Song of the Samurai - Chapter: Youthful Days in Edo (Season 1)

Song of the Samurai (2026) is a Japanese historical action series you can watch online on iFILM. Yuki Yamada plays Toshizo Hijikata — once a street brawler from the Tama region, now the iron backbone of the Shinsengumi, the samurai unit that defended Kyoto in the final years of the Edo shogunate.

His bond with Isami Kondo and Soji Okita predates the Shinsengumi entirely — forged in street fights, not ceremony. Director Watanabe Kazuki brings this story out of manga and into live-action: betrayal, illness, and the war that ends their era hit in sequence, and none of it is softened. The fight choreography is blunt and heavy, not stylized.

Viewers who know the Shinsengumi through Rurouni Kenshin or Gintama will find a very different register here — closer to history, shorter on romance. Stream Song of the Samurai (2026) online on iFILM.