I just got done watching the second episode of Abarenbou Shogun, in which the historical shogun Yoshimune-- because the public don't get to see his face anyway-- decides to pretend to be an ordinary samurai on the streets of Edo in order to right wrongs and defend the downtrodden.
Perfectly formulaic stuff: first Yoshimune starts poking around, then he calls on his ninja to investigate, they immediately uncover evil deeds being committed against the poor, there's an accusation and a big sword brawl. And in the morning the villain appears before the shogun, who repeats the villain's own evil words to him. Raising the curtain between them, the shogun is none other than... that annoying samurai they tried to kill this week! The villain is cut down or kills himself in shame, and our hero looks out from his castle upon the land with a smile on his face.
Of course there were 800 episodes of this; it rules. Like falling asleep to Law and Order reruns but with samurai and ninja. Hell yeah, dude.
Red Swallow Oyuki is the most fun of the ones I've watched thus far. More of a comedy focus with an innocent swordswoman and her comically boorish lackeys, a wannabe-samurai and a wannabe-yakuza.
Youjutsu Bugeichou is a straight action series but sprinkles a little bit of sorcery into the proceedings, putting it right on the edge of being a superhero tokusatsu like some of the other titles on this list. A guy gets the top half chopped off him.. and then it flies right back on. Like many classic toku, gets a lot of mileage out of playing footage backwards.
