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Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And today we're back with part four of our series on the Ninja. Now, if you haven't heard the previous three episodes, you should probably go back and check those out first, but for a brief refresher. In the previous parts, we talked about the origins of the term ninja and its functional equivalent shinobi nomono, meaning a person who practices sneaking, secrecy,
invisibility or in an alternate reading patience, or endurance. We talked about the alleged historical origins of the shinobi nomono as practitioners of espionage and undercover warfare in Singoku era Japan, which covered parts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and
was characterized by frequent up risings in civil wars. But we also discussed the complicated historical question of to what extent the people who practiced spying, sabotage, and sneak attacks during this period can actually be said to connect to the modern literary archetype of the ninja. Which has evolved over several centuries and is almost certainly composed in large
part of legendary development and invented tradition. We talked, especially in the first part of this series, about how the ninja entered international pop culture in the twentieth century and the characteristics of the pop culture ninja and how those don't really match up with much of even the historical,
legendary version of the ninja. We talked about some individual shinobi warriors from legend and history, including stories of ninja esque sorcerers who could ride on spectral toads, and in the last episode, we talked about some of the fantastic tools and techniques described in popular ninjitsu annuals that were compiled and published beginning in the seventeenth century, including everything from the use of gunpowder and pharmacology to the so
called water spider device that would I don't allow you to do something in water questions remain that's right.
And so this is we're back here for the final installment, Part four, and as is often the case with our series,
part four is kind of and the rest. So we're gonna have examples of content that match up with everything we just highlighted from the previous episodes, So like a little bit more of everything we've been talking about, I think getting into some I know some things that were probably you know, pinging in your mind as you listen to the first three, like when are they going to talk about throwing stars?
That's right. One of the inanimate objects most closely associated with the ninja in modern movies and storytelling is the shuriken at the throwing star aka the ninja star.
This is, of course one of the big ninja weapons of pop culture, and one of the things is just instantly attractive about the ninja that you can't help but want to throw a shuri can at somebody or at the wall. Even when when my family when we were in Japan, one of the hotels that we stayed at in Tokyo had a ninja theme and when your families were checking in, they would give the kids like pretend suri can to throw at a target on the wall.
Yes, I was reading about how shurican ranges are like a common stop on sort of like ninja tourist offerings.
Yeah, yeah, so literally it basically means a blade in the hand, and yeah, these are typically depicted in Japanese ninja media as something you sling out rapid fire, like kind of like you're dealing cards, throwing cards or something, while a lot of Western ninja tails tend to present them as these kind of deadly one shots. I think we've all seen movie in which a ninja throws a shuri can and it gets somebody right in the forehead and somehow kills them dead.
Rob correct me if you have a different impression. But I feel like a lot of ninja movies emphasize a theme with the shura can that's almost like in fact, you mention another Western movie that that borrows from a Japanese origin, in The Magnificent Seven, there's that scene where there's you know, James Coburn brings a knife to a gunfight and he beats the gunfighter by throwing the knife
faster than the gunfighter can draw his gun. Of course that movie is based on seven Samurai originally, but but there is I think a similar thing going on with the shura can in a lot of these movies. It's like the Blade the bladed Star beats technology every time.
Yeah, and it helps to have those rapid fire cuts too, because of course the way you typically do a knife throw or a sura can throw in cinema, is you just like cut two or pan over to where the fake sure kin, the fake blade is already stuck in the person, so you know it's lightning fast. It's like bam, there it is. It's like magically appeared in their forehead.
Now, I think we mentioned in a previous episode. If not, I'll go ahead and mention now that one thing that is quite surprising is that shuriken actually do not feature in any of the classic ninjusu manuals that we were talking about from beginning in the seventeenth century in the last episode. Though that doesn't mean they did not exist at all. There are some historical artifacts that can sort
of fit in this box. It's just that historically, until I'll get to this in a minute, until basically the twentieth century, they were not particularly associated with ninja or shinobi.
Yeah, and it's interesting to sort of tease to the history of like just the weapon itself. I was reading about this in Heroko Yoda and matt Alt's Ninja Attack, which again is an excellent little illustrated book that covers all these highlights. But they point out that not all of these various designs of the shurican that we do have would have been thrown. Some of them were simply
small handheld blades. And that's interesting too, because in ninja media, I can't think of an example of anyone doing anything with a shurcan other than throw it. You know, I don't think I've ever seen anybody like whittle with one, or open a soda pop with one, or anything. You know.
They're just for throwing. And apparently, of the ones that were thrown, the more likely scenario here is that they would have been a close range nuisance or distraction weapon as opposed to that stealthy one shot kill.
