 For centuries they have served as protectors of Iga and its people, posing as half-demon and half-human beings.When Japan surrendered after World War II, Shigeru Ezaki was one of the last Shadowmasters and the mayor of a small town in Iga named Ueno, whose his wife has been just killed in the U.S. atomic bombing in the closing days of the war.But when the U.S. Army Captain James Richards, who oversaw the occupation of Iga Province, saved the life of Ezaki's son, the two became friends and together fought against a fanatical die-hard band of Japanese military stragglers holed up in the mountains of Iga.