WEBVTT - The Ninja, Part 1 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:14.920 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.480 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.560 And it seems this week, rob you've got ninjas on 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.320 the brain. You have ninjas on the brain, in the brain, 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.120 coming out of the brain, going in and out in secret. 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:29.319 What brought you to the topic of the ninja for 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:30.280 today's episode. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.400 Well, I mean, on one level, obviously, I've always been 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.600 a ninja fan, a big, big fan of the pop 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.120 cultural ninja. As we'll get into, you know, just because 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.199 by virtue of growing up when I grew up in 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.240 the various interests that I have. But then, of course, also, 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.440 as I've mentioned the show before, my family and I 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.600 recently went on a trip to Japan. We got to visit, 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.280 I believe, a couple of historic sites that have ties 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.560 to the historic Nina, and so I thought, well, now 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.319 it's the time. Let's this is the ideal time to 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:09.240 jump into the subject of the ninja with the acknowledgement 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.000 that's it gets a little complicated in places. It's not 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.240 as cut and dry as some people might expect it 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:21.200 to be. But there's a fascinating weave of fiction and 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:26.400 hidden history and also legends and myth totally. 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.640 But I also hear what you're saying about coming of 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.280 age in an era where there was just ninja fever 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:33.240 in like US pop culture. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.560 Yeah. Absolutely, And I think this would be a great 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.679 place to start and maybe compare notes on sort of 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:45.039 our generational influences regarding the ninja. I'm a little older 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.640 than you, so I might be exposed to some things 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.400 earlier that you were not, like the Big Divider being 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:57.560 like teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. By the time they came around, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.520 I was very into them, but I at the time 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:02.360 thought that I was too old to be into them, 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.520 So I had this kind of like should I shouldn't 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.760 I relationship with the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles? Then of 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:10.760 course I should have, and I'm glad that I did 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.079 to the extent I did. But for me, looking back, 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.720 I would say, like the earliest exposures I had to 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.080 ninja media in the US, I would say, certainly, you 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.720 have the g I. Joe ninja characters, storm Shadow and 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.919 Snake Eyes. One wore black and was you know, goodness, 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:29.520 I can't remember which one was the good cart back. 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:31.440 I think maybe the good guy wore black and the 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:38.440 bad guy wore white, which even at the time was 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.640 like stuck stuck out as stuck out as being a 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.920 little unbelievable because even as a kid, you know that 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.560 the ninja is supposed to move through the shadows. Why 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.519 is this ninja wearing all white? It seems like he's 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:57.080 made some style choices that may backfire on him later on. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.919 I was just looking up to see if Snake Eyes 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.360 was one of the G I. Joe action figures I had, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:03.280 and I think it was. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.880 Yeah. I definitely had one or both of these guys, 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.000 and they would go on all sorts of you know, 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.800 ninja related adventures with the other action figures. Inevitably a 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.120 small screwdriver would become involved and and G I. Joe 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:16.760 Man would be. 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.440 Dismembered swapping heads and stuff. Yeah, yeah, well, I think 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.360 I had some of the same main obviously teenage meaning 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.160 ninja turtles. I fortunately, I think when I first came 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.760 to them, did not have to deal with the internal 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.680 turmoil of thinking I was too old for them. That 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:35.480 does that sounds rough. 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.680 But I don't know rough is the right way to 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:41.880 describe it. But you know there is it is that 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.720 that conundrum if the peer pressure is there to make 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:47.120 you feel like you need to get in a hurry 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.400 to grow up, but you really are not ready to 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.520 put aside things like ninja turtles. You know, at the 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.560 time it may feel like a conundrum, but you know, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:58.000 Ninja turtles are awesome. 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:00.520 Yes, But there was also I know what you're saying, 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:05.320 in that it was not just a craze in say, 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.880 adult focused media in the US in the nineteen eighties. 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.160 Though there was that, and we can talk about some examples, 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.120 but there was a very kid friendly version of the 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.200 ninja archetype that showed up in a lot of kid 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.839 focused movies, like, for example, the Three Ninjas series. 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.039 I don't think I ever saw any of these, but 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.160 these were like kid Ninjas. This was maybe this was 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:30.560 Power Ranger inspired to a certain extent. 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.560 Possibly I think I only ever saw the first of 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:35.839 these movies, never made it to Three Ninjas High Noon 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:40.159 at Mega Mountain, but I don't remember that much about it. 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.719 I think there are three brothers, and there are kids 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.000 who are learning the ways of the ninja, and some 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.160 like robbers, come into their house like Home Alone style 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.679 or something and they use ninja ninja techniques on them? 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.400 What could be all bad if Victor Wong? Isn't it right? 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:56.640 Yeah? 