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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. It's Saturday,

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Speaker 1: so we are heading into the vault for an older

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Speaker 1: episode of the podcast. This is part three of the

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Speaker 1: series that Rob and I did on the Ninja. This

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Speaker 1: originally published August first, twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 3: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 3: is Robert.

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Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part

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Speaker 1: three in our series on Ninja. Now, if you haven't

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Speaker 1: heard the first two parts of this series, this is

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Speaker 1: a case where you really should go back and listen

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Speaker 1: to those before you listen to today's episode, because we

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Speaker 1: lay a lot of groundwork, especially about the tricky historical

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Speaker 1: questions about the sort of act curacy of a lot

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Speaker 1: of the received knowledge about the Ninja. And so if

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Speaker 1: you are wondering about like how the Ninja fit into

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Speaker 1: real history versus pop culture and then sort of subsequent

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Speaker 1: lore and legend, we talk more about that in the

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Speaker 1: previous episodes. Today we're going to be focusing more on

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Speaker 1: just some of the great bits of texture and the

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Speaker 1: anecdotes from that historical law and legend. The stories of

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Speaker 1: individual ninjas, the stories of the stories of tools and

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Speaker 1: techniques and equipment and so forth.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you basically can think of it this way.

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Speaker 3: The ninja existed, true statement, the ninja are a myth

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Speaker 3: and never existed true statement depends on how you tease

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Speaker 3: it apart, you know. And likewise a lot of this too,

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Speaker 3: Like we'll get into specific examples of ninja tools or weapons,

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Speaker 3: and you can say this never existed, and then you

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Speaker 3: can also say, but I can buy one at the

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Speaker 3: mall today, and so it's like, well it exists now, right,

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Speaker 3: So it gets complicated.

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Speaker 1: This is a great time, I think to discuss some

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Speaker 1: of the various ninjutsu manuals that were published beginning in

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Speaker 1: the Edo period beginning under the Tokugawa Shogunate, that are

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Speaker 1: the source of a lot of the ninja lore that

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Speaker 1: we have today. So you can think about sort of

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Speaker 1: like multiple stages of development of the ninja lore over

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Speaker 1: the centuries. This is going way back. It's questionable whether

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Speaker 1: some of the things reported in these manuals were actually

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Speaker 1: used in the earlier periods. But these, you know, seventeenth

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century texts have lots of great stuff in them

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Speaker 1: that I think later gets picked up by authors, say

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Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, and reprocessed and turned into the

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Speaker 1: pop culture idea of the ninja. So there are multiple

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Speaker 1: ninjitsu manuals, and I'm just going to list some common

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Speaker 1: characteristics of them. So they will teach techniques of espionage, stealth,

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Speaker 1: and intelligence gathering, including everything from how to infiltrate a

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Speaker 1: building using different kinds of ladders to how to gag

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Speaker 1: a prisoner. So they're full of descriptions of techniques. They

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Speaker 1: pass along practical knowledge about real subjects, such as pharmacology,

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Speaker 1: like using herbs to achieve an effect in the body,

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Speaker 1: and how to use gunpowders. So there is some amount

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Speaker 1: of chemistry knowledge, at least as it was understood in

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Speaker 1: the seventeenth century. In some of these books, they describe

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Speaker 1: and illustrate tools and equipment such as caltrops. You know,

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Speaker 1: these spiked spiked objects that would be used. You know,

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Speaker 1: you'd throw them on the ground to slow the advance

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Speaker 1: of an enemy or to deny them access to an area.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, makabishi, I believe is the term for these. And

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Speaker 3: these are interesting on their own terms because if you've

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Speaker 3: played Dungeons and Dragons. You may have used these, you know,

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Speaker 3: these are pretty common way to slow down an enemy,

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Speaker 3: but a pair when you get into the history of

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Speaker 3: their use in Shinobi activities, like some examples of them

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Speaker 3: may have been essentially organic or found items, like essentially

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Speaker 3: like throwing nuts or you know, or today's version would

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Speaker 3: be like spreading legos all over the floor. That's not

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Speaker 3: quite like a nature fact or a found item, but

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Speaker 3: you know, you get the idea, and then you could

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Speaker 3: progress from there into potentially like metal objects that are

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Speaker 3: spiked and so forth. And speaking of those ladders, yes,

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Speaker 3: ladders are absolutely a tool of the ninja. And if

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Speaker 3: you are in the Dungeons and Dragons campaign and you're

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Speaker 3: playing a rogue, go ahead and equip that ladder, bring

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Speaker 3: that ladder with you, and dare your dungeon master to

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Speaker 3: make you roll a dexterity check whilst climbing it. Ladders

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Speaker 3: are great. Trust the ninja on this.

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Speaker 1: My current rogue has a real affinity for climbing. He's

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Speaker 1: got the I don't know his level three or level

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Speaker 1: four or wherever it is. You get to pick one

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Speaker 1: of the feats, and he's got second story work where

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Speaker 1: you know, you can climb at the same rate you

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Speaker 1: can you can run.

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Speaker 3: That's great. Yeah, but I feel like we've been kind

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Speaker 3: of it's like a modern Ninja batmanification of our understanding

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Speaker 3: of what rogues should have because Batman never carried a ladder,

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Speaker 3: but he probably should have carried a ladder. I think

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Speaker 3: that would be great.

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Speaker 1: The bat ladder, I mean, the rope ladder will get

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Speaker 1: you a lot of places. I guess Batman doesn't need

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Speaker 1: a ladder because he has the unrealistic the batclaw thing

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Speaker 1: that you can just shoot and will zip him up anywhere.

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Speaker 3: Absolute trust in the masonry the building that he's interacting with. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, all the stuff I've mentioned so far, that's

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Speaker 1: the stuff you would imagine a ninjitsu manual to include, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, techniques about stealth tools. You could use, knowledge

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Speaker 1: about pharmacology and gunpowder and things like that, but there

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Speaker 1: are also things you might expect less. These manuals often

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Speaker 1: emphasize spiritual and philosophical elements of the Shinobi lifestyle, like

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Speaker 1: some during the Edo period promote Confucianism with a strong

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Speaker 1: emphasis on loyalty, which of course was favored by the

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Speaker 1: Tokugawa shoguns. They sometimes also include moral discourses that serve

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Speaker 1: as justification for shnobi activities, like it's okay to use

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Speaker 1: lies and deception and trickery because they will help you win.

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Speaker 1: They're what you have to do to win, and what's

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Speaker 1: ultimately right is to be loyal to your masters and

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Speaker 1: to help win in the conflict. And so so you know,

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Speaker 1: you got to deliver that intelligence. It doesn't matter if

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Speaker 1: you have to lie to do it. They sometimes also

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Speaker 1: include more esoteric guidance, like the use of astrology or divination.