Yeah, that very much squares with my understanding. So I was reading about the origins of the association between shurikean and ninja in a book that I've been referencing throughout this series. It's a book called Ninja Unmasking the Myth by a historian named Stephen Turnbull, which goes a lot into the complicated questions the historicity of the ninja tropes that exist today, and so in order to understand the
association that emerged between shurrikan and ninja. It's apparently important to understand a particular Japanese martial artist and author who lived in the twentieth century named Fuji Ta Seiko, who was a practitioner and claimed to be a preserver of the ninjitsu tradition of the Coca region of Japan. Fuji To Seiko lived from eighteen ninety eight to nineteen sixty six, and Fujiita's writings were influential in creating the image of the ninja that emerged in the mid twentieth century after
the conclusion of World War Two. I'm not going to completely cover his biography, but i will say that he is a fascinating and somewhat controversial figure worth reading more about,
just to hit some of the top lines. In nineteen thirty six, he published a book called Ninjutsu Hiroku, which means something like secret Notes on Ninjutsu, which is allegedly based on the secret Koca traditions that have been passed down to his family through direct instruction without being published for a general audience, and he claimed that he was publishing this information about ninjutsu to help Japan win its
war against China. However, actually a lot of the information that he includes in this book does come from other pre existing ninjitsu manuals like the ones we talked about in the last part of this series, like the Manson Chukai or the bens In Chukai. So the Ninjitsu Hiroku reframes a lot of information from these previous ninjasu manuals of the Tokugawa period. But apparently it does things like
rationalize a lot of magical sounding claims. For example, techniques that originally were presented as ways of transforming magically into a rat are instead presented as making a noise like a rat to confuse and distract guards, Or like the idea that one could potentially turn invisible is rationalized as well. You can walk in a certain way so that you cannot be seen, thus causing the impression that you've become invisible.
Okay.
A lot of this book also concerns self glorifying claims of practices of physical endurance and austerity. For example, he claimed that, you know, as part of his practice, he could like break glass bottles over his own head to prove his toughness. He says he can do forty glass bottles in a row.
Do not attempt that no idea.
I'm going to mention a few other things. Don't do any of this, please, This is not a good training regime, even if you want to be a ninja. He says, the shanobi must be able to withstand torture without giving up information. So he says, I have stabbed myself with hundreds of needles. Here's a picture of me with all the needles in me, And I have eaten roof tiles, glass bricks, and rat poison. Again, questionable whether he actually did some of that. I think people did claim that
they saw him eating glass. I don't know about the poison, but don't do any of this. He also apparently claimed that he knew dog language and thus could like communicate with dogs to like call them for help if needed, or make maybe make them fight each other.
Well aside from them making them fight each other. Please feel free to experiment with this one.
You can talk to dogs, yes, better than eating poison and glass.
Yeah.
But one of Fujiita Seiko's most enduring contributions to the ninja mythology of today is his attachment of the shuriken in its current form to the ninja legend. So I'm going to try to get into that. Stephen Turnbull in his book actually as a whole chapter just on where the shurican comes from and how it can next to ninjitsu. So there are references to the word shuriken in seventeenth century ninjitsu manuals, but they are apparently referring to completely
different objects than we have in mind. We picture the ninja star that's got you know, it's a star shaped, vaguely circular object made of metal that has points all around so you can throw it in the spinning fashion and wherever it hits somebody, it's going to stab into them.
That's right, And again we've seen this in movies time and time again. I actually looked back at the James Bond film that we talked about being pivotal in the history of introducing the idea of the ninja to international audience. You only live twice, and look, I didn't watch the film in full, but I did find some YouTube clips
of it official on the James Bond YouTube page. Okay, and there is a scene laid in the film where someone I think it's Bond himself, throws a shuriken at Blofeld and Blowfelt has a pistol, hits it in the hand, knocks a pistol out of his hand.
This is actually a common thing in the movies where the ninja will use it to disarm an opponent who like has them at a loss.
Yeah, and I guess again, issues of accuracy and power aside. You know, I guess that's more realistic than the instant kill.
Yeah, I'm going to get to the likely use of it in a second, to the extent it's even being recommended to a ninja. But so, okay, what is this If the shuracan referenced in the seventeenth century in ninjutsu manuals is not what we have in mind, what is it? Well, one of the earliest references, according to Turnbull, is in a is in a text called the Gunpo Goshu of sixteen fifty three, and in this case, the shuriken is said to be quote a torch made from split wood
and fitted into a metal base with a spike. So that's interesting a torch. But the idea here is you're century up on a castle wall and you know it's nighttime, You're sure surrounded by darkness, and you need to see what's happening down on the ground below at the base of the castle wall. So you throw down this shuriken. This object is a sort of combination torch lawn dart, and the metal spike sticks into the soil and the torch illuminates the ground around the base of the wall.
All right, seems reasonable, seems practical.
Yeah, that's a totally logical sounding tool. And it's interesting because again this sort of crosses that boundary that keeps getting blurred in the history of ninja lore between weapons intended for direct violence and things that are just tools used to gather information. However, when it comes to direct references, there is another early reference to shurikean that is also dissimilar, dissimilar to what's the word there, dissimilar to or dissimilar from.