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.400 Looking back on ninja movies that I watched, also think 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.599 a major early influence was that I must have seen 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.200 this in like my uncle's house. There were sometimes movies playing, 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.040 like RoboCop that I ended up watching way too early, 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.719 And I do specifically remember watching at least a big 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:19.240 chunk of the nineteen eighty one Manaham Golan directed ninja 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.719 movie that starred Franco Niro, I believe as a ninja 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:28.200 titled Enter the Ninja, and I remember it like horrifying 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.720 and enthralling me to varying degrees because you had some, 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.080 you know, a fair amount of like ninja mayhem going on, 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.360 and then also some rather grotesque moments that I probably 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.040 shouldn't have seen it at early age. 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.200 I think that's like a hyper violent movie, isn't it. Yeah? 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:44.599 Yeah, I remember it being hyper violent, But I also 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.039 have not rewatched it since I was a kid, so 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.919 I don't know what was actually violent and what was 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.719 maybe just ridiculous and a little like unbelievably gory, or 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.480 if it like holds up as an actual gore fest. Oh. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.400 Actually, as far as cartoonified movie Ninja Go, I recently 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:03.440 before I knew you were going to want to talk 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.240 about this on the show, just like last week with 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.840 my friend Ben, I watched a movie called Ninja three 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.520 The Domination, which is a sequel to Enter the Ninja's. 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.159 Right, this is like the third one in that the 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.799 canon film's Ninja series, Right. 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.719 That's right. So this entry is about an LA aerobics 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.640 instructor who gets possessed by the ghost of a ninja 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.520 hit man who wants revenge against the police who put 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.960 a stop to his Ninja rampage on a golf course, 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.400 which took place on a golf course in which he 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.000 like single handedly destroys a helicopter and a bunch of 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.400 other stuff. And then the aerobics instructor is possessed by 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:44.640 the ghost of the evil Ninja and then falls in 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.120 love with one of the cops on the Ninja Spirits 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.640 Naughty list, so uh oh, and then she has to 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.039 get the ghost purged out of her body by a 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:53.960 mystical priest. 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:54.640 Or. 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.479 Actually, I think maybe that the attempt to do that fails, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:59.800 but it's sort of a cross between you know, it's 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:01.800 a equal to enter the Ninja. So it's got that 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:06.480 kind of sleazy nineteen eighties La van Halen guitar lick 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.520 ninja movie feeling. But then it's also got elements of 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.280 the Exorcist, and then it's also a cop movie and 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.600 also just aerobics, you know, dance aerobics all over the place. 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.120 I am on board for all of that. That sounds amazing. 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.200 We might have to consider that for Weird House, in 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.679 part because on Weird House Cinema we have talked about 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.720 the movie blood Beat in the past, which has a 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.600 ghost samurai. So it seems fitting that we should have 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.520 a film at some point that has a ghost ninja's. 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:36.560 Ghost ninja possession. 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.920 Now, obviously there are tons of additional Western ninja properties 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.640 we could side here. There's so much kid stuff. Certainly 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.600 video games are big, some being imports, like I do 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.200 remember the Shanobi Arcade game, though I don't know how much. 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.040 I don't know how strong the ninja vibes are in 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.120 that one. But then eventually you get things like Mortal Kombat, 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:03.760 which has you know, some version of Ninja's in them, often, 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.120 of course with all sorts of crazy colors that that 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.960 again don't make sense if you're if you're engaging with 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:11.400 the idea of ninja as a stealth operative, but if 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.480 you're engaging within the idea of ninja as a user 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.120 of magic, then as we'll get into, then I guess 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:22.160 Mortal Kombat isn't too unbelievable. And then during junior high, 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.080 probably like early junior high, it ended up picking up 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.760 Showgun and reading it, and there was a lot I 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.280 didn't understand at the time. But then there's like a 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.240 lot of just you know, ideas about Japanese history and 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.720 Japanese culture that they're loaded in that volume. And it 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:41.199 does contain a very memorable section that involves the shinobi 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.080 the ninja. So we'll come back to that, because, as 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.200 it turns out, the novel Showgun has a very important 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.559 influence on the idea and the popularity of the ninja 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:53.680 outside Japan. 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.800 Well, regarding the idea of the ninja outside of Japan 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:58.920 and the word ninja as an enters sort of the 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.800 English lexic. I came across a really interesting fact in 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:05.440 a book that I'm going to reference a bunch of 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:07.520 times in this series. It's been one of my main 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.760 sources here by a British historian named Stephen Turnbull called 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.800 Ninja Unmasking the Myth. This is one of the best 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.880 looking historical books and investigating the history of the concept 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:23.360 of the ninja in the English language. And what Turnbull 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.880 says that really shocked me is that the word ninja 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.320 with its current romanized spelling did not appear in any 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:36.280 Japanese English dictionary until the year nineteen seventy four, and 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.040 there were plenty of Japanese English dictionaries before this, going 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.800 back to the nineteenth century. Before the mid twentieth century, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.280 the favored Japanese pronunciation for the same concept the same 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:53.720 kanji idiographs was shinobi mono or shanoby no mono. But 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.880 there's an alternate pronunciation of the same idiographs nin ninsha 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.880 or ninja, which became the dominant way of expressing the 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:06.480 idea out loud in English in English contexts, at least 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:09.640 I guess, beginning in somewhere in the mid twentieth century 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.440 or the nineteen seventies or so, but I don't know. 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.360 That's just surprisingly late to me. I've read in a 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:20.079 few sources that consciousness of the idea of the shnobi 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.640 or ninja in English speaking cultures traces in large part 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.760 to the nineteen sixty seven James Bond movie You Only 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.320 Live Twice, which is pretty fun, does have some great 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:35.600 ninja action, and it is also wildly racially and culturally problematic, 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.520 but apparently was a big sort of funnel of the 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.520 idea of the ninja or shanobi into the international market. 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.719 Yeah, You Only Live Twice definitely a Bond film I 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.360 saw as a kid, and I was surprised to learn 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.760 of its historical importance to this topic. It's not a 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.959 film that has ever stuck in my mind as being like, oh, 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:01.120 this is important, this is bringing cultures together or anything 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:01.600 like that. 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:03.800 Oh, but in some ways it kind of is, I 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.360 mean nick like you know you can. There's a lot 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.280 to criticize there, but also there are some great scenes 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.080 of like the ninja training scene where they're like out 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.320 there practicing all their skills and techniques on the target dummies. 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:16.800 It's great. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.520 So one of my main sources for this is an 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.680 excellent and well sided book titled Ninja Attack. True Tales 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:28.040 of Assassin, Samurai and Outlaws Outlaws by Heroko Yoda and 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.240 Matt Alt matt All type referenced on the show before 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.560 for some of his other writings about Japanese culture and 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.920 Japanese popular culture. And in this book they point out 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.079 as well that You Only Lived Twice was the first 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.640 ninja screen appearance in international cinema. They write that while 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.640 You Only Live Twice is the first international film concerning ninja, 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:55.600 it was directly influenced by the nineteen sixty five film Shinobio, 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.320 which was in turn inspired by the success of the 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.800 various ninja short stories of Futaro Yamada, who lived nineteen 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:05.680 twenty two through two thousand and one. This is a 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.600 writer who is discovered by Atogawa Rampo, who we've talked 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.679 about in Weird House Cinema because his writings have been 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:15.680 adapted to the screen numerous times. 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.240 So how did ninjas end up in James Bond. 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.400 Well, it involves the screenwriter, who was of course Roald Dahl, 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.319 who lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen ninety. You know, we 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:31.120 often associate with Willie walk in The Chocolate Factory and 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.440 various other works, but he was a screenwriter on You 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.440 Only Live Twice and apparently went on a research trip 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.040 to Japan to prepare for this, And while in Japan 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.079 he watched the movie in question, that nineteen sixty five 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:51.080 Ninja film, and realized, well, this is what the screenplay needs, 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:56.079 we need ninja and ninja were added. Good choice. Yeah, yeah, 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.320 and again you know, popular, big budget film that is 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:04.640 exactly the thing that will propel a new concept into 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:10.720 the public mindset. Now, this book gets into the overall 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:15.760 sort of tangled web of pop culture ninjas and in 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.440 and out of Japan, going all the way back to 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.720 things like a seventeen seventy eight kabuki play that involves ninja. 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:26.480 And they actually have a lovely flow chart that includes 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:30.600 everything from Ninja scroll to kill Bill. I'll come back 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.360 to more of what they have to say about ninja, 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.120 popular culture, and ninja fiction here in a bit. 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.280 Now, I think maybe we should do a rundown of 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:53.280 some of the common characteristics of the twentieth century movie Ninja, 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:57.720 the international market movie Ninja. So usually this ninja is 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.520 a stealthy assassin dressed head to toe in cloth coverings, 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:06.080 usually black cloth or a black costume, with a mask 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.760 that covers most of the face except maybe like an 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.920 opening for the eyes or some other kind of gap 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.520 in the face covering, but otherwise head to toe, head 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:16.480 to toe black cloth. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.400 Yeah, that's just the iconic idea of a ninja. You 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.120 can't say the word ninja without picturing that. 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.480 On some level, what does the ninja do well? The 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:29.480 ninja is a master of martial arts combat with a 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:34.160 batman style belt of special tools and weapons, often including 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:38.400 a grappling hook for climbing, smoke bombs to hide an escape, 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.520 and pointed metal throwing stars that can be thrown with 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:42.600 deadly accuracy. 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.600 Right along with of course the katana for some sword play, 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:51.400 maybe various other little shorter sword, yeah, shorter swords, and 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:56.280 various you know, various gadgets has required generally all related 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:57.720 to stell then assassination. 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:03.200 They are often depicted as capable of almost superhuman acrobatics, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.720 bordering on the ability to fly, And I think it's 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.920 interesting Turnbull actually points this out in his book that 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:15.400 it is often within settings that are taken as otherwise realistic, 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:20.440 or within fictional settings where magic is not otherwise assumed 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:25.320 to exist, that ninja have these apparently supernatural abilities. You know, 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.880 it's not a full fantasy world, it's like realistic setting 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.680 but the ninjas can basically fly. Yeah. 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:33.640 Yeah, we'll get into more on that in a bit. 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.280 I'd say other aspects of the pop culture ninja is 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:41.320 that the ninja there's no like Ninja by night, blank 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:46.960 by day. Ninja are generally depicted as being like fanatics, 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:52.360 as being completely devoted to their art of stealth and assassination, 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.120 and in generally and oftentimes they're you know, villains and 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:58.880 sometimes secondary villains and a lot of properties, So there's 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.880 not a lot of effort given to develop their characters 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.200 outside of the adversary that they're presented as. 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.320 Yeah, sometimes they're presented as members of a sort of 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:13.080 secret international brotherhood of some kind that they belong to 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:19.720 some corpus or body of similarly trained people. In some cases, 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.520 I do think there are sort of alter ego you know, 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.520 Clark Kent Superman ninjas. In fact, I think there is 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.320 one in Ninja three, the Domination. Oh okay, so I 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.280 think it pops up from time to time, but I 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.800 agree that most of the time, in like American movies, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.400 it's as if all they ever do is like sneak 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.400 around and do stealth missions. 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.360 Right and have great, great eyes. We really want to 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:45.800 have really expressive eyes in your cinematic ninjas, you know, 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:47.600 because that's all you're going to see of the actor 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:49.119 at least, and when they're in ninja. 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:54.720 Mode, brows that narrow dramatically. Yeah, there's one more thing 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.360 I came across in Turnbull that I really liked regarding, 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:02.200 like the ninja's obscure tools techniques. There's one that is 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.680 from a novel by Yamato Futaro, who you mentioned a 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.840 minute ago is writing these influential ninja stories and novels 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:11.880 in the nineteen fifties. This is from a nineteen fifty 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:17.000 eight novel called Coca Ninpocho, which Turnbull says is basically 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.280 a mostly accurate historical setting, but the ninjas within the 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.400 story can turn their hair into porcupine quills, which they 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:30.160 like shoot off and launch his weapons, So like weaponized hair. 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.679 Yeah, yeah, the dark magic of the ninja. Now I 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.520 want to come back to Showgun for a second here. Showgun, 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.080 of course, it was a nineteen seventy five novel. There 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.840 is a subsequent TV mini series about it based on it, 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.240 and then there's been a more recent twenty twenty four 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:51.400 adaptation of Showgun that is quite excellent. I loved it. 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:54.760 My wife and I loved it. Everyone I've talked to 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.720 has really enjoyed it, and they went to great pains 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.800 with this adaptation to sort of make sure that it 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:05.480 was grounded as properly as they could in history and 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.919 in Japanese culture. Though James Colvell's Showgun is like an 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.480 adaptation of history, I guess you would say it is. 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.600 It is a work of fiction based on history, written 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.800 by an outsider who who was interested in these things. 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:25.479 But there is, of course this this pivotal sequence in 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.080 the novel and in adaptations that involved the ninja, and 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.080 it has been argued that Clavel helped introduce the concept 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.960 of ninja into the West. I've also read it argue 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.359 that like, for a while, this was a very successful novel, 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.280 a lot of people read it like a lot of 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:45.240 what many Westerners knew about about Japanese history in Japanese 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.480 culture was based on this book. You know, It's like 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.960 it was. It kind of had the same role as 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.240 you only live twice in this regard, a very popular 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.320 work of media that was for many people their their 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.840 first or primary exposure to this different culture and different 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.000 time period. Again, the novel's based on history, it's not 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.720 one accurate. I think the recent TV series does a 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.560 pretty good job of updating everything as far as I 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.760 understand it, and so the ninja or shinobi that we 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.800 see in it, they seem like they seem to have 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.320 done what they could to sort of ground it more properly. 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.800 Though I think they're still sort of reflecting the trappings 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.119 of the ninja's pop culture glow. So they're not all 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.919 dressed in black, and they're certainly not wearing white or 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.760 you know, bright Mortal Kombat colors, but they are they 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:39.480 are more recognizable as pop culture ninjas. Quick note on 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:45.000 the word ninja plural and singular is ninja, but I 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.760 am inevitably going to keep saying ninja's from time to time, 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:49.199 So my apologies. 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.160 I've been thinking about that exact thing. I realized, Yeah, 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.000 it's ninja is plural, but I bet I've already said ninja's. 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:57.200 I can't stop myself. 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.600 Yeah, But on the Showgun issue, I turned to editor 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:06.120 Henry Smith's book Learning from Showgun Japanese History in Western Fantasy. 