is a prime-time

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

television

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads t ...

series. It aired on Saturday nights in the 9:00–9:56 p.m. time slot on the

Tokyo Broadcasting System formerly is a Japanese media and licensed broadcasting holding company. It is the parent company of the television network and radio network . It has a 28-affiliate television network called JNN (Japan News Network), as well as a 34-affili ...

(TBS) network from April 6, 1968 to April 7, 1973. There were a total of 262 episodes, and it was one of the most popular action dramas in Japan at the time. The story involved "Key Hunter", a special clandestine unit of the International Police, which endeavored to solve various crimes. ''Key Hunter'' was a unique TV show, which started out as a grand scale

spy thriller Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligen ...

never before seen in Japan. The episodes were individually themed on global crimes and political strife. The initial

hardboiled Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence ...

theme later evolved to include intellectual elements involving action, and occasionally with comical elements as well. Tetsuro Tamba starred in the 1967 film '' You Only Live Twice'' as Japanese Secret Service agent

Tiger Tanaka This is a list of allies of '' James Bond'' who appear throughout the film series and novels. MI6 M M is a Rear Admiral of the Royal Navy, and the head of the Secret Intelligence Service. Fleming based the character on a number of peop ...

, an ally of

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 19 ...

. This role greatly influenced his image in ''Key Hunter''.

Characters

Key Hunter

* — played by Tetsuro Tamba : ex-intelligence agent * — played by

Yōko Nogiwa was a Japanese actress. Nogiwa was born in Toyama, Toyama, and grew up in Suginami, Tokyo from the age of three. She graduated from Rikkyo University. In 1973, she married Sonny Chiba, with whom she co-starred in the TV series '' Key Hunter'' ...

: ex-intelligence agent * — played by Hiroshi Kawaguchi (since episode #60) : ex-FBI agent * — played by Hayato Tani : power freak * — played by Eiko Ōkawa : memory expert & genius * — played by

Sonny Chiba , known internationally as Sonny Chiba, was a Japanese actor and martial artist. Chiba was one of the first actors to achieve stardom through his skills in martial arts, initially in Japan and later before an international audience. Born in Fuk ...

: ex-newspaper reporter

International Police

* — played by

Noboru Nakaya Noboru (written: , , , , in hiragana or katakana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, official in the government of Japan's Okinawa Prefecture *, former professional sumo wrestler and current politician fr ...

(appeared very rarely) : Chief of the Special Task Forces * — played by Tadao Nakamaru (since episode #104) * — played by

Hiroshi Miyauchi is a Japanese actor and singer from Chiba Prefecture. Miyauchi graduated from Nihon University. In 1969, he signed with Toei Company and made his film debut with ''Nagasaki Blues''. He first attracted attention after landing a role in a televisio ...

(since episode #92)

Key Hunter Detective Agency

* — played by Masaya Oki (since episode #210) : young private detective who admires Key Hunter members

Theme music

The theme song "Hijō no License" was written by

Shunsuke Kikuchi was a Japanese composer who was active from the early 1960s until 2017. He specialized in incidental music for media such as television and film. Kikuchi was regarded as one of Japan's most highly demanded film and TV composers, working prin ...

, played as an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instr ...

for the opening theme, and sung by

for the ending theme.

References

External links

DVD Selection
from Toei *{{IMDb title, 0159171

at ''Beyond Japan Hero'' 1968 Japanese television series debuts 1973 Japanese television series endings Japanese drama television series Shunsuke Kikuchi Detective television series TBS Television (Japan) dramas Japanese action television series Japanese detective television drama series