It's not the same as a ninja star. This is the bow shurickan mentioned in some seventeenth century texts, which is a bar or rod shaped object that could be thrown by hand. So essentially this is just a large steel dart.
Yeah, these these are really neat and of course when you start looking up weapons of the sort ninja weapons seeing you find there's a lot of drift, there's a lot of like modernization and whether the weapon actually existed historically or not, somebody has made it now and you can, you know, again, buy it at the mall or something. But these are pretty cool, and these are one of the I feel like just to dip back into Dungeons
and Dragons for a second. Anytime darts are are are mentioned or darts come up as a possible weapon in Dungeons and Dragons, I feel like most people's mind, you know, given the often sort of like westernized fantasy setting of Dungeons and Dragons, you often think of like a dart from a pool hall, right, yeah, dart board, just small, you know, basically harmless weapon. And I would always want to advise me, no, no, look up some some bow shuriken
and imagine that for your character. Instead it's I'm not going to do a lot of damage in the game, but it looks cooler.
Yes, But coming back to the idea of not necessarily needing to do a lot of damage, that actually connects to where we get the first references too, star shaped shurickan in an actual ninjutsu text, and that's in the twentieth century. So here we're coming back to Fujita Seiko in Ninjitsuhiroku. Again this is from the year nineteen thirty six. He has a passage about shurikean in his text, and
so I'm gonna hear read from Turnbull's featured translation. So the author here writes, if you have to defend yourself against a sudden attack by an enemy, put some distance between you to ensure your safety. In this case, use the small weapon called a tobi dogu, which means throwing weapon, known to the author as shurikean. Samurai normally despised these and other throwing weapons, but they are most effective if used skillfully. The shuri caan can do great damage if
it hits someone's eye. So even in this take from the nineteen thirties, the shur can is not a primary weapon, but the idea seems to me to be more like throwing sand in somebody's eyes. It's like a trick you can use to buy time or advantage if you're caught off guard or being chased.
Yeah, and in this scenario, especially keeping the samurai from closing the distance between themselves and you, because that's life and death at that point. If you can, if you can just keep the distance between yourself and the samurai, then maybe you've got a chance to get away.
Right, It's the idea is throwing something to keep the samurai out of sword range.
Yeah, this reminds me a little bit. We did, you know, a past episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind. We did a series talking about like throwing animals, throwing things, and then we got for one episode into an overview of like human history with thrown weapon objects. And you know, they range from from well I would say they range from rock to more complex weapons. But I remember even in talking about throwing rocks and stones as weapons, you know,
there's a lot more to it. You know, there's a lot of selection involved in picking up the exact correct object. And this is a case where we get to that next level of Okay, what have we crafted the items that we wish to throw so that they could be used more optimally?
Describing what devices to throw for this purpose, Fujiita advises, for one thing, improvised hand thrown weapons such as knives or hairpins. So it's like, if you know, throw whatever you can get your hands on, but if you're going to have a dedicated weapon to throw. He also illustrates dedicated shurrican designs, and one of the illustrations is a classic bow shuriken, a large steel dart. But he also includes pointed metal stars, and so here we get our
first illustration of throwing stars in a ninjutsu text. So one of the things he illustrates is cross shaped it has four points, and another one is shown with eight points. This is in nineteen thirty six, the first ninja text
showing the star shaped shuriken. However, it's clear that Fujita Seko did not invent this device from his imagination, because even though earlier ninjitsu texts don't include them, we do have evidence from earlier periods of vaguely star shaped blades or cross shaped blades that did exist and could possibly be thrown. So instead of looking for them in the nunjitsu manuals, you can find them in the jiu jitsu arsenals of the Tokugawa period, particularly associated with a martial
arts tradition called the Sego Reu. One of the documents allegedly associated with this school of martial arts includes an illustration of a weapon that is quite similar that is described like two knife blades fastened in the middle with a hinge. So the way I'm picturing this finder stand it right, is it's like a pair of scissors, but instead of you know, one side of each blade being handles,
it's just blades on every point. Now, for several reasons, Turnbull thinks that Fuji ta Seko was probably not familiar with this exact document that I just mentioned, and probably was getting his knowledge of the star shaped throwing weapon
just from seeing these artifacts around. And there is other evidence from history of people like having versions of these artifacts, even going back to the Tokugawa period, but they just traditionally it doesn't seem like they were super common, and they weren't particularly they weren't associated as far as anybody knows, with nunjitsu until the twentieth century, and now that's all they're associated with.
Yeah, I think we probably have to sort of try and imagine that most likely more historically accurate vision of shnobi operatives as being plaine clothes SBNA operatives, who, you know, if you're going to carry items on you, like, are you going to really commit to having these some sort of a throwing star, sure, a can on your person?
