Both were originally released in 1972. There were six films in all in the series. These, in turn, were based on the long-running 1970s manga series Lone Wolf and Cub created by the writer Kazuo Koike and the artist Goseki Kojima. The project was directed by Robert Houston and his partner David Weisman, a protégé of Andy Warhol and director of Ciao! Manhattan (1972). A fan of the original Kozure Okami films, Weisman had obtained the rights for $50,000 from the American office of Toho Studios. The film was distributed by Roger Corman's New World Pictures to the grindhouse movie circuit in the United States, and then later as a video cassette from MCA/Universal Home Video. When released in the United Kingdom by the Vipco video tape label in 1983, Shogun Assassin's extreme violence almost caused it to be banned in the UK by the Home Office. Vipco played this for publicity in the cover art of their 2000 release on DVD, which was stamped "Banned since 1983!" The poster and title treatment was created by artist Jim Evans. Jim's son Gibran Evans voiced the narrative as Daigoro. In 2006 it was restored and re-released on DVD in the United States by AnimEigo.