This toy was nicknamed "Yojimbo-Kaiju", meaning roughly "Bodyguard Monster"; the nickname derives from his role in Return of Ultraman, where Black King acted as a bodyguard to Nakuru Seijin).
Yojimbo is itself believed to have been based on Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest.
Goh will encounter heavily armoured rival ninja, extremely skilled yojimbo and ronin warriors, and overwhelming groups of each lord's regular guardsmen who will often call for reinforcements or sound the alert if they become aware of Goh's presence.
The film contains numerous references both to the historical Genpei War and to Wars of the Roses, as well as the films Yojimbo and Django.
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It also takes inspiration from the "Man with No Name" stock character variously used in the spaghetti western genre but most notably in the Dollars trilogy by Sergio Leone (initially inspired by Akira Kurosawa's jidaigeki film Yojimbo).
In a plot twist familiar to many Westerns such as For a Few Dollars More and the Japanese Yojimbo, Danka uses his anonymity to infiltrate the outlaws' gang and insinuate himself into Burnash's confidence, becoming his trusted right hand man.
The book was also the inspiration for the satirical samurai film Yojimbo produced by Kurosawa wherein a warrior for hire offers services to two rival merchants, each seeking to control a gambling operation, then goes on to pit the two gangs of killers against each other, a la the Continental Op.
Audie Murphy was one of the many stars who turned down Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars because he recognised that the screenplay was an uncredited copy of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.