Something that again is I think going to be at least in the modern understanding of it is going to be more obviously a weapon and therefore subject to you know, I mean, being judged in your illegal weapon or also just being suspect in nature that you have it as a And again, think about when you would supposedly use it, like when the samurai are coming after you, or when guards are coming after you, like really in the worst case scenarios, and that might be a better place to
maybe depend on just throwing say, you know, found objects like a bottle or some other item in your immediate vicinity, as opposed to having some special specialty device on your person instead.
There's one detail from Turnbull's chapter that is so interesting I had to bring it up. It's about the design that many people have probably seen of these basically swastika shaped a throwing star that occurs in a lot of media.
This is a very familiar design for movies and stuff, and apparently a lot of modern ninja books have featured this design as if it were a traditional Shurican design, but it is not, and in fact, there is an anecdote from this chapter about how an actor who worked on a nineteen sixties TV series in Japan called on Mitsukinschi, which had a throwing star of this design, described that really this design was created for the show because the
straight pointed throwing stars were deemed too dangerous on set, so this was essentially a safety innovation that was later misinterpreted as a real design of throwing stars as weapons.
Yeah, that's crazy, like basically a safety shit shur can. That's great. Yeah, I have another example of hurrocun inspired fictional weaponry, and this one I thought was interesting because it kind of stands, at least to my eyes, as kind of like the ultimate in sci fi and fantasy transformation of the ninja myth. So in the Warhammer forty thousand universe, like a far future, you know, grim Dark scenario,
you have these. They have this species known as the l Dar, and they're kind of like a sci fi take on the Elves. I mean, that's exactly what they are. And they use pistols and rifles that use shurrocans as ammunition.
So these are said to be monomolecular cutting edge weapons fired in bursts from these guns, and like they're so sharp and they hit so with such velocity that they just shred whatever they hit be it a mechanical foe or an organic foe, and again pretty far removed from anything even remotely realistic we're talking about here, But again I thought it was interesting. It's kind of like the extreme transformation of the shuriken in sci fi and fantasy.
I also, I didn't remember this at all, because I don't have a lot of memories regarding two thousand and four as Alien versus Predator, but you might remember that in other Predator movies he has this disc that he throws that cuts people in half. And in this film they decided they were like, that looks too much like a frisbee. Let's give the Predator a shur aken, And so he has this thing that it was least at least described as a shura can. I included an image
here for you, Joe. It's it's really way too large. It reminds me more of the weaponing krall the.
The glave, yeah, which also is a word that means something else elsewhere. But yeah, that's very confusing. It looks almost exactly like the krawl thing. It's like kind of almost like starfish shaped in a way, with these wispy curving blades coming out. It looks too delicate, you know, it looks like they would break off.
Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know. I don't remember what this thing did in action. I guess it just cut through stuff. But anyway, I wanted to to mention.
That, based on my memory, probably doesn't do much because I remember the Predator is just getting like beat up in that movie. The movie is very like oh yeah, singles, you know, more full takedown and Predator. It's kind of surprising.
H Well, I think it should. I think it should.
Yeah, okay, it's a fair hunt.
Yeah, I don't know. I like to say I don't remember that film all that well, but I did see it. I might have seen in the theater, all right. Well, anyway, coming back to the Shanobi, the pop culture Ninja and the shur Can again, it's like you gotta if you try and think, you know, realistically about any scenario in which you have to bring a certain amount of tools. You have your sort of desert island list of tools
to bring. Would throwing stars make the list? Again? Items that might only be used when you were about to kill a samurai, And your main defense is like, what have I made them angry? So I think there's reason to doubt that. And it's interesting too when you look at some of these ninjitsu manuals, again with proper caveats about where they factor into the transformation from historical accuracy
into myth and fiction. There are sometimes lists of tools, and in fact, there's a sixteen eighty one text, the Shoninki, a Record of Proper Ninjutsu, that includes six tools that apparently every ninja had to have, and throwing stars did
not make the list. Instead, you have and I think this is actually kind of a telling list, like this is a list that I mean, it certainly can apply to any pop cultural view vision of the ninja that you have, but it also makes a lot of sense if you're just imagining some sort of espionage operative that's maybe doing like some extra sneaky stuff, because the list includes, first of all, kagi nawa, a grappling hook, and rope.
All right, makes sense. You need to get over a wall, grappling hook and some rope is a way to do it.
Mm hmm.
Then you've got this one, this one. I was surprised by kasa a conical straw hat, like a wide brim straw hat. This would have been widely used by plenty of people who are not involved in shanoby operations. But that's part of a part of it, right. It's like not conspicuous, and you could apparently hide tools inside it. Like it's large enough you could, you know, maybe secret some items up there under the brim.
That makes sense to me.