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Speaker 1: They are often falsely attributed to a great hero or

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Speaker 1: legend from history. They do not depict shnobi in black

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Speaker 1: costumes and masks. They are not generally concerned with assassination,

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Speaker 1: nor do they usually describe hand to hand combat or

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Speaker 1: sword fighting techniques, as would come to be the calling

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Speaker 1: card of ninja in later movies. Once again, they are

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Speaker 1: most often concerned with intelligence gathering, cycle, logical warfare, and sabotage.

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Speaker 1: And to this point, one of the manuals I'll mention

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Speaker 1: in a minute actually specifies that your shnobi your spies

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Speaker 1: should be selected based on intelligence and not physical strength

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Speaker 1: because these people were not primarily thought of as fighters,

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Speaker 1: but as tricksters and observers, gatherers of information.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, when you think about it, like your shnobi,

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Speaker 3: are they going to be able to throw down with

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Speaker 3: the samurai of an arms samurai, like you know, one

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Speaker 3: to one in some sort of a battle. I think

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Speaker 3: there's a strong case to be made. No, the trickery

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Speaker 3: if that, if that's sort of violent encounter were to occur,

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Speaker 3: the trickery is going to make the difference, not the

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Speaker 3: martial arts.

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's right. As we talked about in the

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Speaker 1: last episode, the idea of shnobi as instigators of daring

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Speaker 1: individual violence and hand to hand combat, that is more

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Speaker 1: of the later movie ninja thing. The earlier emphasis is

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Speaker 1: though there all there are lots of sort of shinobi

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Speaker 1: warfare activities in shinobi attacks, sneak attacks by night. Most

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Speaker 1: of the time, these manuals and early ideas of shinobi

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Speaker 1: are more focused on spying. For just one example of

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Speaker 1: how these older military manuals might focus more on espionage

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Speaker 1: strategy than on the type of combat focused ninja behavior

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Speaker 1: we think of today, there was a sixteenth century military

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Speaker 1: manual called the Kinetsushu, and this text was from earlier

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Speaker 1: than the major ninjutsu manual, So this is not I

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Speaker 1: want to be clear, this is not one of the

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Speaker 1: ninjutsu manuals I'm talking about. This is a general warfare

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Speaker 1: manual from a little bit earlier, and its focus is

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Speaker 1: broadly on strategy and warfare, but it contains a subsection

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Speaker 1: on espionage techniques, and it recommends things like the following.

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Speaker 1: It says, before you go on a military campaign, send

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Speaker 1: spies into the area that you're targeting to pose as

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Speaker 1: merchants and craftsmen. And these spies should make maps of

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Speaker 1: local topography and try to figure out the morale of locals,

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Speaker 1: for example by listening to whether people sing sad songs

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Speaker 1: or happy songs. And you can also try to split

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Speaker 1: loyalties within the region by doing things like have your

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Speaker 1: spies make donations to local temples and shrines to win

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Speaker 1: over the approval of the priest class.

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Speaker 3: And I'm guessing you had to be kind of selective

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Speaker 3: about how you do it, Like don't immediately set up

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Speaker 3: shop and be like, hey, what do you think of

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Speaker 3: the latest Lena Delray album? You know, like tease it

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Speaker 3: out a little bit. Make sure you have enough lead

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Speaker 3: time to really immerse yourself in the local community.

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Speaker 1: Exactly right. Oh, and I should say, by the way,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned it in the last couple of episodes, but

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Speaker 1: just to flag again one of my major sources here

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Speaker 1: also on the general facts about these ninja two manuals

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Speaker 1: is a book by a British historian named Stephen Turnbull

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Speaker 1: called Ninja Unmasking the Myth from twenty seventeen, and so

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Speaker 1: he highlights several important ninjitsu manuals that I wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk about for a moment here. These later manuals in

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Speaker 1: the seventeenth century onward were more directly focused on ninjitsu,

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Speaker 1: and they include texts such as the Gunpo Jeoshu, which

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Speaker 1: was published in the sixteen fifties, and the famous mansen

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Speaker 1: Shuki or bensen Chukai from around sixteen seventy six, the

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Speaker 1: latter of which has in some instances been referred to

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Speaker 1: as the Ninja Bible, though this is probably a misleading

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Speaker 1: way to characterize it. Mens In Chuki or bensen Chukai

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Speaker 1: the title means ten thousand rivers flowing together into an ocean,

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Speaker 1: and in particular this one is the source of a

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Speaker 1: lot of modern ninja lore. It contains details about ingenious

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Speaker 1: ninja gadgets and equipment. It also contains different philosophies about

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Speaker 1: spying and infiltration. It makes an interesting distinction between what

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Speaker 1: it calls yonin and enin Yonin meaning open infiltration. So

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Speaker 1: this would be sneaking into somewhere by wearing a disguise

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Speaker 1: or being accepted by the target community, so you are

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Speaker 1: within view, but you are disguising your intentions in some way. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: in en means invisibility or hiding, so this would be

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Speaker 1: infiltration by sneaking by night or hiding under floorboards.

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Speaker 3: And that's where we get into some of these the

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Speaker 3: elements of patients and endurance that we mentioned in the

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Speaker 3: last episode. I believe, like, if you're going to have

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Speaker 3: to hide under the floorboards for let's say forty eight hours,

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Speaker 3: you know you're going to have to use some chenobi patients.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And that's one reason that there may not

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Speaker 1: be as much difference between the idea of practicing endurance

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Speaker 1: or patients and practicing stealth as you might originally think,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of stealth is patience. In fact, you

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Speaker 1: could even argue that that patience is very important when

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Speaker 1: you are just being accepted within a target community or

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Speaker 1: in disguise. Right, you've got to play the part for

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Speaker 1: a long time to sort of make people comfortable.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you got to actually run that business. Like,

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Speaker 3: don't offer like really deep discounts. They're going to be suspicious.

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Speaker 3: Don't act like you're not interested in making a profit

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Speaker 3: one way or the other. Yeah, become a part of

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Speaker 3: the community and then betray them.

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Speaker 1: Another interesting thing about these ninjasu manuals is the thing

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Speaker 1: that makes them really tempting to interpret is that sometimes

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Speaker 1: they might include explanations and references that seem kind of circumspect,

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Speaker 1: like they don't give all the details of what they're

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Speaker 1: talking about. And then sometimes they'll have a note like

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Speaker 1: additional information is only to be passed on by word

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Speaker 1: of mouth.

