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Japan's ninjas heading for extinction
- IgorP 14y agoFinally, an article about real ninjas. :)
- waterlesscloud 14y agoIf they are having trouble finding work, perhaps they should learn Ruby.
- w1ntermute 14y agoWell, they'd better hope they're rockstar ninjas if they want to get a job.
- contingencies 14y ago(skype disappearing ninja icon)
- jesskah 14y agoMaybe they are lying about not having successors. If I were a sneaky ninja, that's what I would do, have a secret heir.
- lextori 14y agoThat makes a disturbing amount of sense. What would the need to ninja be in modern times though?
- sliverstorm 14y agoNinja are fundamentally political tools. As long as we have politics, someone will be interested in their services, I am sure.
- inafield 14y agoFirst thing that comes to mind is "Confessions of an Economic Hitman." Currently reading.
- m0th87 14y agoIMO, it's not very good, especially for the HN crowd. The Big Short and The Shock Doctrine both provide a much more technical discussion of some of the same economic malaise while remaining far more riveting.
- contingencies 14y agoDisagree. I loved it. Recently even had the chance to discuss it's opening (Indonesian) chapter with a current Indonesian consul. He basically confirmed it, saying "we knew they weren't here for our benefit, but had little choice [...] It was a very costly decision. We hope we don't have to do that again." Quite the discussion. I like diplomats, they're always amusing.
- m0th87 14y agoNever said the premise was wrong; rather the author substitutes a thorough explanation on how and why this stuff happened with humblebragging. For Indonesia, The Shock Doctrine goes into much a much more detailed discussion of the IMF bailout.
- contingencies 14y agoYeah, all good. Guess I am kind of just saying "here I am, an example of someone who doesn't need that level of detail and found the text both readable and enjoyable, and even recently held a conversation with someone in the know about it". Not un-recommending your more-detail-here meme.
- praptak 14y agoNot really, unless you broaden the definition of a ninja to everyone who does sabotage, for example those who sank the Rainbow Warrior on behalf of the French government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior So, sabotage and assasination - yes, but more modern techniques replaced those of ninja.
- absconditus 14y agoThey would serve the same purpose as the CIA and MI6 if employed by the Japanese government. Corporate espionage would be another good use.
- dualogy 14y agoSame as the need for gurus and rockstars in modern times... Provide silly monikers to the trendy web-coding crowd?
- samstave 14y agoHatsumi has not yet named a successor. For those interested, www.kutaki.org is the primary forum for bujinkan/hombu dojo practitioners...
- ruggeri 14y agoThis made me smile.
- traeblain 14y agoOr that's what they want you to think...
- jiggy2011 14y agoI thought that ninjas were a myth?
- migrantgeek 14y agoThose guys aren’t ninjas and they aren’t dying out. Blackwater has hired lots of ninjas. A ninja is just some dude who gets paid money to get dirty using the best tech and skills available at the time. If they had Glocks in the 15th century ninjas would have been popping caps in Samurai ass. They threw metal stars and swung swords because that’s all they had. The BBC must have been really desperate to report on some anachronistic pajama wearing idiots.
- scott_s 14y agoI was thinking the standard military's special forces - although certainly some Blackwater people are former special forces. That's essentially what the ninjas were: soldiers for hire that specialized in infiltration with small teams. I think the "specialized in infiltration with small teams" is the more important part than "for hire", which is why I thought of the standard military's special forces, and not modern-day mercenaries. Feudal Japan's customs made the "for hire" part necessary, but modern day customs do not.
- hosh 14y agoHeh, that's not what the shinobi were or their primary role. The military stuff were their day jobs, so to speak. The art and what it does is much weirder than that. The Iga lineages were said to specialize in the small team tactics, whereas the Koga lineages were much more interesting. There are pretty good historical evidence showing legit bushi (legit, as in being backed by the ruling power) who went undercover on covert ops. They may or may not have had anything to do with the Iga or Koga folks at that time. One of them ended up carrying (or founding) a famous sword school. To be fair, there are spec ops folk who train with lineages in the US. Does that make them ninjas? I suppose so.
- acous 14y agoWhere can one find out about "The art and what it does"? I had a quick look on wikipedia but didn't see anything.
- jakeonthemove 14y agoI thought they were peasants who armed themselves instead of some well trained assassins...
- arjn 14y agoYes that is my understanding of their history. Peasants who were being hassled by the Samurai and so developed these skills for defense. Later they moved on to doing jobs for hire.