And then here's a good one, chalk in order to leave erasable secret messages for other operatives.
Ah yeah, that's interesting because when you think about some of these other Ninjasu manuals we were talking about, like the mens in Chukai places a big emphasis on the the operative must survive in order to deliver information. So it's like propagandizing the reader against the idea of you know, going out to die in honorable death while doing the mission. It's like, no, you must live in order to deliver
the information. But if you can deliver information in some other way, like by writing a message somewhere, you know, down somewhere for someone else to read, then I guess that takes some of the pressure off.
Yeah, yeah, so it makes sense. And also, like chalk generally not considered sus if you're caught with chalk, it's not you're not going to be instantly sent to your execution. I'm assumed, all right. Some of the others a tinder box, you know, just for a little fire, a towel, bring a towel with you. You know, it's there are a lot of uses for the towel is very versatile. And then there's also this category kusuri, and this would have
been various chemical compounds for different purposes. And this would include things like poison, but also basically like first aid as well as bug repellent. So I feel like this is a pretty solid list because, if nothing else, it speaks to some of the practical aspects of imagine Shnobi activities. You might need some bugspray, you might need to bring a light, you might need to bring a towel.
Yeah, I mean, towel's just always a good idea.
Yeah. In the book Ninja Attack Yoda and All highlights some other alleged Ninja weapons, and they're kind of a mix of things that maybe feel a little more fantasy based and others that just sound very standard. Like one
is a kunai, a standard field knife. I think we mentioned this in passing in the last one when we're talking about the the idea that ninja's had a specialized ninja would have a specialized sword, and we brought up that, well, why would you have this illegal weapon on you that takes up a fair amount of room that also might not serve your mission all that well, when you could just bring like a standard field knife, something that would not necessarily be considered a straight up weapon and would
have various practical uses. There's another one, goshiki may, which would have been it's supposed to have been dyed rice grains that you could leave, you could leave behind you as a as a coated trail. Again, I'm not so sure about that when that one sounds a little more exciting, like maybe a little too exciting to be an actual,
you know, artifact of spycraft. Now, gandhal a bucket based focused lantern that does sound useful for sneaking around, you know, basically like a you know something, so you're not lighting up in the whole room, you're not lighting yourself up, but you can have a very focused light for sneaking around, maybe looking at documents.
Oh, I see, so it's sort of a beam light.
Yeah. Another one is a michi hakari. This would have been like a measuring stick. Again. You know, sometimes espionage is boring. It's just about how how big are things? So you might need to measure things when you're when you're when you're out and about Uh.
This is not boring at all. This is a major part of sp iage activities. In these old warfare manuals. It's about like giving giving dimensions and topography. It's like, go somewhere and tell me what it's like. Make a map.
Yeah, they mentioned shakkomi, and this would have been like various concealed weapons, including cane swords, blowguns, that sort of thing. Again, certainly this would make sense, especially if you're engaging in some sort of potential assassination scenario, but it also of course leans I think heavily into the myth of espionage. I mean, who doesn't love a good secret weapon, some sort of a James Bond device.
Right.
Then there's a shakoro. This would have been like a serrated hand tool for sawing, again, like a basic tool that might come in handy for certain practices. And then there's a casou gai. This would have been These would have been climbing aids, like specialized like iron climbing aids for foot and hand holds. It could be inserted into the cracks of a wall. The examples that are included
in the book are pretty neat looking. I'm not sure how historically accurate this would be, again, because we talked about the importance of a ladder, uh and certainly, you know, we talked about you know, grappling hooks. So I don't know, I'm not sure if this, uh, if this is something that would have been regularly done, because the ladder is also included in the in the book here, there's also uh subo kiri, like a handheld drilling tool from like making a like holes in a wall for like a
peep pole. Yeah, peep pole, So that sounds reasonable. They mentioned they mentioned that the fabulous floating shoes that we talked about last time, but they also mentioned something called mizugaki, which would have been would have been apparently a type
of footwear that was useful in muddy areas. Okay, Yeah, And and I guess this is reasonable, right, If you're like potentially sneaking out of of of of a building or an area, or dealing any any fashion with a moat, it might make sense to have specialized footwear.
Well, right, as we talked about in the last episode, the idea of the mizugumo, the water walking shoes, the water spider shoes almost certainly would not work as generally interpreted in twentieth century sources, where like they allow you to walk across the top of the water. So if such a device were actually used, it was probably more like an inner tube type thing that you would sit in and float across the water in.
Yeah, yeah, kind of like a makeshift raft, which was actually there's another item like this included in the book, the kami Gatta, which would apparently have been and I don't have a clear vision of what this would look like, but a makeshift raft using a bamboo frame in empty clay jars. So, you know, perhaps a scenario where it's like, okay, I got to build a boat tonight in order to make it across this river or this moat or what
have you. What could you use to make it? How you could you mcguiver up a boat.