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Speaker 3: Oh boy, that sounds very shanobi.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. One random detail that I love, by the way,

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Speaker 1: just came across this in the book. This is about

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Speaker 1: the gun pogoshu. It's the claim that in the ancient past,

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Speaker 1: men of the regions Ega and Coca, which are places

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Speaker 1: in Japan that are the have long been claimed as

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Speaker 1: national headquarters of shinobi training. So the claim is that

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Speaker 1: these these ninja from IgA and Coca would travel as

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Speaker 1: secret agents, and while doing so, they would pose as yamabushi,

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Speaker 1: which means street performers such as monkey tamers. So like

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Speaker 1: the next time you see a busker playing a Goo

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Speaker 1: Goo Dolls song on the sidewalk, or you see a

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Speaker 1: guy dressed up as Superman in Times Square, you might

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Speaker 1: wonder is this a ninja? Is this person gathering intelligence?

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Speaker 1: Another interesting fact about the gun Pogoshu in particular is

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Speaker 1: that some of its espionage advice is given in the

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Speaker 1: form of a collection of poems, poems about spying.

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Speaker 3: Wow. Wow, that's fascinating that. Yeah, this goes hand in

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Speaker 3: hand with some of the things we've been talking about

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Speaker 3: about disguising yourself blending in. But I guess sometimes like

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Speaker 3: being the obnoxiously obvious person is also a way of

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Speaker 3: blending into the background, like nobody suspects the like the

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Speaker 3: Times Square Elmo of well, you suspect the Times Square

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Speaker 3: Elmo of things, but probably not espionage.

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Speaker 1: Right exactly anyway, So, with all the caveats we've previously

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Speaker 1: established about the historicity of what's in these manuals that

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Speaker 1: you know, we might regard them with some historical skepticism. Nevertheless,

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Speaker 1: they do describe a lot of fascinating alleged tricks and

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Speaker 1: tools of ninjasu. So I think we should just dive

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Speaker 1: right in and talk about some alleged ninja techniques.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to pick up talking a little a

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Speaker 3: bit about the female shinobi or the kuno ichi, which

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Speaker 3: I believe we mentioned in passing in the first episode.

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Speaker 3: You know, the idea that we could have both male

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Speaker 3: and female ninja, and this does really stress the the

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Speaker 3: reality that that shinobi activities would have covered a lot

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Speaker 3: of ground that isn't just concerned with assassination or military

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Speaker 3: and military and you know, direct military adjacent combat adjacent activities,

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Speaker 3: but get into all these areas of spycraft. And there

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Speaker 3: is apparently, according to Yoda and Ault in their book

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Speaker 3: on Ninja's that I that I cited in the previous episodes,

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Speaker 3: there there's no evidence that female shanoby ever engaged in combat,

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Speaker 3: though of course there are historic examples of Japanese women

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Speaker 3: serving as warriors, such as tome Gozen of the late

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Speaker 3: twelfth century. So so again not saying there weren't female

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Speaker 3: warriors in Japanese history, and even that there weren't female

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Speaker 3: shanoby operatives who engaged in combat, but there's no evidence

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Speaker 3: of such, but there there are writings about female shanobi operatives,

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Speaker 3: and this makes sense for reasons we already stressed, like

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Speaker 3: if you were going to engage in spycraft, you you're

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Speaker 3: you're going to take advantage of whatever tools are at

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Speaker 3: your disposal, and there are going to be certain segments

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Speaker 3: of society through which females are going to be able

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Speaker 3: to travel with a little more ease or a little

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Speaker 3: less notice. There And as we mentioned last time, there

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Speaker 3: is at least one named female ninja, Mochizuki chi Yojo,

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Speaker 3: and this individual's still somewhat of a mystery. There are

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Speaker 3: some arguments that she didn't exist at all, but Yoda

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Speaker 3: and all lister existence has confirmed, so I guess there

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Speaker 3: is a certain amount of evidence on one side of

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Speaker 3: the argument to say that this person did exist in

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Speaker 3: some form. Assuming she did exist, however, she would have

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Speaker 3: been like a poet, a noble woman, and it's said

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Speaker 3: that she was affiliated with the Takata samurai clan and

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Speaker 3: to have presided over a team of the uruki miko

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Speaker 3: or walking maidens. So she would have kind of like

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Speaker 3: been a spymaster of female shanov and so on the

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Speaker 3: realistic end of things, if there's truth to any of this,

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Speaker 3: whether we were dealing with the specifics of this individual or

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Speaker 3: just the general idea that there were females spy operatives

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Speaker 3: in Japan during the Warring States period, just as there

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Speaker 3: have been female spy operatives in pretty much every culture.

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Speaker 3: I think, every culture, I think we will be a

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Speaker 3: safe assumption these would have been female operatives who could

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Speaker 3: travel around, often as Shinto holy women, as entertainers, or

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Speaker 3: perhaps prostitutes. Now on the legendary end of the spectrum, however,

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Speaker 3: female shanobi were often imbued with various powers that were

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Speaker 3: linked to female sexuality and reproduction, and a lot of

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Speaker 3: this has much in common with various witchlike belief systems

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Speaker 3: from around the world, you know, even getting into ideas

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Speaker 3: of like the monstrous feminine, you know, the other ring

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Speaker 3: of the female, and taking aspects of reproduction and sexuality

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Speaker 3: and tweaking them into the you know, the demonic realm

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Speaker 3: and so forth. But this also put me very much

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Speaker 3: in mind of the Beni Jesert from Frank Herbert's done,

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Speaker 3: as well as their later series counterparts, the Honored Matre

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Speaker 3: or kind of like a splinter of the Benijesterrit, who

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Speaker 3: are their opposition. So I wanted to run through some

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Speaker 3: of the powers and abilities attributed to them. Again, we're

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Speaker 3: dealing very much with the legendary supernatural end of the

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Speaker 3: of the ninja pop cultural world here and not historic reality,

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Speaker 3: though perhaps you know, if you read between the lines,

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Speaker 3: you can sort of see like realistic spycraft, you know,

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Speaker 3: at the heart of some of these legends. So according

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Speaker 3: to Yoda and All, there were several abilities that were

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Speaker 3: said to be linked to conception, such as the power

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Speaker 3: to remove an unborn child from the womb, change its features,

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Speaker 3: and then return it to the womb. Also the transfer

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Speaker 3: of an unborn child from one woman to another, and

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Speaker 3: the ability for female shinobi to choose to have a

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Speaker 3: baby with any partner they've slept with over the last

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Speaker 3: ten months. This last one I found pretty interesting because

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Speaker 3: some organisms actually do engage in female sperm storage, a

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Speaker 3: form of sexual selection by which sperm cells are retained

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Speaker 3: by the receiving female for a period, sometimes a prolong

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Speaker 3: period of time before using said sperm. Human beings do

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Speaker 3: not do this, but you do find some organisms that do.