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.320 This is put out as part of the program in 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.359 Asian Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:17.320 the editor and the authors here point out that ninjas 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.280 in the novel Showgun Quote reflect the romanticization of the 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.640 ninja in modern Japanese popular entertainment. So the idea here 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.879 that what we see in the novel and inevitably in 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.080 any adaptation, we see the ninja as this violent death 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:37.920 cult of fanatical assassins. And as we'll be discussing, there's 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.920 some truth to that, to their role in assassination and 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:45.639 stealth and even military endeavors. But there's a lot more 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.119 of the myth in the legend here in this usage 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.760 of the ninja than anything. 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:55.560 Else, and the overtaking of historical fact by sort of 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.800 myth and storytelling and romanticization of the ninja, that that 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.679 tradition that goes way back. Actually it's not just a 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:05.520 twentieth century thing. 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.480 And it's not just a Western appropriation of it or 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.720 anything like that. Like it would be easier to sort 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.200 of sum it all up if it were like, well, 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:16.360 there's the Japanese reality of what ninjas were, and then 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:18.280 westerner's got a hold of it, and of course they 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:22.000 transformed it. There is some Western transformation of it involved, 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:25.160 but for the most part, this transformation of the historic 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:29.040 ninja into the pop cultural trope of the ninja. This 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:34.000 all occurred within Japanese popular culture well in advance of 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:35.879 anything James Bond got up to. 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.639 Yeah. One thing I think we should establish early, and 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.879 this is something that is a major theme of this 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.919 book by Turnbull that I've been referencing, is that apparently 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.440 a huge amount of what is commonly said about the ninja, 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:54.400 even in apparently authoritative books and museums and other historical sources, 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:59.800 is based on text traditions that do not necessarily reflect 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.600 what really happened in history. So there is sort of 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.400 a ninja tradition, or maybe to be more phonetically accurate, 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:11.760 a shanobi tradition that is Japanese in origin and does 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:15.240 in many ways go back hundreds of years, but still 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.359 may not be based on real figures and practices in 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:22.320 history that the term shinobi originally referred to. 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:25.919 Yeah. Absolutely, Like in the past, I've heard people be 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:30.119 as firm as to say the ninja didn't really exist, 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:32.680 the ninja are a myth, and I think you could 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.159 basically say that that's a true statement to some degree, 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:39.400 Like the ninja as we see them in popular culture 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:44.080 didn't really exist, but they are based on a thing 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:47.560 that did, and it's fun to get into that and 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.199 try and piece apart, like what was real, what was 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.359 probably real, what isn't an embellishment, and why does that 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.439 embellishment mean. In the book by Yoda and All, they 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:01.640 point out that, like basically the term ninja or even snob, 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.560 we're dealing with a colloquial term that can be translated 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.320 to things like, you know, a clandestine person or one 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:13.600 who is invisible. But historically they would have been known 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:17.479 by a whole bunch of different colloquial terms, including, but 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:20.639 not limited to, a few of these examples. So there's 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:26.520 ninjutsu tuska, which means like a practitioner of ninjutsu the 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:31.000 art of stealth. There's one called omitsu, which would have 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.879 meant like the secret service. And then there are a 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:36.200 couple here I want to include that I think are 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:39.440 neat because they kind of hint at some of the other, 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:43.000 like non stereotypical modern ninja things they would have been 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:49.600 up to. There's one which we have translated to the shortcutters, 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:52.239 which I rather like, you know, it's like you have 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:57.360 some sort of a political, military, or social problem, and 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:03.600 traditional honorable means of dealing with those problems are not achievable. 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:05.919 So what do you need. You need a shortcut, and 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:08.120 that's why you seek out the shortcutters. 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:09.200 That's very cool. 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:12.800 There's another one that I believe is ukami that I've 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:16.040 seen translated as the silent watchers, And I think that's 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:20.560 also important here because while, yeah, while while the historic 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:25.160 ninjas would have involved themselves or been hired to deal 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:28.800 in military and assassination type scenarios, they also might have 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:34.720 been involved in entirely non violent affairs as well, things 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:36.959 that we might typically describe more as like straight up 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:38.600 spy and espionage business. 