Channel surfing last night in a post-election coverage haze, I noticed a show on the Discovery channel called Ninjas. “Oh boy - Ninjas!” I cried. You see, I have been to Real Ultimate Power, and I know how awesome ninjas are. So I tuned in to see awesome ninja tricks, or at least something cool about ninjas.
Instead, I got an uberlame theory show about how ninjas would operate in today’s world. One short was about how a sixty year old ninja master (white guy with a beard and sweatpants) could defeat a human target’s bodyguards and “kill” him.
So, I expect him to meld into the shadows, maybe shuriken some guys, sneak up on some from behind, then get the target. But his ninja solution was to pretend to be a film crew assistant cleaning camera lenses, then over a period of four hours, gradually earn the trust and tolerance of the guards. It was sooo anti-climactic. I don’t think I’ve been this disappointed since Garfield and Friends stopped airing original episodes.
Come now…we all know how they operate in today’s world. They operate by flying around and flipping out and chopping heads off and really, really cool stuff like that.
Mister film crew assistant guy was obviously not a ninja. He knows nothing about Real Ultimate Power.
I saw that special. It was pretty lame. The ninja master was talking about how old school ninjas were all capable of remote viewing and seeing into the future and whatnot.
Ninjas are from Japan. Back in their day (1400’s to as late as probably the 1800’s, may some still today, though I doubt it) they were well-trained assassins who specialized in stealth tactics. I supposed they could be compared to modern-day Special Ops soldiers.
They were hired mercenaries who farmed themselves out to whomever offered the biggest salary. I’ve heard, though I can’t confirm, that during a ninja’s career he may be hired to fight for both sides of the same war.
Yes, there were confirmed deaths-by-ninja back in The Day. I’m not going to dig up a link, but I can assure you they were a very real part of Japanese history.
Kind of. They were not really that skilled at combat. Oh, they coud easily kill people, no doubt, but they were not really a match for a Samurai. if a Ninja did fight one he was in it deep. Samurai spent their whjole lives becoming very good at killing people. Ninja did not have nearly the training or technique. They did not, in as much as I know, fight on the battlefield. But they did assassinate people in the manner presented in the movie “The Last Samurai”. That’s actually pretty accurate, though the numbers of Ninja present was exaggerated.
Ninja did have a number of recorded tricks for getting access to secure areas and whatnot. Many of the Ninja tricks you see in movies and so forth actually have a historical basis in various sleight of hand tricks Ninjas did use.
Incidentally, the main use of shurken was not to kill. Its too small, light and not deadly enough for that, particularly when your target was wearing armor. Instead, when you threw them it made a small cut and bounced off elsewhere. To the target, it was like some invisible opponent just attacked him.
Video games notwithstanding, real-life ninja have basic fighting skills that are no match for samurai, swordmasters, and other professional fighters. Ninjutsu is the art of surveillance, stealth, and, especially, escape.
Here’s a popular ninja urban legend I always wondered if it were true. Supposedly a ninja was hired to kill an especially well-protected warlord, whose exceptionally skilled and capable bodyguards watched his every move. The ninja crawled underneath the warlord’s compound until he reached the muck and filth of the outhouse – the one place the warlord was assured to be alone, and waited. When the warlord finally came to take a dump, the ninja disembowelled him through the floorboards and escaped.
According to the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja), the real-life Ninja’s specialty was not assassination but espionage. Also, most of the time on missions they didn’t wear that hooded black suit – because they were trying to be inconspicuous and blend in. Like the guy in the Discovery Channel special.
I saw that show, and I thought to myself that his way worked. I know very little about real ninjas, except for some historical things that anyone could find. But, as spies and assassins, they probably could fight better than the average person. This doesn’t mean they can see the future, read minds, fly, or vanish in a puff of smoke. It also doesn’t mean a ninja could trash aany and all Samurai in open combat. The samurai devoted his entire life to fighting, and was very good at it, or he died young. A ninja was more generalized. A samurai operated by a strict code of honor, to include announcing who he was, who his overlord was, etc. Very formal. A ninja took more of an attitude, “whatever works” and tossed out the formalities and announcements. I would be willing to bet, many of the legends about the superhuman ninja were started by the ninja themselves. It’s easier to defeat someone who is already terrified.
You recall correctly about how he was executed, but not the circumstances – it was after his deposition by his estranged wife (wonder why?) and her lover, that being the “punishment fits the crime” concept that appealed to them given his sexual proclivities. But it was done as a formal, albeit private, execution, not an assassination.