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Speaker 1: I recall reading about sharks.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, sharks are a great example. And yeah, sometimes

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Speaker 3: this involves post copulatory cryptic female choice. I believe the

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Speaker 3: terminology via various methods. So it is interesting that, yeah,

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Speaker 3: this is a supposed ability of legendary mythic female ninja,

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Speaker 3: but you have to go into the animal world to

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Speaker 3: find examples of it in reality. Now, it should also

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Speaker 3: come as no surprise, given the sort of fem fatale

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Speaker 3: nature of female ninja and pop culture, that some of

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Speaker 3: their weapons are related to seduction and sex. If go

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Speaker 3: ahead and maybe skip fifteen seconds of this if you

335
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Speaker 3: just want to skip the the very mild details here,

336
00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:08,440
Speaker 3: but here they are. They include death by orgasm, death

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00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:12,880
Speaker 3: by reversing the male's reproductive ejections, shall we say, back

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00:20:12,920 --> 00:20:16,199
Speaker 3: into his body, killing him in the process. And then

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Speaker 3: there's the technique where they seduce a man so hard

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Speaker 3: that he's mentally turned into an infant.

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Speaker 1: HM.

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Speaker 3: Great trick if you can pull it off.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, I'm not sure that Frank Herbert was directly inspired

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Speaker 3: by any of this, And if I had to guess

346
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Speaker 3: I would say he was probably not, but I have

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Speaker 3: read that he did study Japanese and Chinese culture, among

348
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Speaker 3: so many other things, so it's not impossible that he

349
00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:41,600
Speaker 3: got some inspiration from all of this. And certainly, like

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Speaker 3: some of these, the detailed classifications of spycraft, we do

351
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Speaker 3: see these reflected in the Dune series. You know, it's

352
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Speaker 3: just thinking earlier about the Hearkenans hiding somebody away in

353
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Speaker 3: the walls in Araken as an assass a nation attempt

354
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Speaker 3: on the royal household. You know, there's somebody who's like

355
00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:07,120
Speaker 3: locked up for days or whatnot. You know, so who knows,

356
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Speaker 3: Maybe he was inspired by it, maybe not. Now for

357
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Speaker 3: other magical arts attributed to the ninja, well, we've already

358
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Speaker 3: mentioned the fictional phantom toad summoning of Juriah, but there

359
00:21:18,359 --> 00:21:21,320
Speaker 3: are some other interesting ones as well, and Yoda and

360
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 3: all mentioned some of these, And again, not all of

361
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Speaker 3: these are definitely classified as ninja or shnobi, but a

362
00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 3: lot of them are kind of shinobi adjacent. And then

363
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:32,120
Speaker 3: again you have to think about the fact that as

364
00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 3: ninja myths in the popular culture kind of coalesce, they're

365
00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:41,840
Speaker 3: going to draw in multiple things. So one figure worth

366
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:47,000
Speaker 3: looking at is sixteenth century sage Kashin Kogi, not a ninja,

367
00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:50,639
Speaker 3: more of a wizard, attributed with various acts of illusion

368
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Speaker 3: and shape shifting. So he would do things like allegedly

369
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Speaker 3: throw leaves into the water and make them turn into fish.

370
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Speaker 3: Various other entertaining illusion instead are maybe not that far

371
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Speaker 3: remove from the idea of somebody doing little illusionary tricks

372
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:08,440
Speaker 3: on the sidewalk or in a subway station.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting, yeah.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, he was according to legend, he was something

375
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:17,959
Speaker 3: of a trickster for sure. For instance, there's this story

376
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Speaker 3: that he painted a detailed illustration of the torments of

377
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:24,119
Speaker 3: Hell that when he looked at it, it seemed animated

378
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:27,119
Speaker 3: to the naked eye, So you know, do with that

379
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:29,480
Speaker 3: what you will. Maybe it was just like really detailed.

380
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:33,200
Speaker 3: Maybe there was some sort of effect involved, or it

381
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,520
Speaker 3: was magic. You know, he's a magical painter, and it

382
00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:38,920
Speaker 3: looks like it moves like you know, Harry Potter style

383
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,560
Speaker 3: or something, and everybody was really impressed by it, and

384
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:44,200
Speaker 3: in fact, the powerful Daimyo some called him the demon

385
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:49,360
Speaker 3: Daimyo Nabunaga, insisted on buying it, and the negotiations apparently

386
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:53,720
Speaker 3: included at least one assassination attempt on the artist, and

387
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 3: you know, but Cogie stuck to his guns and finally

388
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 3: agreed to sell it for just a crazy son, just

389
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 3: I don't know how much, but a lot, at which

390
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 3: point the art suddenly lost its animated magic and Nabanaga

391
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:11,880
Speaker 3: is like, what happened? Why is it not moving anymore?

392
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 3: Why is it not as amazing as was previously? And

393
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 3: he's like, well, it used to be priceless, but then

394
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:20,679
Speaker 3: we agreed on a price, and so the quality of

395
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,920
Speaker 3: the piece adjusted to that price sounds like a great

396
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:25,639
Speaker 3: way to get beheaded. But I don't know. You know,

397
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 3: that's the thing about being a trickster, daring, trickster wizard.

398
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Speaker 3: You can pull these things off. I guess.

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Speaker 1: Artists in the audience remember this negotiating.

400
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:36,160
Speaker 3: Tape again, Yeah, yeah, try and pull that one off.

401
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:38,879
Speaker 3: So Koji again not a ninja, but a figure that

402
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 3: crosses over with some of the attributed magics of the ninja,

403
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,119
Speaker 3: and as a pop culture figure, he does pop up

404
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:48,920
Speaker 3: in a lot of ninja media, such as nineteen eighty

405
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 3: two's Ninja Wars aka Death of a Ninja starring hero

406
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,679
Speaker 3: Yuki Sonata, a major actor who would go on to

407
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 3: of course have a starring role in the recent Showgun

408
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 3: series on FX. But also he played Scorpion the ninja

409
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,639
Speaker 3: in one of those in that recent Mortal Kombat film.

410
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:09,360
Speaker 3: So definitely a figure that has immersed in the ninja lore,

411
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:10,879
Speaker 3: and I think he's popped up in a film or

412
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 3: two for Weird House cinema. Great actor. I have not

413
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 3: seen Ninja Wars though, so I can't really vouch for it.

414
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:21,360
Speaker 3: All right, shall we get into some more alleged ninja

415
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 3: technologies of note?

416
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:24,399
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely so.

417
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 3: As we previously discussed, the modern trope of the ninja

418
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 3: typically involves their use of a traditional martial art that

419
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 3: prioritizes medieval weaponry. Right, so these ninjas will use a

420
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 3: schuriken to bypass a security panel. They will kill a

421
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 3: robot with a sword, right, you know exactly what I'm

422
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:41,640
Speaker 3: getting at here?

423
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: Oh? Yes, yeah.

424
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Speaker 3: In reality, though, as we've been stressing, the shanobi would

425
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:49,000
Speaker 3: have used whatever tools were necessarily and available to them,

426
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 3: including what was essentially cutting edge technology like the latest

427
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 3: in explosives, the latest in chemistry, the latest in firearms.

428
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 3: And so we do have some examples of the sort

429
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 3: of thing again with the huge caveat that we have

430
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 3: a lot of crossing of history and legend here. But

431
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 3: fifteenth century Shnobi commander Mochiuki Izumo no Kami is said

432
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 3: to have utilized smoke bombs, pyrotechnics, code signals, and some

433
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 3: form of weather prediction. And I'm not sure to what

434
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 3: extent we're talking about weather prediction that based on acceptable

435
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,160
Speaker 3: models and methods or something that was maybe a little

436
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 3: more supernatural in form, but you know, both are likely

437
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 3: to some degree.

438
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:38,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, Remember some of these ninja tsu manuals did involve

439
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 1: like divination and astrology.

440
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so ninja throughout the centuries were said to

441
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 3: use noarroshi no jutsu smoke bombs, though yoda and all stresses.

442
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 3: These were likely quote carefully placed in ignited smoke pots,

443
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 3: given the limited pyrotechnic abilities of the time, and that

444
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 3: also they would use things that we would think of

445
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 3: as just simple firecrackers to serve as distractions, you know,

446
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 3: set off a little pop over here, just enough distraction

447
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 3: to do whatever it is you need to do, be

448
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 3: that something more pop culture ninja ish as sneak from

449
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 3: one point to another, or you know, switch out a

450
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 3: piece of paper in an office, that sort of thing.

451
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 3: But yeah, the smoke bombs, of course are a huge

452
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 3: part of the Ninja myth, and they spill over into

453
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 3: Batman as well, like Batman's always throwing smoke bombs and

454
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 3: disappearing right, and the reality is maybe less as instantly

455
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 3: dramatic as that. It might have been more something that

456
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 3: involved like placing something, lighting it and waiting for the

457
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 3: smoke to build up. Right. Now, getting into the use

458
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 3: of weaponry, we have the example of sixteenth century assassin

459
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 3: of Sujatini Zunjubo, and he is noted for his use

460
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 3: of the Japanese matchlock rifle. So this is an individual

461
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 3: that was definitely an assassin, definitely an attempted assassin, definitely

462
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 3: a marksman. Was he a shnobi, I don't know. I'm

463
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:05,199
Speaker 3: not as sure on that. I think you could say

464
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 3: that he definitely engaged in a major shnobi activity, though

465
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 3: this was apparently a Codo clan marksman task with the

466
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 3: assassination of Oda Nobuniga himself, a local warlord was said

467
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 3: to have hired him for the task and provided with

468
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 3: key intel about Nabonaga's scheduled transit through a particular pass

469
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 3: in Omi. This would have been on May nineteenth, fifteen seventy,

470
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 3: so you know basic you know, sort of sniper operations.

471
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 3: Here he set up a position days in advance, using

472
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 3: like the patients of the shnoby if nothing else until okay,

473
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 3: here it comes the retinue. Here comes Nabunka in armor

474
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 3: on his on his steed, accompanied by all of his men,

475
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 3: and our would be assassin. Here Zenjubo knows that he

476
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 3: really only has one shot. You know, this is this

477
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 3: is a matchlock rifle. You know, he's not rapid fire.

478
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 3: He's going to get one shot off and then it's

479
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 3: going to be so loud and it's going to produce

480
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 3: a discharge of smoke. And he's not like, you know,

481
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,439
Speaker 3: miles away or anything. So he knows that the instant

482
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 3: he fires this shot, they're gonna mark his position, and

483
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 3: so he needs to he needs to make sure that

484
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,239
Speaker 3: that shot lands home or he's gonna have to like

485
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 3: try and get off the second one if he can.

486
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 3: So he fires the shot, knocks in Abunika from his horse,

487
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 3: but as it turns out, does not kill him because

488
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 3: the collar armor that he's wearing absorbs the shot, so

489
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 3: Zenjubo flees, he hides that he is eventually caught and

490
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 3: subjected to slow execution. I believe the story is that

491
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 3: they buried him up to his neck in the sand

492
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 3: and like sawed his head off.

493
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: Wow.

494
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 3: Now it was worth noting that snipers then and now

495
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 3: sometimes utilize breathing techniques to steady one's aim in. Various

496
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 3: breathing techniques and things that you could also think of

497
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 3: as like self hypnosis have also been attributed to the

498
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 3: shinobi general to aid in stealth or patience. Now, at

499
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 3: this point, let's come back to the idea of a

500
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 3: ninja sword, something that is just inseparable from the modern

501
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 3: myth of the ninja. In fact, we already in passing

502
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 3: I think, talked about teenage mutant ninja turtles with katana.

503
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 3: You know, like, if you're gonna make turtles into ninjas,

504
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 3: you give one of them swords. That's just what you do.

505
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 3: And we actually heard from at least one listener who

506
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 3: wrote in and was like, oh, yeah, there's actually the

507
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 3: whole thing about the ninja having a specific sword, the

508
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 3: Shanovi katana. But as this listener pointed out, and as

509
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 3: it is discussed in the text we were working from,

510
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 3: this sword's exact form is at least a matter of

511
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 3: some controversy. There are a lot of strong arguments that

512
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 3: this sword never existed at all. This is one of

513
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 3: those examples where we don't see mention of it in

514
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 3: the historic ninja guide books and instruction manuals. There's a

515
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 3: very strong argument that these were created entirely in the

516
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,239
Speaker 3: twentieth century. Though again this is certainly something where then

517
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 3: you can go around and buy one at a mall

518
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 3: in like Wisconsin, so you can argue that will this

519
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 3: shouobi katana exists now you see it in movies and

520
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 3: you can buy one, you know, at the mall. But

521
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 3: let's get into the idea of it, at least the

522
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 3: myth of it. The idea is that this would be

523
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 3: a short straight blade with a pointed scabbard, So the

524
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 3: scabbard has a point at the end, and also a

525
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 3: simple square guard you know, at the between the hilt

526
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 3: and the blade, and the aspects of its design were

527
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 3: said to be very practical for the ninja. So the

528
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 3: pointed scabbard allowed it to be driven into the ground,

529
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,160
Speaker 3: so it could be you could serve as a footstool

530
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 3: to aid in climbing. I think there's some other stories

531
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 3: about the scabbard being used as like a breathing tube

532
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 3: if an engine needed to go under water. I'm not

533
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 3: sure why that would be more effective than having a

534
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 3: breathing tube on you or using a red or something.

535
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: Trying to imagine now, I think the idea with the

536
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: scabbard is that you wouldn't you could stab it into

537
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: the ground within its scabbard and then stand on the

538
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 1: hilt of the sword to like hop over a wall

539
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: and then like pull it up by a rope. That's

540
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: the idea, because I guess if you were to stab

541
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: the blade of the sword into the ground, the ideas

542
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 1: that would dull it. Yeah, But I'd also seen something

543
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:26,239
Speaker 1: about just generally using the scabbard of this sword as

544
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 1: a kind of like a feeler, like an untinnee in

545
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: the dark.

546
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 3: Yeah. The idea that you would kind of like partially

547
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 3: unsheath your sword, hold it out in front of you,

548
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 3: and if you like taped into something, you're like, oh,

549
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 3: there's a person there, and then you can pull your

550
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 3: sword out and like slash them or something. I think

551
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 3: it's been referred to as like a person detector or

552
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 3: a people detector. And of course there's the other obvious

553
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 3: idea that if you're doing some sneaking around and potentially

554
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 3: using that weapon in a confined space, it pays for

555
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 3: your sword to be short as opposed to being some

556
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 3: sort of like a longer sword. So this would be

557
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 3: in keeping with operations that required disguise and so forth

558
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 3: easier to hide, easier to carry, and all that. So again,

559
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 3: very strong argument to be made that these were just

560
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 3: invented in the twentieth century as part of outright ninja

561
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 3: fiction and myth making. But something that Yoda and All

562
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 3: point out is that, okay, if these swords did exist,

563
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 3: which depending on where you land on this could be

564
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 3: a huge if they would have been very simple. They

565
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 3: wouldn't have been ornate because they would not have been

566
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 3: forged by a master swordsmith, one of these individuals responsible

567
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 3: for the just the elegant superiority of the noble samurai sword.

568
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 3: But rather these would have been made by blacksmiths in

569
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 3: the country, probably who were willing to take a risk

570
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 3: making an illegal sword. Because remember, your average genobi here is,

571
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 3: if not an actual criminal is at least a common

572
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 3: born person, and it was illegal for commoners to own

573
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:01,959
Speaker 3: a weapon of any so these would have been dirty

574
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 3: weapons made for dirty practitioners of the sketchy arts. Yeah,

575
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 3: and I think we also might want to consider it

576
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 3: questions of necessity, right, would is Shanoby operative need a sword,

577
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 3: because even a small sword is fairly sizable, and especially

578
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 3: if you consider, well, what are you gonna use it for?

579
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 3: Are you gonna are you gonna engage in a sword fight?

580
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 3: Probably not. And if you do need some sort of

581
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 3: a sharp object as a weapon or a tool, well

582
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:31,959
Speaker 3: there there are other choices you could make, such as

583
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 3: a common field knife, some other kind of like sharpened

584
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 3: tool that on one hand, maybe doesn't constitute a full weapon,

585
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 3: and so for you're not like you're not going to

586
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 3: be found out immediately just because you have it on

587
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 3: your person, but the kind of thing that could be

588
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 3: used as a weapon if things got dire m h.

589
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 3: And in the cases where they did use swords, yeah,

590
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 3: we're probably talking about the equivalent of some sort of

591
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 3: like a black market sword. Now, these again are all

592
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,359
Speaker 3: like pretty standard pop culture ninja weapons, though I think

593
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 3: it's even more fun to get into some of the

594
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 3: perhaps weirder technologies that ninja are held to have utilized.

595
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: Right, I think it's time to talk about misugumo. Misugumo

596
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: is a device described in the sixth volume of the

597
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:35,320
Speaker 1: seventeenth century ninjitsu manual Mensin chu Kai, which I mentioned earlier,

598
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: And the sixth volume is sort of a It describes

599
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 1: various pieces of ninjitsu equipment and gadget it's kind of

600
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: a C branch compendium. Now when it comes to the misugumo,

601
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,959
Speaker 1: there is a way in which it has commonly been

602
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: interpreted in twentieth century sources, and then there is a

603
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: revisionist understanding of it, which I think seems much more

604
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,720
Speaker 1: likely what the original sources intended. I'm going to start

605
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: off by talking about the more likely confused interpretation. So

606
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: misugumo literally means water spider, and it's clear from the

607
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 1: context in which this device is described that it's some

608
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: kind of flotation device. So in some popular ninja literature

609
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, it has been interpreted as a

610
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 1: kind of footwear that allows the ninja to walk on

611
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 1: top of the water, often said to be used for

612
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: crossing the watery moat surrounding a castle. So imagine a

613
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: kind of wooden sandal that is a little rectangular sandal

614
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: in the middle bound with twine in the center of

615
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 1: a large flat disk made out of wooden quarter circle pieces.

616
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: So you imagine a round disc with a hollow center

617
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 1: made out of wood cut into four different pieces, and

618
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: they're bound together with twine, and then in the middle

619
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: you've got this little flat sandal soul to stand on.

620
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: You can look up illustrations of this if you want.

621
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: But this idea, in the first interpretation, is that the

622
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: ninja would stand on these and then use them to

623
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: walk across the surface of the water, because hey, wood

624
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: floats right now. Would this actually work? Would such a

625
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: device allow you to walk on water? I think we

626
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: can start by thinking about its namesake, which is the

627
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: water spider. There are insects and spiders that are able

628
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 1: to walk across the surface of the water without sinking in.

629
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 1: There are a number of different species that can do this.

630
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: So how do they do it well? There are generally

631
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 1: two physical forces that they can take advantage of. One

632
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 1: is standard buoyancy. This works by displacing water with a

633
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 1: lower density object, and this is how boats float. Boats

634
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:58,280
Speaker 1: float by having a hollow hull, thus displacing more weight

635
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: in water than their own weight, so they get to

636
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 1: sit on top of the water without sinking down. The

637
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: other physical factor is surface tension. Insects and spiders are

638
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: small enough that different forces play a major role in

639
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:14,840
Speaker 1: the way they move through the world, and the surface

640
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 1: tension of water is one of those forces. Water is

641
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: a polar molecule, so it likes to stick to itself,

642
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 1: and when there's a mass of water, it forms a

643
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:30,160
Speaker 1: kind of skin on its surface, with the water molecules

644
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: clinging very tightly to each other and to some extent

645
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 1: resisting being split apart. So it takes some force actually

646
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 1: to break through this surface layer of water. Now, given

647
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: the mass of a human body, Earth's gravity pulling us

648
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: downward into a pool of water quite easily overcomes the

649
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: surface tension of water, and we plunge right in. But

650
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: as you become smaller and smaller and your mass becomes smaller,

651
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: gravity becomes less relevant and the surface tension of water

652
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:06,280
Speaker 1: becomes more relevant. So some insects and spiders are specially

653
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 1: evolved to take advantage of the power of surface tension

654
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: at their body size by having hydrophobic or water repelling

655
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 1: surfaces and hairs on their bodies and especially on their feet.