- maaku 14y agoMyth, unfortunately (for it does make a good story). There were many different clans in a certain mountainous region of Japan that we retroactively classify as "ninja". Many of them were, in fact, samurai. Other individuals from that region didn't have claim to familial titles that would make them samurai, but offered their services in combat and were often rewarded with land grants in return, making them samurai. You see, "samurai" was just a word for the gentrified upper class at the time. It wasn't until later, after unification that a caste system came into existence and "samurai" became associated with special clothing, top knots, and the right to wear (but not use) swords. [Source: I was a Japanese language & history major at one time, and studied a number of years in the Bujinkan.] EDIT: Okay, partial myth. Peasants who armed themselves fought for hire does describe the humble origins of some schools. It was the "peasants hustled by the samurai" part I was responding to as a myth.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chris_mahan 14y agoMy wife is Japanese, and her first name is Yumi. I'll just leave it at that.
- basugasubaku 14y agoHer name doesn't necessarily mean "bow", though. "Yumi" is a reading of many first names, like 裕美 (something like "full of beauty") or 由美, which are more common than 弓 (bow).
- chris_mahan 14y agoI know. I was being silly.
- bitcartel 14y agoReminded me of one the best games on the C64... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ninja http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ninja
- emmelaich 14y agoSee the 15th episode of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Weapon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Weapon for a little more on Masaaki Hatsumi
- samstave 14y agoIf you are interested in Bujinkan and Hatsumi, the best book in the world: "Understand? Good. Play!"
- hosh 14y agoThat episode of Human Weapons was really funny to watch. It was even funnier watching my friends roll their eyes in disgust. The two dudes tried to bust in on a training session, swaggering in, and didn't know how dumb they were being. They got passed on to someone else who was amused by all of this. And obviously did not have enough footage to do what they wanted, so they had to backfill it with nonsense. You're better off tracking down Chris Crudelli's Mind, Body, Kick-Ass Moves. Hatsumi liked him enough to personally play with and terrorize him.
- noonespecial 14y agoNothing but Pirate propaganda.
- loceng 14y agoBullshit. They're just getting better at hiding.
- coopdog 14y agoMinor correction on the article, it's been said that they actually seldom wore all black, as that would make you particularly conspicuous. It's more likely they wore an appropriate costume that would allow them to 'hide in plain site' if needed
- daeken 14y agoIndeed. What's really interesting is that the convention of wearing black is thought to have come from bunraku theater, where the stagehands wore black and were "invisible" by convention.
- narsil 14y agoThe article states they used a dark navy blue dye. See the sidebar "Five nearly-true ninja myths": "Ninja clothing was made to be light and hard to see in the dark - but jet-black would cause the form to stand out in moonlight, so a dark navy blue dye was usually used"
- ZoFreX 14y agoEven that's probably not completely correct. If you want to blend in with what's behind you, you should look similar to what's behind you. The rules for this don't change much at night - in dim light or bright light, you still don't want to be a strikingly different shade to your surroundings!
- hcarvalhoalves 14y agoBoth disguise and stealth techniques were taught. It's obvious they would mix with the local population and look inconspicuously most of the time, only breaking into houses at night is what called for a dark shozoko.
- tokenadult 14y agoI like the sidebar to the submitted article, "Western ninja-inspired nonsense." Popular culture references to Japanese ninja are not likely to be accurate descriptions of ninja technique. I first read about ninja ( 忍者 ) in the very interesting book Asian Fighting Arts http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Fighting-Arts-Donn-Draeger/dp/0870110799 http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Fighting-Arts-Donn-Draeger/dp/08... in the 1970s. I think the Western sources have always exaggerated the most glamorous aspects of traditional Japanese culture and neglected the day-by-day realities.
- hosh 14y agoOh yeah. Draeger ... Heheh.
- TommyDANGerous 14y agoI prefer to be a Samurai over a Ninja.
- hugbox 14y agoOn the plus side, pirates are still going strong.
- meaty 14y agoLol I actually spilled my tea :)
- marshray 14y agoAww poor ninjas. It must totally suck to, you know, die like that.
- vukmir 14y agoNinjas are not dying. Ninjas are evolving[1]! What we have here are just two masters unwilling to appoint theirs successors. The title of the article should be: Two Clans of Ninjas Heading Towards Extinction Because Their Masters Want to Be "The Last Ninja". [1]: http://is.gd/TofUgU http://is.gd/TofUgU