Not only the last Zatôichi film produced by Toho Company Ltd., but also the last of the "old school" Zatôichi films.
This is the twenty-fifth of 26 films to star Shintaro Katsu as Zatoichi.
Zatoichi's katana is a shikomizue. This is a sword which is concealed within a wooden cane, thus the cane itself is both handle and scabbard.
While Zatoichi is repeatedly referred to as a masseur in the English subtitles, the Japanese term Anma would be more correct. Anma was both the term used for the practice and the generally nomadic practitioner of Japanese massage. In fact, edicts were passed so that massage was solely a vocation for the blind, forbidden to be learned by any with sight.
This is the third Zatoichi film to feature a character having their limbs cut off, and also the second Zatoichi film to make use of practical effects to show severed limbs on-screen. The first was the fourteenth instalment, 'Zatoichi's Pilgrimage' (1966) directed by Kazuo Ikehiro, and the second was the twenty-second instalment 'Zatoichi & the One-Armed Swordsman' (1971) directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda.