Speaker 1: Hey, it's Robert Lamb. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: It is Saturday, so we have a vault episode for you.
Speaker 1: This is going to be The Ninja Part four. It
Speaker 1: originally published eight six, twenty twenty four. Let's dive right.
Speaker 2: In Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
Speaker 3: And today we're back with part four of our series
Speaker 3: on the Ninja. Now, if you haven't heard the previous
Speaker 3: three episodes, you should probably go back and check those
Speaker 3: out first, but for a brief refresher. In the previous parts,
Speaker 3: we talked about the origins of the term ninja and
Speaker 3: its functional equivalent shanobi no mono, meaning a person who
Speaker 3: practices sneaking secrecy, invisibility or in an alternate reading patience,
Speaker 3: or endurance. We talked about the alleged historical origins of
Speaker 3: the shinobi nomono as practitioners of espionage and undercover warfare
Speaker 3: in Singoku era Japan, which covered parts of the fifteenth
Speaker 3: and sixteenth centuries and was characterized by frequent uprisings and
Speaker 3: civil wars, but we also discussed the complicated historical question
Speaker 3: of to what extent the people who practiced spying, sabotage,
Speaker 3: and sneak attacks during this period can actually be said
Speaker 3: to connect to the modern literary archetype of the ninja,
Speaker 3: which has evolved over several centuries and is almost certainly
Speaker 3: composed in large part of legendary development and invented tradition.
Speaker 3: We talked, especially in the first part of this series,
Speaker 3: about how the ninja entered international pop culture in the
Speaker 3: twentieth century and the characteristics of the pop culture ninja
Speaker 3: and how those don't really match up with much of
Speaker 3: even the historical legendary version of the ninja. We talked
Speaker 3: about some individual shanobi warriors from legend and history, including
Speaker 3: stories of ninja esque sorcerers who could ride on spectral toads,
Speaker 3: and in the last episode, we talked about some of
Speaker 3: the fantastic tools and techniques described in popular ninjitsu manuals
Speaker 3: that were compiled and published beginning in the seventeenth century,
Speaker 3: including everything from the use of gunpowder and pharmacology to
Speaker 3: the so called water spider device that wouldn't allow you
Speaker 3: to do something in water questions remain.
Speaker 1: That's right. And so we're back here for the final installment,
Speaker 1: Part four, and as is often the case with our series,
Speaker 1: part four is kind of and the rest. So we're
Speaker 1: going to have examples of content that match up with
Speaker 1: everything we just highlighted from the previous episodes. So like
Speaker 1: a little bit more of everything we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: I think getting into some I know some things that
Speaker 1: were probably you know, pinging in your mind as you
Speaker 1: listen to the first three, like when are they going
Speaker 1: to talk about throwing stars?
Speaker 3: That's right. One of the inanimate objects most closely associated
Speaker 3: with the ninja in modern movies and storytelling is the
Speaker 3: shuri can at the throwing star aka the ninja star.
Speaker 1: This is of course one of the big ninja weapons
Speaker 1: of pop culture, and one of the things is just
Speaker 1: instantly attractive about the ninja that you can't help but
Speaker 1: want to throw a shuri caan at somebody or at
Speaker 1: the wall. Even when my family when we were in Japan,
Speaker 1: one of the hotels that we stayed at in Tokyo
Speaker 1: had a ninja theme, and when your families were checking in,
Speaker 1: they would give the kids like pretend suri can to
Speaker 1: throw at a target on the wall.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was reading about how shuri caan ranges are
Speaker 3: like a common stop on sort of like ninja tourist offerings.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so literally it basically means a blade in
Speaker 1: the hand. And yeah. These are typically depicted in Japanese
Speaker 1: ninja media as something you sling out rapid fire, like
Speaker 1: kind of like you're dealing cards, throwing cards or something,
Speaker 1: while a lot of Western ninja tails tend to present
Speaker 1: them as these kind of deadly one shots. I think
Speaker 1: we've all seen a movie in which a ninja throws
Speaker 1: a shuri can and it gets somebody right in the
Speaker 1: forehead and somehow kills them dead.
Speaker 3: Rob correct me if you have a different impression. But
Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of ninja movies emphasize a
Speaker 3: theme with the shuracan that's almost like in fact, you
Speaker 3: mention another Western movie that borrows from a Japanese origin,
Speaker 3: in The Magnificent Seven, there's that scene where there's you know,
Speaker 3: James Coburn brings a knife to a gunfight and he
Speaker 3: beats the gunfighter by throwing the knife faster than the
Speaker 3: gunfighter can draw his gun. Of course, that movie is
Speaker 3: based on seven Samurai originally, but there is I think
Speaker 3: a similar thing going on with the Shura can and
Speaker 3: a lot of these movies. It's like the blade, the
Speaker 3: bladed Star beats technology every time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it helps to have those rapid fire cuts too,
Speaker 1: because of course, the way you typically do a knife
Speaker 1: throw or a surer can throw in cinema is you
Speaker 1: just like cut two or pan over to where the
Speaker 1: that the fake surrokin or the fake blade is already
Speaker 1: like stuck in the person, so you know it's lightning fast.
Speaker 1: It's like bam, there it is. It's like magically appeared
Speaker 1: in their forehead.
Speaker 3: Now, I think we mentioned in a previous episode. If not,
Speaker 3: I'll go ahead and mention now that one thing that
Speaker 3: is quite surprising is that suri can actually do not
Speaker 3: feature in any of the classic ninjitsu manuals that we
Speaker 3: were talking about from beginning in the seventeenth century in
Speaker 3: the last episode. Though that doesn't mean they did not
Speaker 3: exist at all. There are some historical artifacts that can
Speaker 3: sort of fit in this box. It's just the historically
Speaker 3: until I'll get to this in a minute, until basically
Speaker 3: the twentieth century, they were not particularly associated with ninja
Speaker 3: or shanobi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's interesting to sort of tease to
Speaker 1: the history of like just the the weapon itself. I
Speaker 1: was reading about this in Heroko Yoda and Matt Alts
Speaker 1: Ninja Attack, which again is an excellent little illustrated book
Speaker 1: that covers all the all these highlights. But they point
Speaker 1: out that not all of these various designs of the
Speaker 1: shurican that we we do have would have been thrown.