That's good knowledge to have.
Now, there are various other ninja weapons that we could potentially talk about. I think the common thread, though, is going to be how realistic is this how much historical evidence is there for this and how cool does it look? You know, like you see things like Techo Kagi and Nico Ta. These would have been two different versions of like giving your ninja's claws, so the former being like a wolverine claw that you wear as a gauntlet. I guess also you could this is like basically what Shreder
has in teenage Man Ninja turtles. And then the necko t would would have been something that goes over your fingertips, and these would have been like poisoned or some sort of a nuisance weapon for like scratching somebody.
Over the fingertips. Yikes.
Yeah, so like you with the.
Open hand swinging at the Yeah.
Well you're not as big as Freddy Krueger or anything. I think I did an artifact episode a while back talking about like some of the physics of strapping blades to your fingers, Like that's a Freddy Krueger glove would be a great way to break all your fingers if you can actually use that as a weapon and you are not a supernatural entity of some sort, yes, but if it's wrist mounted, okay, you know potentially that could work.
But then again you get into that question, why would it work more than a standard weapon, Why would it be a better choice compared to a knife or a sword or what have you.
As with a lot of these things we're describing, you can see how they might have more appeal as a meme than actual functional utility, Like they could be successful in texts like these because they're interesting ideas.
Yeah, Another thing that comes up is like, is in which cases do we see some sort of an alleged ninja weapon that might have its roots in sort of a repurposing of other items, Like for instance, there are various forms of teko or techo and these would have been I've seen it written that these would have been like a basically a weaponized iron stirrup that is turned into something kind of like brass knuckles, you know, And I think like brass knuckles are a great example of
something where you can see various knucks and other weapons that can be very specialized and ornate, but various other things could also work, you know, like a roll of quarters or you know, some other just like a simple band of iron that goes around your knuckles, that sort of thing. And so there's a long list of alleged ninja weapons. They include miniaturized firearms, sharpened hair ornaments, and chopsticks,
particularly for female shanobi. And you know, I think part of that is just like the idea of like, oh, these the hair ornaments look very sharp, they look like they could be a weapon. What if they were a weapon, And therefore the myth building takes place. There are at least a couple of chain based weapons, the manriki gusari.
This is like a length of chain with a weight on either end, and I think the basic idea here is like, the samurai are coming to kill you, What again, what can you throw at them to potentially buy yourself a little time and or wrap around their weapons. There's also one the kusari gama, which would have been much the same idea, but with a blade or sickle on
one end of the chain. This would ideal. It Yeah, be a situation where someone's coming at you with a weapon, maybe you could use the chain to like wrap up their weapon and so forth. So again, all the standard caveats apply to considering the historical accuracy of these weapon descriptions, but I think we if we scrape the ninja mystique off of each of them, while still acknowledging like the
use of some form of martial art. We're dealing with sneaky weapons that have as much, if not more in common with typical criminal implements like small knives, small clubs, concealable firearms, maybe even concealed swords and cane swords and all you know, hidden blades, hidden flails and so forth. But again, I think you end up having pass that
question like would this actually be practical? Can you see somebody using this in a very serious life and death, you know, very risky scenario where the goal might not be some sort of like crazy cinematic ninja scenario, but something more like getting the measurements of a guard house, or you know, looking at some documents, overhearing something that
you're not supposed to hear, and so forth. Now, there are various techniques that ninja techniques that are brought up in the book by Yoda and Alt, and one that I was particularly amused by is the idea that you could as a ninja, as a shanobi operative out in the field, you need to tell what time it is without any other information to go on. You could look into a cat size and therefore tell what time it is?
Oh interesting, now is this telling time in the nighttime or in the daytime.
I have a lot of questions about how practical this would be. I think this is definitely one of those ideas that sounds more intriguing than it actually you know, and then then it is useful. I think maybe it has something to do with the idea quite understandably that we feel a kinship between the ninja and the cat. We like the idea too of a ninja stopping and maybe, you know, talking with the cat like you're the household cat doesn't care he or she is ready to sell
you out to the shnobi at a moment's notice. They're they're happy to conspire.
Cast speak with animals.
Yeah yeah, But the basic idea is that, okay, the shape of the pupil in the cat's eye is going to change throughout the day, and you could potentially match it up with specific times. The trick, the challenge that Yoda and All point out is that, of course you would have to get be able to get close enough to the cat to do this, presumably a stranger's cat to make this reading, which is betting a lot on
random cat personalities. Because there are cats that I've seen plenty of times and I've never gotten close enough to at their pupils. But then you'll just encounter like a cat out on a walk, and the cat will come straight up and is like ready to share that information with you.
This is why you rub your face with sardines, you get the cat in there.
So I looked into this a little bit more. I couldn't find much concrete and about this, because, of course, the other question is like, what kind of specific scenario is this where there is no other information to go on other than a cat's eye. You know, I feel like you'd have a there would be better ways to reasonably estimate what time it is.