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:42.360 And often I think I've seen the word ukami translated 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:46.000 as spy. Yeah, And that leads back to how I 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:49.800 think many of the earliest understandings of the ninja or 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:55.160 shanobi have to do with spying and infiltration in warfare, 0:24:56.359 --> 0:24:59.919 and so to situate the classical understanding of the nin 0:25:00.240 --> 0:25:03.800 within a conceptual context, I wanted to talk briefly about 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:08.600 the precedent of using spies and infiltrators in war and 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:11.960 Turnbull does this by making reference in his book to 0:25:12.080 --> 0:25:15.440 the classic Chinese text The Art of War by sun 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:18.640 Zu or Turnbull calls him sun Z. I guess they're 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:21.840 different ways of pronouncing the name, but I think I'm 0:25:21.840 --> 0:25:24.280 gonna say sun Zu because that's more familiar to me. 0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:28.280 So this is a classic Chinese text, usually dated to 0:25:28.320 --> 0:25:31.879 the fifth century BCE. Apparently many of the authors of 0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:35.120 the Tokugawa period who wrote the Tales of the Shinobi 0:25:35.280 --> 0:25:38.000 establishing a lot of this lore, would have been very 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:40.560 familiar with Sunzu in the Art of War and other 0:25:40.600 --> 0:25:45.080 sort of warfare manuals of this type. And apparently Sunzu 0:25:45.359 --> 0:25:49.520 talks about the concept of a secret agent, referring to 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:53.919 it with the Chinese character khan, which means the space 0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:58.440 between two objects or discord. So this refers to the 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:03.160 use of secret agents to undermine alliances and sew division 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:07.280 within within societies or within within armies. And sons who 0:26:07.280 --> 0:26:10.600 actually sort of lays out a taxonomy of five different 0:26:10.720 --> 0:26:13.879 kinds of secret agents. I thought this was interesting. So 0:26:14.000 --> 0:26:17.520 first of all, you've got your incon or native agents. 0:26:18.080 --> 0:26:22.080 These are villagers of an enemy's province or country. He says, 0:26:22.320 --> 0:26:25.399 you can't really expect them to do like risky work 0:26:25.600 --> 0:26:29.040 or carry out difficult missions, so they are mainly useful 0:26:29.119 --> 0:26:33.320 for just gathering general information about the enemy's disposition, maybe 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:35.720 like where the enemy is or the direction of travel 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:39.440 and so forth. Then after that you've got nikon, which 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:44.400 are inside agents. These are officials of the enemy government 0:26:44.640 --> 0:26:48.400 drafted to your side by bribes or pay. These agents 0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:52.480 can supply much better quality information and they are especially 0:26:52.560 --> 0:26:56.399 useful for creating discord within enemy ranks. And if you 0:26:56.440 --> 0:26:59.240 want to identify these people, you can look for officials 0:26:59.320 --> 0:27:02.680 within the government who have been slighted in some way, 0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:07.439 like maybe being insulted or passed over for promotion. Find 0:27:07.480 --> 0:27:11.040 someone who has power who thinks that your enemy has 0:27:11.080 --> 0:27:16.360 treated them unfairly. After that you've got yukon or friendly agents. 0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:20.679 This apparently refers to double agents. So the enemy has 0:27:20.720 --> 0:27:24.160 spies as well you are. If you want a double agent, 0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:27.679 you can recruit the enemy's spy to actually spy for 0:27:27.840 --> 0:27:31.680 you or to feed false information to their masters. Classic 0:27:31.720 --> 0:27:34.760 double agents set up. Yeah, then there's one called chi khan, 0:27:34.920 --> 0:27:39.080 which means dead agents. This one is interesting and pretty cold. 0:27:39.240 --> 0:27:44.159 It's the idea of expendable allies who can unknowingly be 0:27:44.280 --> 0:27:47.719 given false information which they believe to be true, and 0:27:47.760 --> 0:27:51.320 then sent deliberately into enemy capture, so when information is 0:27:51.400 --> 0:27:54.640 extracted from them, it will mislead the enemy command. 0:27:55.520 --> 0:27:56.399 Yeah, that is cold. 0:27:56.840 --> 0:27:59.720 But then finally you get to Chokan, the last of 0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:04.360 the five, who are called living agents, and what Turnbull 0:28:04.359 --> 0:28:08.160 says about them is the following quote. They go boldly 0:28:08.200 --> 0:28:12.840 into enemy territory and return with valuable information. For this purpose, 0:28:13.119 --> 0:28:16.240 men who are pre eminent in intelligence are selected. They 0:28:16.280 --> 0:28:19.280 have the ability to withstand great hardship and have the 0:28:19.359 --> 0:28:22.320 social skills to gain access to those of the enemy 0:28:22.320 --> 0:28:24.880 who are closest to the seat of power. These are 0:28:24.920 --> 0:28:29.159 the classic spies envisaged by the ninja myth. So to 0:28:29.160 --> 0:28:31.639 be clear, these are not being called ninja or anything 0:28:31.640 --> 0:28:34.159 in this context. This is a much earlier work, but 0:28:34.240 --> 0:28:38.160 it's establishing this sort of principle within warfare and within 0:28:38.200 --> 0:28:41.760 the taxonomy of spies and secret agents, that there's already 0:28:41.800 --> 0:28:45.320 this idea of this like James Bond spy kind of figure, 0:28:45.480 --> 0:28:49.680 or this ninja, this person who is who is an 0:28:49.680 --> 0:28:52.360 agent who can strike out on their own, who can 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:57.480 act and has some kind of like has capability, has powers, 0:28:57.520 --> 0:29:01.400 and they can go into hostile territory and carry out 0:29:01.440 --> 0:29:05.600 a mission to gather information or sow discord or do 0:29:05.680 --> 0:29:06.520 whatever is needed. 0:29:06.840 --> 0:29:08.480 Yeah, and of course, in all of this, sun Zoo 0:29:08.520 --> 0:29:13.320 is codifying like realities that already existed in warfare. One 0:29:13.320 --> 0:29:14.800 thing that Yoda and all point out is you can 0:29:14.800 --> 0:29:19.080 look into various old texts and some ancient texts, and 0:29:19.120 --> 0:29:22.000 you can see allusions to this kind of spycraft. There 0:29:22.000 --> 0:29:26.560 are apparently examples from the Old Testament that also involve, 0:29:26.680 --> 0:29:29.120 you know, something you could interpret us as spy work 0:29:29.240 --> 0:29:32.000 and espionage, like you go out on this mission, do 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:36.880 this thing, you know, so, you know, again codifying realities 0:29:36.880 --> 0:29:41.400 that were already present, but meaningfully doing so meaningfully and 0:29:41.480 --> 0:29:45.239 in a very influential way that with the ripples are 0:29:45.240 --> 0:29:48.760 going to spread of course, out of China, through Japan 0:29:48.880 --> 0:29:50.480 and ultimately globally. 0:29:50.760 --> 0:29:52.440 I do think it's kind of interesting that if you 0:29:52.480 --> 0:29:55.760 think beyond the concept of just the ninja and to 0:29:55.800 --> 0:30:00.960 the broader idea of like any character in fiction who 0:30:01.120 --> 0:30:05.160 is depicted as having like peak abilities in almost every domain, 0:30:05.320 --> 0:30:08.600 like they know everything, they're the smartest, they speak all 0:30:08.600 --> 0:30:12.320 these languages, they're you know, unbeatable in hand to hand combat. 0:30:12.960 --> 0:30:17.360 I would say the most common profession this character has 0:30:17.520 --> 0:30:19.880 is spy. Isn't that kind of interesting? 0:30:20.480 --> 0:30:23.000 It is interesting? Yeah, I mean on one level, I 0:30:23.040 --> 0:30:27.680 think it it's a realization of the intense level of 0:30:27.760 --> 0:30:30.600 danger that individuals like this would put themselves in. Like 0:30:30.680 --> 0:30:33.760 even if they're you know, not involved in an actual 0:30:33.880 --> 0:30:38.760 like ninja movie fight and stealth sequence, you know, it's 0:30:38.800 --> 0:30:41.760 like the intense danger of engaging in that level of 0:30:41.800 --> 0:30:45.200 deception and betrayal, you know, like on just like a 0:30:45.280 --> 0:30:48.680 social level and a legal level, like you're in you're 0:30:48.680 --> 0:30:52.840 engaging in a high level of danger. Now, another interesting 0:30:52.840 --> 0:30:54.360 thing we didn't mention this when we talked about the 0:30:54.400 --> 0:30:57.280 trope of the ninja in popular culture, But another thing 0:30:57.320 --> 0:31:00.520 you frequently see you will see examples of ninja is who, 0:31:00.920 --> 0:31:05.400 you know, use modern gadgets and or are robots or cyborgs. 0:31:05.600 --> 0:31:07.000 There's a lot of fun to be had there. But 0:31:07.040 --> 0:31:10.200 a lot of times the ninja is depicted as an 0:31:10.200 --> 0:31:14.040 operative even in like a modern or nineteen eighties nineteen 0:31:14.120 --> 0:31:19.400 ninety setting, who depends in large part on traditional even 0:31:19.520 --> 0:31:23.600 archaic weapons used with great skill. But like if a 0:31:24.200 --> 0:31:27.120 ninja needs to you know, get past a you know, 0:31:27.160 --> 0:31:30.840 computer console on a security door. You're more likely to 0:31:30.880 --> 0:31:33.680 see that movie Ninja throw a throwing star through it, right, 0:31:33.960 --> 0:31:35.719 or shoot it with a bow and arrow, as opposed 0:31:35.760 --> 0:31:38.600 to get down there and stick in a USB stick 0:31:38.720 --> 0:31:42.160 or start you know, hacking the computer system. 0:31:42.440 --> 0:31:44.480 Yeah. I really have a picture in my mind of 0:31:44.600 --> 0:31:47.719 somebody like chucking a throwing star into a computer and 0:31:47.760 --> 0:31:50.560 like sparks shoot out of it. Yeah, that's that's how 0:31:50.600 --> 0:31:51.560 you get past security. 