Speaker 1: Some of them were simply small handheld blades. And that's
Speaker 1: interesting too, because when in ninja media, I can't think
Speaker 1: of an example of anyone doing anything with a shurcan
Speaker 1: other than throw it. You know, I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever seen anybody like whittle with one, or open open
Speaker 1: a soda pop with one, or anything. You know. They're
Speaker 1: just for throwing. And apparently of the ones that were thrown,
Speaker 1: what the more likely scenario here is that they would
Speaker 1: have been a close range nuisance or distraction weapon, as
Speaker 1: opposed to that stale the one shot kill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that very much squares with my understanding. So I
Speaker 3: was reading about the origins of the association between shurikan
Speaker 3: and ninja in a book that I've been referencing throughout
Speaker 3: this series. It's a book called Ninja Unmasking the Myth
Speaker 3: by a historian named Stephen Turnbull, which goes a lot
Speaker 3: into the complicated questions the historicity of the ninja tropes
Speaker 3: that exist today, and so in order to understand the
Speaker 3: association that emerged between shurikan and ninja, it's apparently important
Speaker 3: to understand a particular Japanese martial artist and author who
Speaker 3: lived in the twentieth century named Fuji ta Seiko, who
Speaker 3: was a practitioner and claimed to be a preserver of
Speaker 3: the Ninjasu tradition of the Coca region of Japan. Fuji
Speaker 3: to Seko lived from eighteen ninety eight to nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 3: and fujits the writings were influential in creating the image
Speaker 3: of the ninja that emerged in the mid twentieth century
Speaker 3: after the conclusion of World War Two. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to completely cover his biography, but I will say that
Speaker 3: he is a fascinating and somewhat controversial figure worth reading
Speaker 3: more about, just to hit some of the top lines.
Speaker 3: In nineteen thirty six, he published a book called Ninjutsu Hiroku,
Speaker 3: which means something like Secret Notes on Ninjutsu which is
Speaker 3: allegedly based on the secret Koca traditions that had been
Speaker 3: passed down to his family through direct instruction without being
Speaker 3: published for a general audience, and he claimed that he
Speaker 3: was publishing this information about ninjutsu to help Japan win
Speaker 3: its war against China. However, actually a lot of the
Speaker 3: information that he includes in this book does come from
Speaker 3: other pre existing ninjitsu manuals like the ones we talked
Speaker 3: about in the last part of this series, like the
Speaker 3: mans in Chukai or the bens in Chukai. So the
Speaker 3: Ninjitsu Heroku reframes a lot of information from these previous
Speaker 3: ninjasu manuals of the Tokugawa period, But apparently it does
Speaker 3: things like rationalize a lot of magical sounding claims. For example,
Speaker 3: techniques that originally were presented as ways of transforming magically
Speaker 3: into a rat are instead presented as making a noise
Speaker 3: like a rat to confuse and distract guards, Or like
Speaker 3: the idea that one could potentially turn invisible is rationalized
Speaker 3: as well. You can walk in a certain way so
Speaker 3: that you cannot be seen, thus causing the impression that
Speaker 3: you've become invisible.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: A lot of this book also concerns self glorifying claims
Speaker 3: of practices of physical endurance and austerity. For example, he
Speaker 3: claimed that, you know, as part of his practice, he
Speaker 3: could like break glass bottles over his own head to
Speaker 3: prove his toughness. He says he can do forty glass
Speaker 3: bottles in a row.
Speaker 1: Oh, do not do not attend that, no idea.
Speaker 3: I'm going to mention a few other things. Don't do
Speaker 3: any of this, please. This is not a good training regime.
Speaker 3: Even if you want to be a ninja, he says.
Speaker 3: The shanobi must be able to withstand torture without giving
Speaker 3: up information. So he says, I have stabbed myself with
Speaker 3: hundreds of needles. Here's a picture of me with all
Speaker 3: the needles in me, and I have eaten roof tiles,
Speaker 3: glass bricks, and rat poison. Again questionable whether he actually
Speaker 3: did some of that. I think people did claim that
Speaker 3: they saw him eating glass. I don't know about the poison,
Speaker 3: but don't do any of this. He also apparently claimed
Speaker 3: that he like knew dog language and thus could like
Speaker 3: communicate with dogs to like call them for help if needed,
Speaker 3: or make maybe make them fight each other.
Speaker 1: Well, aside from the making them fight each other Please
Speaker 1: feel free to experiment with this one. You can talk
Speaker 1: to dogs.
Speaker 3: Yes, better than eating poison and glass. Yeah. But one
Speaker 3: of Fujiita Seko's most enduring contrabbutions to the ninja mythology
Speaker 3: of today is his attachment of the shuriken in its
Speaker 3: current form to the ninja legend. So I'm going to
Speaker 3: try to get into that. Steven Turnbull in his book
Speaker 3: actually as a whole chapter just on where the shuriican
Speaker 3: comes from and how it connects to ninjitsu. So there
Speaker 3: are references to the word shuriken in seventeenth century ninjitsu manuals,
Speaker 3: but they are apparently referring to completely different objects than
Speaker 3: we have in mind. We picture the ninja star that's
Speaker 3: got you know. It's a star shaped, vaguely circular object
Speaker 3: made of metal that has points all around so you
Speaker 3: can throw it in the spinning fashion and wherever it
Speaker 3: hits somebody, it's going to stab into them.
Speaker 1: That's right, And again we've seen this in movies time
Speaker 1: and time again. I actually looked back at the James
Speaker 1: Bond film that we talked about being pivotal in the
Speaker 1: history of introducing the idea of the ninja to international
Speaker 1: audience only live twice. And look, I didn't watch the
Speaker 1: film in full, but I did find some YouTube clips
Speaker 1: of it official on the James Bond YouTube page. Okay,
Speaker 1: And there is a scene late in the film where
Speaker 1: someone I think it's Bond himself throws a shuri can
Speaker 1: at Blofeld and Blowfelt has a pistol, hits him in
Speaker 1: the hand, knocks a pistol out of his hand.
Speaker 3: This is actually a common thing in the movies where
Speaker 3: the ninja will use it to disarm an opponent who
Speaker 3: has them at a loss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess, again, issues of accuracy and power aside.
Speaker 1: You know, I guess that's more realistic than the instant kill.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm going to get to the likely use of
Speaker 3: it in a second, to the extent it's even being
Speaker 3: recommended to a ninja. But so, okay, what is this
Speaker 3: If the shuracan referenced in the seventeenth century in ninjuitsu
Speaker 3: manuals is not what we have in mind, what is it? Well?
Speaker 3: One of the earliest references, according to Turnbull, is in
Speaker 3: a is in a text called the gun Po Geoshu
Speaker 3: of sixteen fifty three, and in this case, the shurcan
Speaker 3: is said to be quote a torch made from split
Speaker 3: wood and fitted into a metal base with a spike.
Speaker 3: So that's interesting a torch. But the idea here is
Speaker 3: you're a sentry up on a castle wall, and you
Speaker 3: know it's nighttime, surrounded by darkness, and you need to
Speaker 3: see what's happening down on the ground below at the
Speaker 3: base of the castle wall, so you throw down this shuriken.
Speaker 3: This object is a sort of combination torch lawn dart,
Speaker 3: and the metal spike sticks into the soil and the
Speaker 3: torch illuminates the ground around the base of the wall.
Speaker 1: All right, seems reasonable, seems practical.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a totally logical sounding tool. And it's interesting
Speaker 3: because again, this sort of crosses that boundary that keeps
Speaker 3: getting blurred in the history of ninja lore between weapons
Speaker 3: intended for direct violence and things that are just tools
Speaker 3: used to gather information. However, when it comes to direct references,
Speaker 3: there is another early reference to shuricken that is also dissimilar,
Speaker 3: dissimilar to what's the word there, disimilar to or dissimilar from.
Speaker 3: It's not the same as a ninja star. This is
Speaker 3: the bow churicken mentioned in some seventeenth century texts, which
Speaker 3: is a bar or rod shaped object that could be
Speaker 3: thrown by hand. So essentially this is just a large
Speaker 3: steel dart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these these are really neat, and of course when
Speaker 1: you start looking up weapons of the sort ninja weapons seeing,
Speaker 1: you find there's a lot of drift. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of like modernization and whether the weapon actually existed historically
Speaker 1: or not somebody has made it now you can you
Speaker 1: know again, buy it at the mall or something. But
Speaker 1: these are pretty cool, and these are one of I
Speaker 1: feel like just to dip back into Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: for a second. Anytime darts are are are mentioned, or
Speaker 1: darts come up as a possible weapon in Dungeons and Dragons,
Speaker 1: I feel like most people's mind, you know, given the
Speaker 1: often sort of like Western eye fantasy setting of Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons, you often think of like a dart from
Speaker 1: a pool hall, right, Yeah, dart board just small, you know,
Speaker 1: basically a harmless weapon. And I would always want to
Speaker 1: advise me, no, look up some bow shurikean and imagine
Speaker 1: that for your character instead. It's still not going to
Speaker 1: do a lot of damage in the game, but it
Speaker 1: looks cooler.
Speaker 3: Yes, But coming back to the idea of not necessarily
Speaker 3: needing to do a lot of damage. That actually connects
Speaker 3: to where we get the first references too star shaped
Speaker 3: churicken in an actual ninjitsu text, and that's in the
Speaker 3: twentieth century. So here we're coming back to Fujita seiko
Speaker 3: in Ninjitsu Heroku again, this is from the year nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty six. He has a passage about shurikeen in his text,
Speaker 3: and so I'm gonna hear read from Turnbull's featured translation.
Speaker 3: So the author here writes, if you have to defend
Speaker 3: yourself against a sudden attack by an enemy, puts some
Speaker 3: distance between you to ensure your safety. In this case,
Speaker 3: use the small weapon called a toby dogu, which means
Speaker 3: throwing weapon, known to the author as shuriken. Samurai normally
Speaker 3: despised these and other throwing weapons, but they are most
Speaker 3: effective if used skillfully. The shuri caan can do great
Speaker 3: damage if it hits someone's eye, So even in this
Speaker 3: take from the nineteen thirties, the shuri caan is not
Speaker 3: a primary weapon, but the idea seems to me to
Speaker 3: be more like throwing sand in somebody's eyes. It's like
Speaker 3: a trick you can use to buy time or advantage
Speaker 3: if you're caught off guard or being chased.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in this scenario, especially keeping the samurai from
Speaker 1: closing the distance between themselves and you, because that's life
Speaker 1: and death at that point. If you can if you
Speaker 1: can just keep the distance between yourself and the samurai,
Speaker 1: then maybe you've got a chance to get away.
Speaker 3: Right, It's the idea is throwing something to keep the
Speaker 3: samurai out of sword range.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this reminds me a little bit. We did, you know,
Speaker 1: a past episode of Stuff to Blow your mind. We
Speaker 1: did a series talking about like throwing animals, throwing things,
Speaker 1: and then we got for one episode into an overview
Speaker 1: of like human history with thrown weapon objects, and you know,
Speaker 1: they ranged from from well, I would say they range
Speaker 1: from rocks to more complex weapons. But I remember, even
Speaker 1: in talking about throwing rocks and stones as weapons, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to it. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of selection involved in picking up the exact correct object.
Speaker 1: And this is a case where we get to that
Speaker 1: next level of Okay, what have we crafted the items
Speaker 1: that we wish to throw so that they could be
Speaker 1: used more.
Speaker 3: Optimally describing what devices to throw for this purpose. Fujiita advises,
Speaker 3: for one thing, improvised hand thrown weapons such as knives
Speaker 3: or hairpins, so it's like, if you know, throw whatever
Speaker 3: you can get your hands on, but if you're going
Speaker 3: to have a dedicated weapon to throw. He also illustrates
Speaker 3: dedicated shurriken designs, and one of the illustrations is a
Speaker 3: classic bo shurikan, a large steel dart. But he also
Speaker 3: includes pointed metal stars, and so here we get our
Speaker 3: first illustration of throwing stars in a ninjutsu text. So
Speaker 3: one of the things he illustrates is cross shaped it
Speaker 3: has four points, and another one is shown with eight points.
Speaker 3: This is in nineteen thirty six, the first ninja text
Speaker 3: showing the star shaped shurican. However, it's clear that Fujiita
Speaker 3: Seko did not invent this device from his imagination, because
Speaker 3: even though earlier ninjitsu texts don't include them, we do
Speaker 3: have evidence from earlier periods of vaguely star shaped blades
Speaker 3: or cross shaped blades that did exist and could possibly
Speaker 3: be thrown. So instead of looking for them in the
Speaker 3: nunjitsu manuals, you can find them in the jiu jitsu
Speaker 3: arsenals of the Tokugawa period, particularly associated with a martial
Speaker 3: arts tradition called the Sego Reu. One of the documents
Speaker 3: allegedly associated with this school of martial arts includes an
Speaker 3: illustration of a weapon that is quite similar that is
Speaker 3: described like two knife blades fastened in the middle with
Speaker 3: a hinge. So the way I'm picturing this finder stand
Speaker 3: it right, is it's like a pair of scissors, but
Speaker 3: instead of one side of each blade being handles, it's
Speaker 3: just blades on every point. Now, for several reasons, Turnbull
Speaker 3: thinks that Fuji ta Seiko was probably not familiar with
Speaker 3: this exact document that I just mentioned, and probably was
Speaker 3: getting his knowledge of the star shaped throwing weapon just
Speaker 3: from seeing these artifacts around. And there is other evidence
Speaker 3: from history of people like having versions of these artifacts
Speaker 3: even going back to the Tokugawa period. But they just traditionally,
Speaker 3: it doesn't seem like they were super common, and they
Speaker 3: weren't particular. They weren't associated as far as anybody knows,
Speaker 3: with nujitsu until the twentieth century, and now that's all
Speaker 3: they're associated with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we probably have to sort of try
Speaker 1: and imagine that most likely more historically accurate vision of
Speaker 1: Shanobi operatives as being you know, plain clothes espionage operatives
Speaker 1: who you know, if you're going to carry items on you, like,
Speaker 1: are you going to really commit to having these some
Speaker 1: sort of a throwing star, sure, a can on your person,
Speaker 1: something that again is I think going to be at
Speaker 1: least in the modern understanding of it, is going to
Speaker 1: be more obviously a weapon and therefore subject to you know,
Speaker 1: I mean being judged in the illegal weapon or also
Speaker 1: just being suspect in nature that you have it as
Speaker 1: a and again, think about when you would supposedly use it,
Speaker 1: like when the samurai are coming after you, or when
Speaker 1: guards are coming after you, like really in the worst
Speaker 1: case scenarios, and that might be a better place to
Speaker 1: maybe depend on just throwing say, you know, found objects
Speaker 1: like a bottle or some other item in your immediate vicinity,
Speaker 1: as opposed to having some specialty device on your person instead.
Speaker 3: There's one detail from Turnbull's chapter that is so interesting
Speaker 3: I had to bring it up. It's about the design
Speaker 3: that many people have probably seen of these basically swastika
Speaker 3: shaped a throwing star that occurs in a lot of media.
Speaker 3: This is a very familiar design for movies and stuff,
Speaker 3: and apparently a lot of modern ninja books have featured
Speaker 3: this design as if it were a traditional shuriken design,
Speaker 3: but it is not, and in fact, there is an
Speaker 3: anecdote from this chapter about how an actor who worked
Speaker 3: on a nineteen sixties TV series in Japan called on Mitsukinschi,
Speaker 3: which had a throwing star of this design, described that
Speaker 3: really this design was created for the show because pause
Speaker 3: these straight pointed throwing stars were deemed too dangerous on set,
Speaker 3: so this was essentially a safety innovation that was later
Speaker 3: misinterpreted as a real design of throwing stars as weapons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's crazy, like basically a safety shit shuriken.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, I have another example of shurrokan inspired
Speaker 1: fictional weaponry, and this one I thought was interesting because
Speaker 1: it kind of stands, at least to my eyes, as
Speaker 1: kind of like the ultimate in sci fi and fantasy
Speaker 1: transformation of the ninja myth. So in the Warhammer forty
Speaker 1: thousand universe, like a far future, you know, grim Dark scenario,
Speaker 1: you have these. You have this species known as the
Speaker 1: l Dar, and they're kind of like a sci fi
Speaker 1: take on the elves. I mean, that's exactly what they are.
Speaker 1: And they use pistols and rifles that use shurrocans as ammunition.
Speaker 1: So these are said to be molecular, cutting edge weapons
Speaker 1: fired in bursts from these guns and like they're so
Speaker 1: sharp and they hit so it was with such velocity
Speaker 1: that they just shred whatever they hit, be it a
Speaker 1: mechanical foe or an organic foe. And again pretty far
Speaker 1: removed from anything even remotely realistic we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: but again I thought it was interesting. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the extreme transformation of the shuriken in sci fi
Speaker 1: and fantasy. I also, I didn't remember this at all
Speaker 1: because I don't have a lot of memories regarding two
Speaker 1: thousand and four as Alien versus Predator, But you might
Speaker 1: remember that in other Predator movies he has this disc
Speaker 1: that he throws that cuts people in half. And in
Speaker 1: this film they decided they were like, that looks too
Speaker 1: much like a frisbee. Let's give the predator a shuriken.
Speaker 1: And so he has this thing that it was least
Speaker 1: at least described as a shura can. I included an
Speaker 1: image here for you, Joe. It's it's really way too large.
Speaker 1: It reminds me more of the weaponing Kroll, the what
Speaker 1: is it boss?
Speaker 3: The glave Yeah, which also is a word that means
Speaker 3: something else elsewhere. But yeah, that's very confusing. It looks
Speaker 3: almost exactly like the krawl thing. It's like kind of
Speaker 3: almost like starfish shaped in a way, with these wispy
Speaker 3: curving blades coming out. It looks too delicate, you know,
Speaker 3: it looks like they would break off.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know. I don't remember what
Speaker 1: this thing did in action. I guess it just cut
Speaker 1: through stuff. But anyway, I wanted to.
Speaker 3: Mention that based on my memory, probably doesn't do much
Speaker 3: because I remember the Predator is just getting like beat
Speaker 3: up in that movie. The movie is very like oh
Speaker 3: yeah singles, you know, more full takedown and Predator. It's
Speaker 3: kind of surprising.
Speaker 1: Uh, well, I think it should. I think it should.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, it's a fair hunt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I like to say I don't
Speaker 1: remember that film all that well, but I did see it.
Speaker 1: I might have seen in the theater. All right. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: coming back to the Shanobi, the pop culture Ninja and
Speaker 1: the shur Can again, it's like you got to if
Speaker 1: you try and think you know, realistically about any scenario
Speaker 1: in which you have to bring a certain amount of tools,
Speaker 1: you have your sort of desert island list of tools
Speaker 1: to bring. Would throwing stars make the list? Again, items
Speaker 1: that might only be used when you were about to
Speaker 1: kill a samurai, and your main defense is like, what
Speaker 1: have I made them angry? So I think there's reason
Speaker 1: to doubt that. And it's interesting too when you look
Speaker 1: at some of these ninjitsu manuals, again with proper caveats
Speaker 1: about where they factor into the transformation from historical accuracy
Speaker 1: into myth and fiction. There are sometimes lists of tools,
Speaker 1: and in fact, there's a sixteen eighty one text Sho Ninki,
Speaker 1: a Record of proper Nanjotsu, that includes six tools that
Speaker 1: apparently every ninja had to have, and throwing stars did
Speaker 1: not make the list. Instead, you have and I think
Speaker 1: this is actually kind of a telling list, Like this
Speaker 1: is a list that I mean, it certainly can apply
Speaker 1: to any pop cultural view of vision of the ninja
Speaker 1: that you have, but it also makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense if you're just imagining some sort of espionage operative
Speaker 1: that's maybe doing like some extra sneaky stuff, Because the
Speaker 1: list includes first of all kagi nawa a grappling hook
Speaker 1: and rope, All right, makes sense. You need to get
Speaker 1: over a wall. Grappling hook and some rope is a
Speaker 1: way to do it. Then you've got this one. This one.
Speaker 1: I was surprised by kasa a conical straw hat, like
Speaker 1: a wide brimmed straw hat. This would have been widely
Speaker 1: used by plenty of people who are not involved in
Speaker 1: shanobi operations. But that's part of a part of it, right,
Speaker 1: It's like not conspicuous, and you could apparently hide tools,
Speaker 1: like it's large enough, you could, you know, maybe secret
Speaker 1: some items up there under the brim.
Speaker 3: It makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then here's a good one. Chalk in order
Speaker 1: to leave irasable secret messages for other operatives.
Speaker 3: Ah. Yeah, that's interesting because when you think about some
Speaker 3: of these other Ninjasu manuals we were talking about, like
Speaker 3: the Men's in Chucai, places a big emphasis on the
Speaker 3: the operative must survive in order to deliver information. So
Speaker 3: it's like propagandizing the reader against the idea of you know,
Speaker 3: going out to die in honorable death while doing the mission.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, you must live in order to deliver
Speaker 3: the information. But if you can deliver information in some
Speaker 3: other way, like by writing a message somewhere, you know,
Speaker 3: down somewhere for someone else to read, then I guess
Speaker 3: that takes some of the pressure off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it makes sense. And also, like chalk
Speaker 1: generally not considered sus if you're caught with chalk, it's
Speaker 1: not You're not going to be instantly sent to your execution.
Speaker 1: I'm assumed, all right. Some of the others a tinder box,
Speaker 1: you know, just for a little fire, a towel, bring
Speaker 1: a towel with you, you know, it's there are a
Speaker 1: lot of uses for the towel is very versatile. And
Speaker 1: then there's also this category kusuri, and this would have
Speaker 1: been various chemical compounds for different purposes. And this would
Speaker 1: include things like poison but also basically like first aid
Speaker 1: as well as bug repellent. So I feel like this
Speaker 1: is a pretty solid list because, if nothing else, it
Speaker 1: speaks to some of the practical aspects of imagine shanobi activities.
Speaker 1: You might need some bugspray, you might need to bring
Speaker 1: a light, you might need to bring a towel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, towel's just always a good idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, In the book Ninja Attack, Yoda and All highlight
Speaker 1: some other alleged Ninja weapons, and they're kind of a
Speaker 1: mix of things that maybe feel a little more fantasy
Speaker 1: based and others that just sound very standard. Like one
Speaker 1: is a kunai, a standard field knife. I think we
Speaker 1: mentioned this in passing in the last one when we're
Speaker 1: talking about the the idea that ninja's had a specialized
Speaker 1: ninja would have a specialized sword, and we brought up that, well,
Speaker 1: why would you have this illegal weapon on you that
Speaker 1: takes up a fair amount of room that also might
Speaker 1: not serve your mission all that well, when you could
Speaker 1: just bring like a standard field knife, something that would
Speaker 1: not necessarily be considered a straight up weapon and would
Speaker 1: have various practical uses. There's another one, goshiki may, which
Speaker 1: would have been it's supposed to have been dyed rice
Speaker 1: grains that you could leave, you could leave behind you
Speaker 1: as as a codd trail. Again, I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: about that when that one sounds a little more exciting,
Speaker 1: like maybe a little too exciting to be an actual,
Speaker 1: you know, artifact of spycraft. Now, Gandhal a bucket based
Speaker 1: focused lantern that does sound useful for sneaking around, you know,
Speaker 1: basically like a you know something, so you're not lighting
Speaker 1: up in the whole room, you're not lighting yourself up,
Speaker 1: but you can have a very focused light for sneaking around,
Speaker 1: maybe looking at document.
Speaker 3: It's oh, I see sort of a beam light. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another one is a michi hakari. This would have been
Speaker 1: like a measuring stick. Again. You know, sometimes espionage is boring.
Speaker 1: It's just about how how bigger things, So you might
Speaker 1: need to measure things when you when you're when you're
Speaker 1: out and about.
Speaker 3: Uh, this is not boring at all. This is a
Speaker 3: major part of espionage activities in these old warfare manuals.
Speaker 3: It's about like giving giving dimensions and topography. It's like,
Speaker 3: go somewhere and tell me what it's like. Make a map.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they mentioned shakomi and this would have been like
Speaker 1: various concealed weapons, including cane swords, blow guns, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Again. Uh, certainly this would make sense, especially
Speaker 1: if you're engaging in some sort of potential assassination scenario.
Speaker 1: But it also of course leans I think heavily into
Speaker 1: the myth of espionage. I mean, who doesn't love a
Speaker 1: good secret weapon. Some sort of a James Bond device right.
Speaker 1: Then there's a shikoro. This would have been like a
Speaker 1: serrated hand tool for sawing, again like a basic tool
Speaker 1: that might come in handy for certain practices. And then
Speaker 1: there's a casou gai. This would have been These would
Speaker 1: have been climbing aids, like specialized like iron climbing aids
Speaker 1: for foot and hand holds. It could be inserted into
Speaker 1: the cracks of a wall that the examples that are
Speaker 1: included in the book are pretty neat looking. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how historically accurate this would be, again, because we
Speaker 1: talked about the importance of a ladder, and certainly, you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about you know, grappling hooks, So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this is if this is something
Speaker 1: that would have been regularly done, because the ladder is
Speaker 1: also included in the in the book. Here, there's also
Speaker 1: uh subo kiri, like a handheld drilling tool from like
Speaker 1: making a like holes in a wall for like a
Speaker 1: peep pole. Yeah, peep pole, So this sounds reasonable. They
Speaker 1: mentioned they mentioned the fabulous floating shoes that we talked
Speaker 1: about last time, but they also mentioned something called mizugaki,
Speaker 1: which would have been would have been apparently a type
Speaker 1: of footwear that was useful in muddy areas. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess this is reasonable, right, if you're like
Speaker 1: potentially sneaking out of of of a building or an area,
Speaker 1: or dealing in any fashion with a moat, it might
Speaker 1: make sense to have specialized footwear.
Speaker 3: Well, right, as we talked about it in the last episode,
Speaker 3: the idea of the mizugumo, the water walking shoes, the
Speaker 3: water spider shoes almost certainly would not work as generally
Speaker 3: interpreted in twentieth century sources, where like they allow you
Speaker 3: to walk across the top of the water. So if
Speaker 3: such a device were actually used, it was probably more
Speaker 3: like an inner tube type thing that you would sit
Speaker 3: in and float across the water in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, kind of like a makeshift raft, which was
Speaker 1: is Actually there's another item like this included in the book,
Speaker 1: the kami Gatta, which would apparently have been and I
Speaker 1: don't have a clear vision of what this would look like,
Speaker 1: but a makeshift raft using a bamboo frame in empty
Speaker 1: clay jars. So you know, perhaps a scenario where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I got to I got to build a boat tonight
Speaker 1: in order to make it across this river or this
Speaker 1: moat or what have you. What could you use to
Speaker 1: make it? How you could you mcguiver up a boat.
Speaker 3: That's good knowledge to have.
Speaker 1: Now, there are various other ninja weapons that we could
Speaker 1: potentially talk about. I think the common thread, though, is
Speaker 1: going to be how realistic is this and how much
Speaker 1: historical evidence is there for this? And how cool does
Speaker 1: it look? You know, like you see things like Techo
Speaker 1: Kagi and Nko te These would have been two different
Speaker 1: versions of like giving your ninja's claws, so the former
Speaker 1: being like a wolverine claw that you wear as a gauntlet.
Speaker 1: I guess also you could this is like basically what
Speaker 1: Shreder has in teenage mutant ninja turtles. And then the
Speaker 1: neck o t would would have been something that goes
Speaker 1: over your fingertips. And these would have been like poisoned
Speaker 1: or some sort of a nuisance weapon for like scratching somebody.
Speaker 3: Over the fingertips. Yikes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like you with the.
Speaker 3: Open hand swinging at the Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you're not as big as Freddy Krueger or anything.
Speaker 1: I think I did an artifact episode a while back
Speaker 1: talking about like some of the physics of strapping blades
Speaker 1: to your fingers, Like that's Freddy Krueger glove would be
Speaker 1: a great way to break all your fingers. You can
Speaker 1: actually use that as a weapon, and you are not
Speaker 1: a supernatural entity of some sort. Yes, but if it's
Speaker 1: wrist mounted, okay, you know potentially that could work. But
Speaker 1: then again you get into that question why would it
Speaker 1: work more than a standard weapon? Why would it be
Speaker 1: a better choice compared to a knife or a sword
Speaker 1: or what have you.
Speaker 3: As with a lot of these things we're describing, you
Speaker 3: can see how they might have more appeal as a
Speaker 3: meme than actual functional utility, Like they could be successful
Speaker 3: in texts like these because they're interesting ideas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Another thing that comes up is like, which cases
Speaker 1: do we see some sort of an alleged ninja weapon
Speaker 1: that might have its roots in sort of a repurposing
Speaker 1: of other items, Like for instance, there are various forms
Speaker 1: of teko or techo, and these would have been I've
Speaker 1: seen it seen it written that these would have been
Speaker 1: like a basically a weaponized iron stirrup that is turned
Speaker 1: into something kind of like brass knuckles, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think like brass knuckles are a great example of
Speaker 1: something where you can see various knucks and other weapons
Speaker 1: that can be very specialized and ornate, but various other
Speaker 1: things could also work, you know, like a roll of
Speaker 1: quarters or you know, some other just like a simple
Speaker 1: band of iron that goes around your knuckles, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And so there's a long list of alleged
Speaker 1: ninja weapons. They include miniaturized firearms, sharpened hair ornaments, and chopsticks,
Speaker 1: particularly for female shanobi. And you know, I think part
Speaker 1: of that is just like the idea of like, oh,
Speaker 1: these the hair ornaments look very sharp, they look like
Speaker 1: they could be a weapon. What if they were a weapon?
Speaker 1: And therefore the myth building takes place. There are at
Speaker 1: least a couple of chain based weapons, the manriki gusari.
Speaker 1: This is like a length of chain with a weight
Speaker 1: on either end, and I think the basic idea here
Speaker 1: is like, the samurai are coming to kill you, what again,
Speaker 1: what can you throw at them to potentially buy yourself
Speaker 1: a little time and or wrap around their weapons. There's
Speaker 1: also one the kusari gama, which would have been much
Speaker 1: the same idea, but with a blade or sickle on
Speaker 1: one end of the chain. This would ideal. It yeah,
Speaker 1: be a situation where someone's coming at you with a weapon,
Speaker 1: maybe you could use the chain to like wrap up
Speaker 1: their weapon and so forth. So again, all the standard
Speaker 1: caveats apply to considering the historical accuracy of these weapon descriptions.
Speaker 1: But I think we if we scrape the ninja mystique
Speaker 1: off of each of them, while still acknowledging the use
Speaker 1: of some form of martial art, we're dealing with sneaky
Speaker 1: weapons that have as much, if not more in common
Speaker 1: with typical criminal implements like small knives, small clubs, concealable firearms,
Speaker 1: maybe even concealed swords and cane swords and all you know,
Speaker 1: hidden blades, hidden flails and so forth. But again, I
Speaker 1: think you end up having pasked that question like would
Speaker 1: this actually be practical? Can you see somebody using this
Speaker 1: in a very serious life and death, you know, very
Speaker 1: risky scenario where the goal might not be some sort
Speaker 1: of like crazy cinematic ninja scenario, but something more like
Speaker 1: getting the measurements of a guard house, or you know,
Speaker 1: looking at some documents, overhearing something that you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to hear, and so forth. Now, there are various techniques
Speaker 1: that ninja techniques that are brought up in the book
Speaker 1: by Yoda and Alt and one that I was particularly
Speaker 1: amused by is the idea that you could as a ninja,
Speaker 1: as a shanobi operative out in the field, you need
Speaker 1: to tell what time it is without any other information
Speaker 1: to go on. You could look into a cat size
Speaker 1: and therefore tell what time it is.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, now is this telling time in the nighttime
Speaker 3: or in the daytime.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of questions about how practical this
Speaker 1: would be. I think this is definitely one of those
Speaker 1: ideas that sounds more intriguing than it actually you know,
Speaker 1: and then than it is useful. I think maybe it
Speaker 1: has something to do with the idea quite understandably that
Speaker 1: we feel a kinship between the ninja and the cat.
Speaker 1: We like the idea too of a ninja stopping and maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, talking with the cat like your the household
Speaker 1: cat doesn't care he or she is ready to sell
Speaker 1: you out to the shnovii at a moment's notice. They're
Speaker 1: happy to conspire.
Speaker 3: Cast speak with animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But the basic idea is that, okay, the
Speaker 1: shape of the pupil in the cat's eye is going
Speaker 1: to change throughout the day, and you could potentially match
Speaker 1: it up with specific times. The trick, the challenge that
Speaker 1: Yoda and All point out is that, of course you
Speaker 1: would have to be able to get close enough to
Speaker 1: the cat to do this, presumably a stranger's cat to
Speaker 1: make this reading, which is betting a lot on random
Speaker 1: cat personalities, because there are cats that I've seen plenty
Speaker 1: of times and I've never gotten close enough to look
Speaker 1: at their pupils. But then you'll just encounter like a
Speaker 1: cat out on a walk, and the cat will come
Speaker 1: straight up and is like ready to share that information
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 3: This is why you rub your face with sardines, you
Speaker 3: get the cat in there.
Speaker 1: So I looked into this a little bit more. I
Speaker 1: couldn't find much concrete and about this, because, of course,
Speaker 1: the other question is like, what kind of specific scenario
Speaker 1: is this where there is no other information to go
Speaker 1: on other than a cat's eide. You know, I feel
Speaker 1: like you'd have a there would be better ways to
Speaker 1: reasonably estimate what time it.
Speaker 3: Is, and hey, you know, it's not impossible that someone
Speaker 3: could find clever ways of getting surprisingly accurate information from
Speaker 3: the natural world. I often think back to that series
Speaker 3: of episodes we did about Pacific islander navigation techniques that
Speaker 3: you know, without any kind of electronics or modern equipment,
Speaker 3: people were able to figure out incredibly accurate ways of navigating.