And hey, you know, it's not impossible that someone could find clever ways of getting surprisingly accurate information from the natural world. I often think back to that series of episodes we did about Pacific islander navigation techniques that you know, without any kind of electronics or modern equipment, people were able to figure out incredibly accurate ways of navigat And so maybe there's stuff like this in the eyes of animals or in plants that can tell you exactly what
time it is. Is it true?
Yeah, I've looked up an article. I found this article on the website of the National Wildlife Federation by one Donna Johnson, who, by the way, alludes to this being a New England tradition. So I don't know where it originates. Maybe it originates in multiple cultures anytime you're close enough to a cat to look at their eyes. But she does do a breakdown of the idea, like, basically, cats have elliptically shaped pupils to compensate for their light sensitivity,
which otherwise aids them in low light hunts. But the greater the amount of light, the more slit like the pupil. So it technically works, But it also seems again like maybe not the most reliable time telling technique. And I can't imagine a situation where the cat's eyes would be the only thing to go off of many questions would emerge here, But it's a neat idea, I.
Guess, well, I mean, if the cats eyes are responding to the level of light, would the ninja not also be able to see the level of light?
Exactly? All right? The final thing I want to hit on here in this series is the idea of the ninja as hero because when it comes to pop cultural transformations, I think it's always interesting to look at the point
where something completely flips from what it originally was. For instance, in past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we discussed how various fearsome monsters, especially in Japanese culture, but we also looked at some examples from Western horror movies, eventually make the transformation from like a symbol symbolized aspect of reality, you know, some sort of dark aspect of reality that is embodied in some sort of a being
and imagine being, you know, fearsome entity. The point at which we take that and flip it into something cute, something that would you know, make for a nice mascot, look at it on a bumper sticker, or even be a stuffed animal. I think there's something telling about reaching that point when the monster becomes cute, or in this case, when the ninja becomes a hero.
When we've talked about this with regard to monsters, I remember one of my thoughts about it was that this impulse is driven by franchising concerns, Like the further you get into sequels and the more like movies or stories you've had exposing you to this monster over and over, the less comfortable it is for the monster to continue to be purely fearsome or evil, and there's an impulse to make it more friendly or at least maybe funnier
or something. So you can see this in you know, like Godzilla originally is not nice and is not fun, but eventually it becomes Godzilla becomes the defender essentially against these worst monsters. You know, the new monster is the worst one and Godzilla is the one we're familiar with
fighting it off. And you can see over time that Freddy Krueger goes from being just like a gross, disgusting murderer into becoming like a jokester who's more just kind of like mugging for the camera and yuck, yucks.
Yeah, he becomes a violent clown.
Yeah, and so forth. I think it's a really common pattern. It's something about like familiarity takes the edge off of something and makes you want to recast it as a friend rather than a foe.
And so with the Ninja, you know, we've discussed at length the nebulous reality and origins of the Shnobi and how we're mostly talking about shadowy ESPA espionage operatives made up of commoners and even criminals that engage in dirty, if not you know, outright shameful acts that are necessary, a necessary part of warfare, alongside the more celebrated noble and aristocratic exploits rulers in the Samurai. But then coming out of the Warring States period and into the Edo
period and beyond, we see the myth making. We see the fiction transforming the myth of the Ninja in numerous ways, giving it the form everyone instantly recognizes today. And so many Ninja remain villains in these later treatments, but they inevitably cross over into anti hero and even hero territory. And this kind of takes me back to our initial discussion talking about our initial introductions to ninja growing up, And I look back and I think some of my
initial introductions to ninja actually cast them as heroes. Yeah, Like that nineteen eighty one Cannon film Injured the Ninja is built around Franco Niro, an Italian actor, as at least an anti hero. I don't think he's maybe quite a hero in that, but he's at least an anti hero.
I feel like the majority of the Ninja media I consumed when I was a kid, had ninjas as heroes rather than villains, or had them as bo Yeah.
I think that's very common as well, going back to like G I Joe, like Snake Eyes is a black clad ninja and is very much on the certified good guy team. There's no there's it's black and white literally though it's flipped because our black clad ninja is good and our white clad ninja is bad.
Yeah or yeah, so often they were both. But I think there's an impulse there that it's just like, well, especially in kid focus to media, ninjas are cool, and kids want to root for the good guys, and they want they want the good guys to be cool. So you got to make the ninja a good guy.
Yeah, Like I mean the teenage meeting Ninja turtles. Obviously they're turtles, they're teenagers, but they are ninjas and they're very much the good guys. But then, going back to the Bond film, You Only Live Twice again vitally important in bringing the Ninja into the international market and into Western cinema. All the Ninja in that all the Shnobi operatives were working on James Bod's Bond's team. They were all good guys essentially.