0:31:52.240 --> 0:31:56.920 But an important point that Yoda and altamaic about the 0:31:56.480 --> 0:31:58.720 the the myth of the Ninja and the modern idea 0:31:58.720 --> 0:32:02.440 of the Ninja versus the historic reality as we understand it, 0:32:02.480 --> 0:32:06.280 is that these individuals would not have been picky about 0:32:06.560 --> 0:32:09.080 like what level of technology that they used. In fact, 0:32:09.120 --> 0:32:13.160 they would have used like the latest advancements available, such 0:32:13.200 --> 0:32:17.920 as gunpowder for example. So it's kind of just a 0:32:18.000 --> 0:32:22.600 virtue of us spinning modern tales about an older pop 0:32:22.640 --> 0:32:27.280 cultural idea than anything like. So, yeah, if the Ninja 0:32:27.320 --> 0:32:31.280 had access to James Bond spy gadgets, they would use 0:32:31.320 --> 0:32:34.320 those James Bond spy gadgets like they are like any 0:32:34.760 --> 0:32:37.720 espionage operative out there. They'll make use of the best 0:32:37.720 --> 0:32:39.560 tools available to pull off the deed. 0:32:49.120 --> 0:32:52.760 Now, another interesting way of understanding that the ninja character archetype, 0:32:52.760 --> 0:32:57.720 by contrast, is something that the Turnbull highlights in the book, 0:32:57.760 --> 0:33:02.160 which is the idea of the ninja as the quote 0:33:02.320 --> 0:33:07.920 dark antithesis of the samurai, another historical character. Now, again, 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:11.760 this is something that is not necessarily a historical reality. 0:33:11.840 --> 0:33:15.200 This is something that is That is how the ninja 0:33:15.280 --> 0:33:20.280 archetype is reflected within storytelling and tradition, not necessarily historically real, 0:33:20.800 --> 0:33:23.880 but within these traditions you can see that see the 0:33:23.920 --> 0:33:28.760 contrast here. The samurai are warriors who are nobles. The 0:33:28.880 --> 0:33:33.160 ninja are often represented as commoners. The samurai are depicted 0:33:33.200 --> 0:33:37.280 as loyal and honorable, the ninja as treacherous and mercenary. 0:33:37.760 --> 0:33:40.160 The samurai fight their enemy face to face, while the 0:33:40.240 --> 0:33:42.720 ninja sneak up on people, you know that, stab people 0:33:42.720 --> 0:33:46.720 in the back. And as a spy, the ninja must 0:33:46.760 --> 0:33:50.400 always survive the mission at all costs to deliver the 0:33:50.440 --> 0:33:54.400 gathered intelligence, whereas the samurai is very often depicted as 0:33:54.520 --> 0:33:58.640 dying selflessly in battle and maintaining having an honorable death. 0:33:59.600 --> 0:34:03.080 And so in all these ways, within the storytelling tradition, 0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:06.480 the ninja could often be seen as positioned as like 0:34:06.600 --> 0:34:11.440 the the the negative mirror image of the samurai warrior trope. 0:34:12.080 --> 0:34:14.640 Yeah, yeah, I think that that is key, and it 0:34:14.680 --> 0:34:18.080 does seem to get into some historic realities like, for instance, 0:34:18.120 --> 0:34:21.960 the idea that that that apparently ninja would have very 0:34:22.000 --> 0:34:26.400 often been lower born men and women as opposed to 0:34:27.360 --> 0:34:31.600 warrior class individuals. So there is this like the social 0:34:31.640 --> 0:34:34.160 distinction there. But and then also when it comes down 0:34:34.160 --> 0:34:37.279 to what stories are told and celebrated, the stories of 0:34:37.280 --> 0:34:42.640 the samurai were celebrated and told and retold, and legends 0:34:42.680 --> 0:34:46.440 were told about them far ahead of anything like this 0:34:46.560 --> 0:34:50.200 with the ninja. The ninja would would have been essentially 0:34:50.239 --> 0:34:54.520 been the dirty tricks department for any feudal lord looking 0:34:54.560 --> 0:34:58.360 to solve some sort of again political, military, or social 0:34:58.440 --> 0:35:02.279 problem that they couldn't their wise approach, and it was 0:35:02.400 --> 0:35:06.080 not something that you would have talked about in polite society. 0:35:06.200 --> 0:35:10.000 Like the shnobi and the various colloquial terms would have 0:35:10.000 --> 0:35:13.399 been synonymous with trouble. They weren't to be celebrated, even 0:35:13.400 --> 0:35:17.279 if you prize their skills secretly, and in employing them 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:20.600 you would have hoped to retain plausible deniability over whatever 0:35:20.719 --> 0:35:23.319 was about to happen. In general, we may we may 0:35:23.360 --> 0:35:26.840 get into some you know, some some examples to the contrary, 0:35:26.880 --> 0:35:29.880 but in general like this, this was this was the 0:35:29.880 --> 0:35:30.920 dirty tricks department. 0:35:31.400 --> 0:35:33.920 But yes, to come back to your point, despite the 0:35:34.040 --> 0:35:39.520 later profusion of valorizing tales, you know, often at the time, people, uh, people, 0:35:39.560 --> 0:35:42.560 people don't feel so excited or proud about I don't know, 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:46.759 deception in warfare or secretive military activities, even if they 0:35:46.800 --> 0:35:48.399 are necessary to winning. 0:35:48.520 --> 0:35:52.960 Sometimes, yeah, better to celebrate the tale of the noble 0:35:53.000 --> 0:35:57.200 and victorious samurai than the the shnov that you pay 0:35:57.280 --> 0:35:59.600 to go in and stab somebody in the back. Now, 0:35:59.640 --> 0:36:01.560 I want to at a quick note, I mentioned men 0:36:01.640 --> 0:36:05.399 and women, and on the subject of female ninja, they 0:36:05.520 --> 0:36:09.080 did apparently exist, though the reality was likely nowhere near 0:36:09.200 --> 0:36:12.920 what image may be summoned in your head here. You know, 0:36:12.960 --> 0:36:16.680 the various pop culture ideas of a female ninja. Yoda 0:36:16.719 --> 0:36:18.799 and all point out that there's no indication that any 0:36:18.800 --> 0:36:21.480 female ninja ever engaged in combat of any kind, or 0:36:21.520 --> 0:36:25.600 again that we have no direct evidence or writings of that. 0:36:26.000 --> 0:36:29.120 But female spies at the very least would have been 0:36:29.440 --> 0:36:32.719 able to move through parts of society that would have 0:36:32.760 --> 0:36:37.440 been less accessible or inaccessible to men, or move in 0:36:37.520 --> 0:36:41.360 ways that men would easily overlook. They might disguise themselves 0:36:41.400 --> 0:36:46.560 as entertainers, as prostitutes, as household staff, and of particular note, 0:36:46.760 --> 0:36:50.960 as transient Mico holy women. So these would have been 0:36:51.840 --> 0:36:55.120 the modern version is this. They tend to Shinto shrines 0:36:55.160 --> 0:36:57.160 and so forth. But this would have been like a 0:36:57.160 --> 0:37:00.080 loose knit order, so not a lot of like you know, 0:37:00.160 --> 0:37:03.640 you can't like check the papers as much of these individuals, 0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:06.759 and they would have traveled around, So it's a great 0:37:07.239 --> 0:37:11.560 cover story. If for any female ninjas, female spies that 0:37:11.600 --> 0:37:14.239 would have been utilized, it would have been an ideal cover. 0:37:15.480 --> 0:37:17.840 And these are sometimes referred to as the kono ichi, 0:37:19.520 --> 0:37:22.080 but very little is known about them. The use of 0:37:22.239 --> 0:37:25.719 female spies may have been considered even more taboo than 0:37:25.840 --> 0:37:30.800 just using spies or shnovi in general. And we really 0:37:30.840 --> 0:37:34.239 only have legends about a single named female ninja. This 0:37:34.280 --> 0:37:39.200 would have been the sixteenth century figure Mochizuki chi Yojo. 0:37:40.200 --> 0:37:42.279 It is thought that she was a real person, but 0:37:42.360 --> 0:37:46.319 we don't even know the like one correct pronunciation of 0:37:46.320 --> 0:37:51.200 her name. But still it was probably a real person. 0:37:51.239 --> 0:37:53.360 Based on what I've been reading. But anyway, all of 0:37:53.400 --> 0:37:55.720 this makes sense because again, this is about not playing 0:37:55.800 --> 0:37:58.880 by the rules. This is about breaking the rules, doing 0:37:58.920 --> 0:38:04.120 the taboo thing in order to achieve your military political goals. 0:38:04.480 --> 0:38:07.600 And so in that case, you know, all cards are 0:38:07.600 --> 0:38:09.120 on the table there, Rob. 0:38:09.200 --> 0:38:12.400 So you found something about like the earliest references to 0:38:12.600 --> 0:38:14.920 ninjas in their all black costume. 0:38:15.440 --> 0:38:19.040 Yeah, this is this was really interesting because you know, 0:38:19.080 --> 0:38:21.640 the iconic vision of the of the ninja, as we've 0:38:21.640 --> 0:38:25.600 been discussing, is that of the ninja and all black, 0:38:25.960 --> 0:38:28.920 you know, blending into the shadows, creeping along the rooftops 0:38:28.920 --> 0:38:32.040 and so forth, like you just you can't separate that 0:38:32.080 --> 0:38:35.880 from the pop culture idea of the ninja. But this seemed, 0:38:35.880 --> 0:38:38.440 this idea that they wore all black and trooped around 0:38:38.480 --> 0:38:42.280 like this apparently did not emerge in Japan until around 0:38:42.280 --> 0:38:47.120 eighteen seventeen, or at least that's when we see the 0:38:47.160 --> 0:38:52.280 first known print, the first known image of a ninja 0:38:52.320 --> 0:38:55.800 wearing this sort of garb, and it actually ties into 0:38:56.640 --> 0:39:03.640 a very important figure in Japanese art history, Katsushi Kuhoku Sai, who, 0:39:03.920 --> 0:39:06.920 if you're not familiar with his name, you're very familiar 0:39:06.960 --> 0:39:09.120 with at least his most famous piece, and that is 0:39:09.160 --> 0:39:12.399 the great wave of kind of Gatwa. This artist lives 0:39:12.440 --> 0:39:14.359 seventeen sixty through eighteen forty nine. 0:39:14.880 --> 0:39:17.240 And so what do we see in his woodblock featuring 0:39:17.239 --> 0:39:18.000 a ninja. 