Speaker 3: And so maybe there's stuff like this in the eyes
Speaker 3: of animals or in plants that can tell you exactly
Speaker 3: what time it is. Is it true?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've looked up an article. I found this article
Speaker 1: on the website of the National Wildlife Federation by one
Speaker 1: Donna Johnson, who, by the way, alludes to this being
Speaker 1: a New England tradition. So I don't know where it originates.
Speaker 1: Maybe it originates in multiple culture anytime you're close enough
Speaker 1: to a cat to look at their eyes. But she
Speaker 1: does do a breakdown of the idea, like, basically, cats
Speaker 1: have elliptically shaped pupils to compensate for their light sensitivity,
Speaker 1: which otherwise aids them in low light hunts. But the
Speaker 1: greater the amount of light, the more slit like the pupil.
Speaker 1: So it technically works, but it also seems again like
Speaker 1: maybe not the most reliable time telling technique. And I
Speaker 1: can't imagine a situation where the cat's eyes would be
Speaker 1: the only thing to go off of, so many questions
Speaker 1: would emerge here, but it's a neat idea. I guess, well.
Speaker 3: I mean, if the cats eyes are responding to the
Speaker 3: level of light, would the ninja not also be able
Speaker 3: to see the level of light exactly?
Speaker 1: All right? The final thing I want to hit on
Speaker 1: here in this series is the idea of the ninja
Speaker 1: as hero, because when it comes to pop cultural transformations,
Speaker 1: I think it's always interesting to look at the point
Speaker 1: where something completely flips from what it originally was. For instance,
Speaker 1: in past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we
Speaker 1: discussed how various fear some monsters, especially in Japanese culture,
Speaker 1: but we also looked at some examples from Western horror movies,
Speaker 1: eventually make the transformation from like a symbol symbolized like
Speaker 1: aspect of reality, you know, some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: dark aspect of reality that is embodied in some sort
Speaker 1: of a being and imagine being, you know, a fearsome entity.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: The point at which we take that and flip it
Speaker 1: into something cute, something that would you know, make for
Speaker 1: a nice mascot, look at it on a bumper sticker,
Speaker 1: or even be a stuffed animal. I think there's something
Speaker 1: telling about reaching that point when the monster becomes cute
Speaker 1: or in this case, when the ninja becomes a hero.
Speaker 3: When we've talked about this with regard to monsters, I
Speaker 3: remember one of my thoughts about it was that this
Speaker 3: impulse is driven by franchising concerns, Like the further you
Speaker 3: get into sequels and the more like movies or stories
Speaker 3: you've had exposing you to this monster over and over,
Speaker 3: the less comfortable it is for the monster to continue
Speaker 3: to be purely fearsome or evil, and there's an impulse
Speaker 3: to make it more friendly or at least maybe funnier
Speaker 3: or something. So you can see this in you know,
Speaker 3: like Godzilla originally is not nice and is not fun,
Speaker 3: but eventually it becomes Godzilla becomes the defender essentially against
Speaker 3: these worst monsters. You know, the new monster is the
Speaker 3: worst one and Godzilla is the one we're familiar with
Speaker 3: fighting it off. And you can see over time that
Speaker 3: Freddy Krueger goes from being just like a gross, disgusting
Speaker 3: murderer into becoming like a jokester who's more just kind
Speaker 3: of like mugging for the camera and yuck, yucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he becomes a violent clown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so forth. I think it's a really common pattern.
Speaker 3: It's something about like familiarity takes the edge off of
Speaker 3: something and makes you want to recast it as a
Speaker 3: friend rather than a foe.
Speaker 1: And so with the Ninja, you know, we've discussed at
Speaker 1: length than nebulous reality and origins of the shnobi, and
Speaker 1: how we're mostly talking about shadowy espa espionage operatives made
Speaker 1: up of commoners and even criminals that engage in dirty,
Speaker 1: if not outright shameful acts that are necessary, a necessary
Speaker 1: part of warfare, alongside the more celebrated noble and aristocratic
Speaker 1: exploits of rulers in the Samurai. But then coming out
Speaker 1: of the Warring States period and into the Edo period
Speaker 1: and beyond, we see the myth making. We see the
Speaker 1: fiction transforming the myth of the ninja in numerous ways,
Speaker 1: giving it the form everyone instantly recognizes today. And so
Speaker 1: many Ninja remain villains in these later treatments, but they
Speaker 1: inevitably cross over into anti hero and even hero territory.
Speaker 1: And this kind of takes me back to our initial
Speaker 1: discussion talking about our initial introductions to ninja growing up,
Speaker 1: and I look back and I think some of my
Speaker 1: initial introductions to ninja actually cast them as heroes, like
Speaker 1: that nineteen eighty one canon film Entered the Ninja has
Speaker 1: been built around Franco Niro, an Italian actor, as at
Speaker 1: least an anti hero. I don't think he's maybe quite
Speaker 1: a hero in that, but he's at least an anti hero.
Speaker 3: I feel like the majority of the ninja media I
Speaker 3: consumed when I was a kid had ninjas as heroes
Speaker 3: rather than villains, or had them as both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's not very common as well, going
Speaker 1: back to like g I Joe, like Snake Eyes is
Speaker 1: a black clad ninja and is very much on the
Speaker 1: certified good guy team. There's no it's it's black and white.
Speaker 1: Literally though it's flipped because our black clad ninja is
Speaker 1: good and our white clad ninja is bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah or yeah, so often they were both, but I
Speaker 3: think there's an impulse there that it's just like, well,
Speaker 3: especially in kid focus to media, ninja's are cool, and
Speaker 3: kids want to root for the good guys, and they
Speaker 3: want they want the good guys to be cool, So
Speaker 3: you got to make the ninja a good guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I mean, the teenage meeting ninja turtles. Obviously
Speaker 1: they're turtles they're teenagers, but they are ninjas. They're very
Speaker 1: much the good guys. But then, going back to the
Speaker 1: Bond film You Only Live Twice again vitally important in
Speaker 1: bringing the Ninja into the international market and into Western cinema.
Speaker 1: All the Ninja in that all the Shnobi operatives were
Speaker 1: working on James Bod's Bond's team. They were all good
Speaker 1: guys essentially.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, I think so there might be some
Speaker 3: working for the bad guys, but I don't recall specifically.
Speaker 3: The ones I remember are good guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like the big scene at the end where
Speaker 1: they storm the Specter compound and Bond lets the Ninjas in.
