Tange Sazen^[a] is a fictional swordsman featured in Japanese literature, cinema and TV.^[1] Originally a samurai member of the Sōma clan, he is attacked and mutilated, losing his right eye and right arm. He then begins to lead the life of a rōnin, using the pseudonym Sazen.^[1]

Development

Tange Sazen first appeared as a minor character in a newspaper serial by Fubō Hayashi, which ran from October 1927 to May 1928 in the Mainichi Shimbun.^[1] The story mainly concerned the exploits of Ōoka Echizen, but the strikingly dramatic illustrations of Tange made by Tomiya Oda, with a scar across his right eye and an empty right sleeve, so caught the imagination of the public that within a few months three silent films about Tange were produced by different companies.

As a result of the success of these films, Hayashi wrote a new serial, Tange Sazen, with Tange as the hero. This initially ran in the Mainichi Shimbun from June to October 1933, but internal strife at the newspaper led to the interruption of publication and the serial eventually resumed in the Yomiuri Shimbun from January 1934.^[1] In this story, Tange developed from the nihilistic character he had been in the first novel to a doughty fighter against injustice.^[1]

The continued popularity of the character led to the production of the successful title The Million Ryo Pot in 1935, directed by Sadao Yamanaka and starring Denjirō Ōkōchi as a comic Tange.^[1]

Ōkōchi is the actor most identified with Tange in the cinema, but many others have played the role. ^[2]

Film

Silent films

Sound films starring Denjirō Ōkōchi

Sound films starring other actors

Female Sazen films

There have also been made adaptations of Tange Sazen as a female character, known in Japanese as Onna Sazen (lit. Female Sazen or Lady Sazen).

Television dramas