imperial decree!

Aizawa:
[Daigoro is reliving himself on the roadside as a procession of samurai passes; Ando, seeing him, is amused but Aizawa is angered] Boy! Where are your manners? Do you hear? Be off with you!

Ando:
Aizawa! What are you going on about? He's only a child, you know.

Aizawa:
He's disrespectful!

Ando:
Don't be silly. A lot he cares about manners provided he can relieve himself. That's what childhood's for: to be free of inhibitions.