Right, Yeah, yeah, I think so there might be some working for the bad guys, but I don't recall specifically. The ones I remember are good guys.
Yeah, there's like the big scene at the end where they storm the Specter compound and bond lets the ninjas in. He's like, he opens the door and here come the ninjas down on like wires and all.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, anyway, like getting down to discussion like when when are ninjas allowed to become not just anti heroes but outright good guys. Well, according to Yoda and all discussion in Ninja Ninja Attack, there's a definite place to single out perhaps is the first true ninja heroes in popular culture,
and it's the Tachikawa pocket Books. This would have been the period around nineteen twelve through nineteen twenty six series of books written by a group of writers that were credited as Seka Sanjan, a series of novels for juvenile so like essentially like young reader or children's books that detailed the adventures of the pair of rival ninja that they were on the same team. To be clear, they're not like rival teams or rival clans, but they have
differing personalities. They're kind of an odd couple, and that's Saratobi Saske and Kira Gakura Saizo. And this was these books established these two as quote poster boys for the ego koga rivalry and ninja as a potential force for good, and it was inspired by these tales were inspired by both real life at least attributed ninja exploits as well as the Chinese literary classic Journey into the West. How
is it related to the Journey into the West. Well, a lot of it comes down to the character of Saratobi Saske, a young boy raised by monkeys and then taken in by a ninja master and then recruited by the warlords Sonata due to his mischievous nature and his great skill and of course the ninja arts, so he ends up going on missions for his master. But he's also you know, a good bit the trickster, a bit happy go lucky, and he does a lot of side
quests to help the less fortunate. But the name here Saratobi means leaping monkey, and he is in some ways a Japanese ninja version of the Monkey King.
It's interesting that you mentioned him doing sort of side quests to help the less fortunate, because I have seen that it is I have read at least that it is common in literature that portrays the ninja as heroes or good guys to include some kind of class element where they are sort of they act on behalf of the economic underclass of like the of the poor and the less fortunate, and help them in the face of say, like rich oppressors, like an evil samurai.
Yeah yeah, and a lot of the I think we touched on some of these older tales that are either ninja or ninja adjacent that are essentially robinhood stories, like some sort of person from the criminal element, you know, and from the lower classes that is sticking up for the little guy. Now, the other of these two the rival. So we have the happy, go lucky guy, the more like the sort of the more pure hero here. But then we have Kiragakua Saizo, who is born into the
ninja life. It has said he's trained with the best and he's become a master of clouds and lightning, of mists and thunder, so you know, he can summon various weather effects to mask his ninja movements. And the name here means cloaked and missed. So while Saske is lighthearted, Sizo is brooding, Like this is more of your your kind of like goth superstar character here. Nice they wind up on the same Ninja team, this would be Sonata's Ten Heroes or the Ten Braves, but their rivals. They're
an odd couple to say the least. And Yoda and all point out that, Yeah, the nature of these two characters kind of flows perfectly into modern times. So Saske was always a hit with the kids, but then Siso was irresistible to you know, many in the post war period, especially as like you know, older Ninja fans and adults told and retold stories. He's like a natural character to
latch onto. He's got this kind of angst sort of in bridging the gap between anti hero and hero, you know, so it fits that mold of the brooding sort of Batman esque hero. I guess I included an image here, Joe. This is from one of the many more modern treatments from anime and manga. And you can guess which one is which you know, which one is is your brooding character and which one is your more happy, go lucky character.
Oh, Sizo even has like emo hair.
Yeah yeah, yes, like again just a natural fit you know, for for like kind of an angsty emo character. And then we have the Trickster, the essentially the monkey King in Ninja form. Of course they're not going to completely get along, but they are going to ultimately work, you know,
for the same cause that's sweet. Yeah. So yeah, I thought that was an interesting this idea of like, Okay, these might be the patient zeros for good guy ninjas in popular culture, and these are characters that get used again and again. Now I think Sizo has also been used as an antagonist in some modern treatment. So it kind of comes back to what we were saying about monsters. Just because a monster goes cute, it doesn't mean you
can't go back and make them fearsome. Again, this kind of thing happens all the time, and so there's always going to be continued exploration and re exploration. Just because ninjas become heroes or anti heroes and one property doesn't mean they can't be just absolute villains in another. You know, we can continue to have fun in that regard.
Yeah, it's a sawtooth effect. I mean, you know, by the seventies you've already got all monsters attack and the ones where Godzilla is like, oh, he's a good dad. But then you come back decades later and you can get Hinn Godzillo. Yeah, where the monster is a problem yet again.
Yeah, all right, Well there you have it, Part four of the Ninja. You know, I don't know that we covered everything, but we covered a lot of things related to the Ninja. If we missed anything, or if there's some detail you would like to bring up, write in. We would love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do a short form episode on Wednesdays. Fridays we
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