Samurai Executioner is set earlier than Lone Wolf and Cub, with the main character of the former series appearing in a chapter of the latter.

Each volume is written with historical accuracy, set in the Edo period of feudal Japan, although the characters themselves are fictional.

He performed the former at his father's insistence, as the terminally ill man wanted to test his successor's swordsmanship in an act of seppuku; the latter was his first execution: a criminal who had seduced him as a boy years earlier.

[8] The character is also portrayed by actor Gō Wakabayashi in the "Headhunter Asaemon" episode of the Lone Wolf and Cub television series.

An English translation of the series by Dana Lewis and Marc Miyake was published in the United States by Dark Horse Comics from 2004 to 2006.