656
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: And these surfaces they for one thing, they spread out

657
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: their weight over a larger surface area by having like

658
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: specially shaped feed and these hairs that allow them to

659
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: kind of spread out their footprint, so they distribute their

660
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: weight over a larger surface of the water. But they

661
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: also at the molecular level, tend to be made of

662
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 1: hydrophobic substances that do not want to get wet. They

663
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,359
Speaker 1: chemically resist getting wet, and so they do not want

664
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: to penetrate the surface level of the water. And so

665
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: with the combination of these hydrophobic surfaces and distributing their

666
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: weight over the larger space, the arthropod is able to

667
00:38:56,160 --> 00:38:58,319
Speaker 1: walk or skate over the surface of the water by

668
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:02,360
Speaker 1: taking advantage of that surface tent. This is great for insects,

669
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: but again it works because they are extremely small and

670
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 1: have very small mass. Once you start getting bigger and

671
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,720
Speaker 1: having more mass to your body, you're just too big

672
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 1: to take advantage of the surface tension of water in

673
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: this way.

674
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 3: So you're saying Ninja might have been just really small.

675
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,839
Speaker 1: If Ninja were the size of insects. Yeah, you can

676
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: quite well imagine coming up with technology for running over

677
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: the surface of water. And that brings us back to

678
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,240
Speaker 1: the Misigumo device. So I was not able to find

679
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 1: any rigorous testing of this device, of recreations of this

680
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: device published in a scientific or historical journal. But I've

681
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: come across a few informal tests staged in things like

682
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 1: documentaries and TV programs, And having reviewed this evidence and

683
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: read what I could about it, my assessment is this

684
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 1: device would probably not work as described, at least in

685
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: the way it's interpreted here as footwear, unless the shoes

686
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 1: were absurdly large, much larger than the specifications in the

687
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:08,320
Speaker 1: Ninjasu manual indicate, in which case I question the extent

688
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: to which you could be said to walk on water

689
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: as opposed to just floating upright on two small boats.

690
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: And in that case, why is this method of crossing

691
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: the water preferable to just piloting a small raft or canoe.

692
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 3: Right, because a small rafter canoe works. Wonders like, there's

693
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 3: a reason we still use canoes and kayaks and so forth.

694
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 3: They're great. Why would you wear a couple of like

695
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 3: huge floaty clown shoes instead? Especially if you're trying to

696
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 3: be stealthy.

697
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: That's right. Now, you might argue, well, you know, a

698
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: rafter canoe is big and you have to it would

699
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,719
Speaker 1: be hard to like carry it to the But in

700
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:47,359
Speaker 1: order for these shoes to work, they would also need

701
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: to be big and hard to carry.

702
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

703
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm reminded of every time as a child

704
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 3: or even as an adult, where I've attempted to stand

705
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 3: on something floating and say a swimming pool, and how

706
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 3: long can you stay up unless it is like a

707
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 3: large surfboard or a larger float, But even a fair

708
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 3: sized float can prove difficult. You're not going to stay

709
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 3: up there very long.

710
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's another thing I want to get to in

711
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: just a minute. Balance. Now, there is another consideration, which

712
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 1: is the question of what exactly are you crossing. If

713
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: it's actually water, these these you know, water walking shoes

714
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 1: seem very implausible. But if it's some thicker substance like

715
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:31,919
Speaker 1: a muddy marsh, perhaps increasing the surface area over which

716
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,239
Speaker 1: your weight is distributed with these wooden disks actually would

717
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: give you an advantage walking over a mud flat or

718
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 1: a marsh, or some kind of thicker, thicker substrate like

719
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:46,399
Speaker 1: that it might help to have shoes like this because

720
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:48,839
Speaker 1: they would function more like snow shoes, you know, they

721
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: just spread your weight out.

722
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 3: This remind you know, remember we did some episodes on

723
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 3: mud a while back, right, and I remember looking into

724
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 3: like military experiments with mud and with vehicles. But I

725
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 3: believe there were also some accounts of boots, like trying

726
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 3: to figure out like what kind of boots would enable

727
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 3: soldiers to move through or across the mud easier. And

728
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 3: I know there were at least some experiments involving like

729
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 3: sort of wider shoes almost kind of like snowshoes for mud.

730
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 1: Right, So if you're thinking about mud or some other

731
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: kind of substrate different than just plain water, different footwear

732
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:26,400
Speaker 1: options could have advantages. But coming back to the water walking,

733
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: like literal water walking interpretation, that seems unlikely to me.

734
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:36,720
Speaker 1: One example of these informal tests that recreated a model

735
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 1: of this device and tried it out was actually MythBusters

736
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: that they did an episode where they tried it and

737
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 1: it did not work at all. They sank right into

738
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:47,839
Speaker 1: the water or quickly lost upright balance and toppled over.

739
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 1: And they even made like much more buoyant shoes like

740
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: more buoyant, larger shoes that were different than the original

741
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: design in these Ninjasu manuals and still had trouble staying upright.

742
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,919
Speaker 1: The issue is that an adult human is just way

743
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: too heavy for reasonably sized shoe worn floatation devices to

744
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:10,280
Speaker 1: keep them afloat, So they're not going to work unless

745
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: you make the shoes gigantic. But in doing so, you

746
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,799
Speaker 1: would probably lose the ability to quote walk in them

747
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 1: with any kind of grace, So you're just trying to

748
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: like stand up into little canoes. And this brings us

749
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:27,240
Speaker 1: back to the how generally floatation devices on the human

750
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:32,760
Speaker 1: scale and larger work by displacing more weight of water

751
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: than the total amount of weight that is being kept afloat.

752
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,359
Speaker 1: So you can float a thousand ton boat on top

753
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 1: of the water if the volume of the boat displaces

754
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: more than a thousand tons of water. Right, So, you

755
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 1: can have a boat made out of steel that has

756
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: a hollow hull, and even though steel is very dense

757
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: and would sink in water, it's displacing more water than

758
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: the total weight of the boat and all its cargo.