Speaker 1: He's like he opens the door and here come the
Speaker 1: Ninjas down on like wires and all.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, anyway, like getting down to discussion like when when
Speaker 1: are ninjas allowed to become not just anti heroes but
Speaker 1: outright good guys. Well, according to Yoda and all discussion
Speaker 1: in Ninja Ninja Attack, there's a definite place to single
Speaker 1: out perhaps is the first true ninja heroes in popular culture,
Speaker 1: and it's the Chikawa pocket books. This would have been
Speaker 1: the period around nineteen twelve through nineteen twenty six series
Speaker 1: of books written by a group of writers that were
Speaker 1: credited as Seka Sanjan a series of novels for juvenile
Speaker 1: so like essentially like young reader or children's books that
Speaker 1: detailed the adventures of a pair of rival ninja that
Speaker 1: they were on the same team. To be clear, they're
Speaker 1: not like rival teams or rival clans, but they have
Speaker 1: differing personalities. They're kind of an odd couple, and that's
Speaker 1: Saratobi Saske and Kira Gakura Saizo. And these books established
Speaker 1: these two as quote poster boys for the ego koga
Speaker 1: rivalry and ninja as a potential force for good. And
Speaker 1: it was inspired by These tales were inspired by both
Speaker 1: real life at least attributed ninja exploits, as well as
Speaker 1: the Chinese literary classic Journey into the West. How is
Speaker 1: it related to the Journey into the West. A lot
Speaker 1: of it comes down to the character of Saratobi Saske,
Speaker 1: a young boy raised by monkeys and then taken in
Speaker 1: by a ninja master and then recruited by the warlords
Speaker 1: Sonata due to his mischievous nature and his great skill
Speaker 1: and of course the ninja arts, so he ends up
Speaker 1: going on missions for his master but he's also, you know,
Speaker 1: a bit of a trickster, a bit happy go lucky,
Speaker 1: and he does a lot of side quests to help
Speaker 1: the less fortunate. But the name here Saratobi means leaping monkey,
Speaker 1: and he is in some ways a Japanese ninja version
Speaker 1: of the Monkey King.
Speaker 3: It's interesting that you mentioned him doing sort of side
Speaker 3: quests to help the less fortunate, because I have seen
Speaker 3: that it is I have read at least that it
Speaker 3: is common in literature that portrays the ninja as heroes
Speaker 3: or good guys to include some kind of class element
Speaker 3: where they are sort of they act on behalf of
Speaker 3: the economic underclass of like the of the poor and
Speaker 3: the less fortunate, and help them in the face of say,
Speaker 3: like rich oppressors, like an evil samurai.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and a lot of the I think we
Speaker 1: touched on some of these older tales that are either
Speaker 1: ninja or ninja adjacent that are essentially robin hood stories,
Speaker 1: like some sort of person from the criminal element, you know,
Speaker 1: and from the lower classes that is sticking up for
Speaker 1: the little guy. Now, the other of these two the rival.
Speaker 1: So we have the happy go lucky guy, the more
Speaker 1: like the sort of the more pure hero here. But
Speaker 1: then we have Kira Gakua Saizo, who is born into
Speaker 1: the ninja life. It has said he's trained with the best,
Speaker 1: and he has become a master of clouds and lightning,
Speaker 1: of mists and thunder, so you know, he can summon
Speaker 1: various weather effects to mask his ninja movements. And the
Speaker 1: name here means cloaked and missed. So while Saske is lighthearted,
Speaker 1: Sizo is brooding, like this is more of your your
Speaker 1: kind of like goth superstar character here. Nice they wind
Speaker 1: up on the same ninja team. This would be Sonata
Speaker 1: as Ten Heroes or the Ten Braves, but their rivals.
Speaker 1: They're an odd couple to say the least. And Yoda
Speaker 1: and all point out that, yeah, the nature of these
Speaker 1: two characters kind of flows perfectly into modern times. So
Speaker 1: Saske was always a hit with the kids, but then
Speaker 1: Sizo was irresistible to you know, many in the post
Speaker 1: war period, especially as like you know, older ninja fans
Speaker 1: and adults told and retold stories. He's like a natural
Speaker 1: character to latch onto. He's got this kind of angst
Speaker 1: sort of in bridging the gap between anti hero and hero,
Speaker 1: you know, So it fits that mold of the brooding
Speaker 1: sort of Batman esque hero. I guess I included an
Speaker 1: image here, Joe. This is from one of the many
Speaker 1: more modern treatments from anime and manga. And you can
Speaker 1: guess which one is which you know, which one is
Speaker 1: your brooding character and which one is your more happy,
Speaker 1: go lucky character.
Speaker 3: Oh, Sizo even has like emo hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yes, like again, just a natural fit, you know,
Speaker 1: for for like kind of an angsty emo character. And
Speaker 1: then we have the Trickster, the essentially the monkey King
Speaker 1: in ninja form. Of course they're not going to completely
Speaker 1: get along, but they are going to ultimately work, you know,
Speaker 1: for the same cause.
Speaker 3: That's sweet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I thought that was interesting, this idea
Speaker 1: of like, okay, these might be the patient zeros for
Speaker 1: good guy ninjas in popular culture, and these are characters
Speaker 1: that get used again and again. Now I think Sizo
Speaker 1: has also been used as an antagonist in some modern treatment.
Speaker 1: So it kind of comes back to what we were
Speaker 1: saying about monsters. Just because a monster goes cute, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can't go back and make them fearsome again.
Speaker 1: This kind of thing happens all the time, and so
Speaker 1: there's always going to be continued exploration and re exploration.
Speaker 1: Just because Ninja's become heroes or anti heroes in one
Speaker 1: property doesn't mean they can't be just absolute villains in another.
Speaker 1: You know, we can continue to have fun in that regard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a saw tooth effect. I mean you you
Speaker 3: know the seventies, you've already got all monsters attack and
Speaker 3: the ones where Godzilla is like, oh, he's a good dad.
Speaker 3: But then you come back decades later and you can
Speaker 3: get Chinn Godzillo. Yeah, where the monster is a problem
Speaker 3: yet again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well there you have it Part four
Speaker 1: of the Ninja. I don't know that we covered everything,
Speaker 1: but we covered a lot of things related to the Ninja.
Speaker 1: If we missed anything, or if there's some detail you
Speaker 1: would like to bring up, write in. We would love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast
Speaker 1: with core episodes in Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do a
Speaker 1: short form episode on Wednesdays. Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's our time to set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 1: just talk about what a weird film and currently we
Speaker 1: run rerun or volve episodes on Saturdays and on Mondays,
Speaker 1: where we've been experimenting with different format. But we are
Speaker 1: going to have more listener mail episodes pop up. In fact,
Speaker 1: there should be one popping up this Thursday. Then goes
Speaker 1: according to plan and let's see finally, Oh yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're on social media, look us up. We're probably on there.
Speaker 1: Follow us. If you're on Instagram, we are st b
Speaker 1: y M podcast. Just help me help us get our
Speaker 1: our subscriber or follower base up there a bit. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a newer account. The old one went away
Speaker 1: and ninjas took it down, so so help us get
Speaker 1: some numbers on that new one if you use the format,
Speaker 1: but don't sign up for it if you're not using
Speaker 1: it already, I mean really all the social media stuff, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't put a lot of work into it.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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