Set during the declining years of the Tokugawa shogunate, Shadow Hunters details the questionably noble exploits of three ronin who act as "Shadow Hunters". These three ronin are not your normal ornery ruffians who are looking for a drink, a broad and someone to jab a sword into, but are in fact former samurai who, rather than follow their destroyed fiefs and murdered masters into death via seppuku, have dedicated their combined sword prowess to stopping the government from raping its daimyos for valuable resources.
Oichi the Blind helps a woman escape the clutches of a high government official to go off with the man she loves. The official puts a reward on her head of fifty gold pieces and soon a menagerie of bounty hunters are after her skin. Three of them band together to accomplish this, one an expert swordsman, another a huge judo master and the third is deadly with a chain. To escape, she heads for the fishing town of Itso but soon comes face to face with Sankuro, the swordsman...
Traveling salesman Kuruma TorajirÅ falls in love with an inn manager as New Year's approaches.
A detective tries to outwit a jewel thief who has kidnapped the daughter of a jeweler to get to an exquisite diamond.
A samurai kills a blind man who tells him to repay his debts. Because of the samurai's actions his entire family is to bear a terrible curse.
Ayako, a young woman from a rural fishing village, is sold by her family into a brothel when her father takes ill. There, she is quickly stripped of her innocence and illusions.