759
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 1: So when you think about it this way, it's relatively

760
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:03,919
Speaker 1: easy to create a personal floatation device that will keep

761
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: you from sinking entirely under the water, because once your

762
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: body is mostly submerged in the water, it's already displacing

763
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:16,600
Speaker 1: a lot of water. The average density of the human

764
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 1: body is very close to the density of water. I've

765
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: seen estimates that on average, a human adult with lungs

766
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: full of air is slightly less dense than water and

767
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:31,760
Speaker 1: will float, and a human after exhaling with the lungs

768
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: empty is slightly more dense than water on average, or

769
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: roughly neutrally buoyant, and will more likely sink. And this

770
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: is going to vary somewhat due to tissue composition, clothing,

771
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 1: Literally how much gas you have in your digestive system

772
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: that plays a role in your natural buoyancy. But as

773
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: animals were naturally right around on the line between sinking

774
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 1: and floating, So if you just add a little bit

775
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: of extra low mass volume, like a life vest, it

776
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:06,239
Speaker 1: pushes your volume to weight ratio over the line and

777
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 1: makes you a little more buoyant enough that your head

778
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,280
Speaker 1: easily stays above the water, with most of your body

779
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: maybe neck down or shoulders down, displacing a lot of

780
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:19,840
Speaker 1: water below the water line, but walking on top of

781
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 1: the water is a very different physical goal than just

782
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:27,240
Speaker 1: keeping your head and its breathing holes above the water line.

783
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: To walk on top of the water, you would need

784
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:35,240
Speaker 1: shoes that by themselves, just the shoe part, displace your

785
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 1: entire body's weight in water, which again means that the

786
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 1: shoes need to be both light or boat shaped in

787
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: a way with like a hollow hull and compared to

788
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: normal shoes huge. So it is not impossible to have

789
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: sort of shoes that will allow you to float on

790
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:55,320
Speaker 1: the top of the water. You can look up videos

791
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: of people creating things like this, but again it's just

792
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: like people standing on too small boats. They're like big things,

793
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 1: they're not like shoes. The other issue is balance. You

794
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,800
Speaker 1: brought this up rob Because of the low friction that

795
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:13,720
Speaker 1: the interface between your water walking shoes and the water

796
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: as compared to shoes and the ground, it is difficult

797
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: to stay upright and propel yourself forward on a floatation device.

798
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 1: In videos like the MythBusters test, when people try to

799
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: do this, they quickly either sink or just tumble over.

800
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, you end up falling one way, and say, like

801
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 3: the boogie board you're trying to balance on ends up

802
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:36,439
Speaker 3: like soaring off the other way.

803
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the mizogumo as shoes interpretation for walking on

804
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: actual water seems totally not plausible. However, a lot of

805
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:51,360
Speaker 1: this gets cleared up with a reinterpretation of what this

806
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: device was intended to be used for. So the original

807
00:46:55,960 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: text that describes this device does not describe about how

808
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 1: it's used. It only sort of give give specifications of

809
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: the device itself and shows an illustration of a single

810
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 1: one in isolation, notably not a pair of them. Also,

811
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,240
Speaker 1: the original illustration does not indicate any kind of sandal

812
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 1: strap or other way of attaching the paddle in the

813
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 1: middle of the disk to one's foot. So some modern

814
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:26,319
Speaker 1: scholars have come to think that this device was not

815
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 1: actually intended to be used in pairs as footwear, but

816
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: instead was a seat used for floatation in the water.

817
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 1: So a ninja could, according to this interpretation, sit in

818
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: this sort of ring and use it like an inner

819
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 1: tube and then float across a water remote but they

820
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: absolutely would get wet if they did this. They would

821
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: be sitting in the water, but the upper part of

822
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: their body would be sitting above the water like sitting

823
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 1: in an inner tube.

824
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 3: So you might want to, like take your pants off,

825
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,880
Speaker 3: you an pants in your pack until you get across,

826
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 3: climb up half naked, and then put your pants back

827
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:07,479
Speaker 3: on right.

828
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:10,359
Speaker 1: And of course all of the caveats and uncertainties about

829
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 1: hystericity remain. We don't know if this was ever like

830
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 1: really used, or if it was exactly what it was

831
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 1: used for. I've seen speculation that seems again just total speculation,

832
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: that you could, like, oh, you could transport gunpowder across

833
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: the water without getting it wet by using one of these.

834
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: You know, you could hold it up in the air

835
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 1: and float across the water. I guess you could do that,

836
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: But then again, you could also probably just use like

837
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 1: a small raft or boat. So I don't think it's

838
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:44,959
Speaker 1: fully understood what the alleged benefit of this device as

839
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,799
Speaker 1: described would be. But it does seem to me that

840
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 1: the floating seat interpretation is more likely what the author

841
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: intended than the footwear and interpretation.

842
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 3: I mean, we mentioned that it's important for a shnobi

843
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 3: operative to potentially become part of the community open up

844
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:07,320
Speaker 3: a business. What if that business was essentially tubing, providing

845
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 3: inflatable circular devices for tourists to float from point a

846
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 3: to point B down a river, you know, at leisure,

847
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 3: perhaps while enjoying a beverage. It might give you the

848
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 3: cover you need.

849
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 1: Okay, well, maybe we have to call it for part

850
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 1: three here, but we've got more alleged ninja techniques and

851
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: anecdotes to talk about in the next episode.

852
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 3: That's right, we'll be back and we'll cover We'll cover

853
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 3: some big ones. If you're wondering why didn't they talk

854
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 3: about X, Y or Z, we'll hold on for the

855
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 3: next episode, but still in the meantime, go ahead right

856
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 3: into us because everything is fair at game here. If

857
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:50,359
Speaker 3: you have thoughts about ninja lore, ninja history, various shnobi activities,

858
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 3: either in the history books or on the big screen. Yeah,

859
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 3: it's all fair game right in. We'd love to hear

860
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 3: from you. Just a reminder. Stuff to Blow Your Mind

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Speaker 3: is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes

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Speaker 3: and Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episode on Wednesdays, and

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00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,480
Speaker 3: on Friday's Weird House Cinema that time when we set

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Speaker 3: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie.

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Speaker 3: And hey, we'll remind you. If you're on the social media,

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Speaker 3: check us out follow us and some of the various

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Speaker 3: places you can find us. A big one of course

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00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 3: is Instagram. That's SDBYM podcast. That's our user name there,

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Speaker 3: that's our handle there. If you're on the gram, then

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Speaker 3: go over there and follow us. Why not. It's one

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00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:31,839
Speaker 3: way to keep up with the episodes we're putting out.

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Speaker 3: And we also have some amusing videos going up as well,

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Speaker 3: reels I guess reels they call them les Huge.

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Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

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Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

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00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

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00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:48,359
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

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Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 2: Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

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Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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Speaker 2: you're listening to your favorite shows. M