I was in Japan recently and I saw two samurai dramas on daytime TV. I'd really like to get their names. I don't know if they aired daily or once a week, but I'm pretty sure they aired regularly. Both seem older like they were from the 60's or 70's.

I saw them more than once, but for the life of me I can't remember what day of the week I saw them first.

But they both played on Thursday the 28th, the first around 10:30am on channel 10 and the second started when that one ended at 11:30am on channel 12, both an hour long. (My dad's apt is in Akasaka Tokyo)

I'll just refer to them as ch 10 and ch 12
Ch 10 had two roming samurai, Ronin I guess, and they 'helped out' on occasion I am also guessing. In this episode the daughter of some lord or another was kidnapped and the younger samurai with a ponytail, went with a group to try to rescue her. They are captured and in the end he's placed in the same cell as her. The lord is killed by the bad guys and the second older samurai gets a map to the hideout of the bad guys. He uses a talking bird that is a pet of the daughter to distract the bad guys before he kicks ass. The daughter and younger samurai are let go and they beat the bad guys and go home. In the end the two Samurai go off on the road again.

Ch 12, now this one was different because it seemed to star a woman. I don't know if she was the starring character but she was certainly a leading character. She wasn't old, but not young either. Maybe 35-40. One thing that stood out for me was that she had the fancy hairdo but some loose strands framed her face. She says something right at the end of the opening credits.
Both the first and second episode had her in it, it didn't have all the same people I saw in the first episode. she wasn't a Geisha, but their was a geisha house in the town she lives in where it seemed that the samurai liked to hang out.
She appared to work in/own some kind of restaurant.

I don't know if that helps at all, I really wanted to know the name of 'ch 12'. Someone told me that they thought 'ch 10' was Mito Komen but it's not :(
Thanks for any help you might be able to give me!