0:39:18.080 --> 0:39:21.120 Well, we see something that is just instantly recognizable as 0:39:21.120 --> 0:39:23.120 a modern ninja. Like you could not mistake this for 0:39:23.200 --> 0:39:27.160 anything else, right, because it is a man all in black, 0:39:27.520 --> 0:39:30.719 everything covered except his eyes, and he's climbing a rope 0:39:30.800 --> 0:39:33.160 and you just know he's climbing. You know, he's climbing 0:39:33.280 --> 0:39:36.439 somewhere he's not supposed to be, or he's returning from 0:39:36.440 --> 0:39:41.520 that place having assassinated somebody, or having stolen some important 0:39:41.560 --> 0:39:45.919 scrolls or something to that. To that effect, Now, where 0:39:45.960 --> 0:39:48.680 does this come from? I mean, I'm you would be tempted, 0:39:48.680 --> 0:39:51.280 and I think would be very understandable to guess, well, 0:39:51.360 --> 0:39:54.160 you're just you're making an assumption that if you're up 0:39:54.160 --> 0:39:56.839 to secretive things, you might wear all black to blend in, right, 0:39:56.880 --> 0:40:00.640 I mean, it makes sense, and it it has been 0:40:00.680 --> 0:40:03.479 pointed out that, you know, it would be ridiculous to say, 0:40:03.880 --> 0:40:07.000 no historic ninja's ever dressed like this, because in the 0:40:07.400 --> 0:40:10.319 art of espionage, it you know, it might make sense 0:40:10.360 --> 0:40:13.839 to do so at some point, but it's been interpreted 0:40:14.440 --> 0:40:18.279 that what we see here is essentially like a use 0:40:18.360 --> 0:40:23.160 or a repurpose of what in Japanese theater is known 0:40:23.200 --> 0:40:26.520 as a kuroko, which is someone that is dressed all 0:40:26.600 --> 0:40:31.400 in black, essentially a stage hand that is there to 0:40:31.520 --> 0:40:33.560 aid in the production in ways that you know, that 0:40:33.680 --> 0:40:37.280 don't distract from the key performance. And this is something 0:40:37.280 --> 0:40:39.560 we see in theater arts around the world as well. 0:40:39.600 --> 0:40:42.239 You see it in puppetry, for example, you want an 0:40:42.280 --> 0:40:45.640 invisible puppeteer, then you have them just wear all black 0:40:45.680 --> 0:40:48.880 and black over their faces as well, so they blend 0:40:48.960 --> 0:40:51.960 into the background and don't distract from the central performance. 0:40:52.160 --> 0:40:54.680 Yeah, when I've done theater, you know, people working backstage 0:40:54.680 --> 0:40:56.560 were dressed in all black, and I guess the idea 0:40:56.640 --> 0:40:58.799 is you're you're just less likely to be seen that way. 0:40:59.280 --> 0:41:03.000 But yeah, hern Bul talks about this that in traditional 0:41:03.160 --> 0:41:06.840 kabuki theater, there were these figures, the corogo or the coroko, 0:41:06.960 --> 0:41:11.360 who would wear all black to like move scenery around 0:41:11.640 --> 0:41:15.560 or maybe like help the actors change costume within view 0:41:15.600 --> 0:41:18.360 of the audience or something. But they would be dressed 0:41:18.360 --> 0:41:20.520 in black and they would have a mask over their face, 0:41:20.640 --> 0:41:24.040 and this would symbolize it would not only make them 0:41:24.239 --> 0:41:29.120 stand out less visually, but also apparently would like symbolize invisibility. 0:41:29.719 --> 0:41:32.160 Yeah, so what we're looking at here is interesting. It's 0:41:32.200 --> 0:41:34.919 kind of a mash up, a visual mashup of the 0:41:34.960 --> 0:41:39.280 idea of the invisible ninja and the mostly invisible presence 0:41:39.320 --> 0:41:42.160 of the stage hand. And of course the stage hand 0:41:42.200 --> 0:41:46.320 is literally manipulating reality, but in a way that is 0:41:46.360 --> 0:41:49.840 supposed to be secondary to the performers. Also interesting to 0:41:49.880 --> 0:41:53.160 think about that a lot of these productions are going 0:41:53.200 --> 0:41:55.600 to involve samurai, you know, so you're going to have 0:41:55.640 --> 0:41:58.399 like the samurai in the forefront doing all the really 0:41:58.400 --> 0:42:01.960 important dramatic stuff, but in the background there are these 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:06.120 almost invisible characters who are doing something else, something that 0:42:06.320 --> 0:42:09.120 that we're not meant to know about. 0:42:09.440 --> 0:42:11.880 Yeah, but of course, the ironic thing about like dressing 0:42:11.920 --> 0:42:14.520 in a full black costume head to toe is that 0:42:14.640 --> 0:42:17.360 if somebody saw you and you were wearing this costume 0:42:17.400 --> 0:42:20.360 you were you would instantly stand out in reality, like 0:42:20.440 --> 0:42:22.960 with not in the context of a stage play or something. 0:42:23.760 --> 0:42:26.319 And so yeah, it's it's a contradiction to what would 0:42:26.400 --> 0:42:28.799 actually be said in most of the texts that talk 0:42:28.800 --> 0:42:31.839 about ninja or shanobi going way back, they say, oh, 0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:34.400 you know what these people would do is wear a disguise, 0:42:34.600 --> 0:42:36.959 so you blend in with the people that you're trying 0:42:37.000 --> 0:42:38.600 to infiltrate. Yeah. 0:42:38.719 --> 0:42:42.319 So yeah, in general, when we think about what would 0:42:42.320 --> 0:42:44.839 a ninja look like, what would a shnobi look like, 0:42:45.040 --> 0:42:47.479 they would just look like anybody else. The best way 0:42:47.520 --> 0:42:50.279 to move from point A to point B through the 0:42:50.320 --> 0:42:53.359 people is to look like the people, and so that's 0:42:53.400 --> 0:42:56.040 what they would have done. I guess James Bond does this. 0:42:56.080 --> 0:42:58.000 I can't remember. James Bond's always wearing it. He's always 0:42:58.040 --> 0:43:00.200 going places where you wear a tuxedo anyways, so I 0:43:00.239 --> 0:43:03.040 guess it's like he's doing that. But you know, in general, 0:43:03.120 --> 0:43:05.640 like a spy is going to want to blend into 0:43:05.640 --> 0:43:07.480 the crowd. They don't want to stand out. You know, 0:43:07.560 --> 0:43:12.640 It's that you want to be the least interesting looking 0:43:12.719 --> 0:43:15.960 person in the room because nobody is supposed to know 0:43:16.040 --> 0:43:16.439 you're there. 0:43:17.080 --> 0:43:20.040 I guess it actually highlights a tension between the reality 0:43:20.280 --> 0:43:25.680 of intelligence gathering and spy work and the sort of 0:43:26.080 --> 0:43:28.239 the media demands, which is like, when you want to 0:43:28.239 --> 0:43:30.040 read a spy story, you want it to be the 0:43:30.080 --> 0:43:33.560 most thrilling and exciting thing possible. So you want the 0:43:33.600 --> 0:43:36.719 spy hero to be like to stand out, to be 0:43:36.800 --> 0:43:39.920 notable and exciting in every way, And in reality, if 0:43:39.920 --> 0:43:41.759 you were doing spy work, you would want to be 0:43:41.800 --> 0:43:45.720 the least exciting, least notable looking person on earth. 0:43:46.000 --> 0:43:49.640 Yeah. Absolutely so. I guess at this point we might summarize, 0:43:49.920 --> 0:43:53.040 as we kind of reached towards the end of this episode, 0:43:53.400 --> 0:44:00.120 that the Ninja is there's a historical like bedrock, and 0:44:00.160 --> 0:44:03.560 then there is all of this fiction and legend making 0:44:03.640 --> 0:44:07.640 and mythology on top of that. And one of the 0:44:07.680 --> 0:44:14.360 additional challenges here is that there's there's less historical record 0:44:15.040 --> 0:44:18.200 down there on the bedrock than one would like. There's 0:44:18.280 --> 0:44:21.719 a lot more fiction and legend making, and it can 0:44:21.760 --> 0:44:24.000 make things things difficult. It can make it difficult to 0:44:24.040 --> 0:44:26.600 sort of try to weed out what exactly is the 0:44:26.800 --> 0:44:32.520 historic reality of the Shanoby. And then these various groups 0:44:32.560 --> 0:44:37.400 that are described as Shanoby and there apparently are according 0:44:37.400 --> 0:44:40.520 to Yoda and A there are like three different ways 0:44:40.560 --> 0:44:43.240 of sort of looking at why this is the case. 0:44:43.960 --> 0:44:47.200 And the first is something that we've touched on already, 0:44:47.239 --> 0:44:51.279 and that is that, okay, if if Shanoby operatives were 0:44:51.360 --> 0:44:56.200 generally common born dirty tricks specialists who were you know, 0:44:56.320 --> 0:45:01.040 taboo to use and not something you'd brag about, they're 0:45:01.120 --> 0:45:03.799 totally not on the same level of cultural esteem and 0:45:03.840 --> 0:45:07.719 power as the samurai warrior class. So the samurai are 0:45:07.760 --> 0:45:09.480 going to get all the stories and the legends and 0:45:09.520 --> 0:45:12.480 the tales at least during their initial that the key 0:45:12.520 --> 0:45:16.719 period of operations here in the Ninja are going to 0:45:16.760 --> 0:45:22.120 be ignored for the most part. Now, another important thing 0:45:22.160 --> 0:45:25.440 to keep in mind is that the Ninja would have 0:45:25.520 --> 0:45:29.200 inevitably been a secretive bunch. They were working in the shadow, 0:45:30.400 --> 0:45:34.840 they existed under the radar, and Yoda and Auld actually 0:45:34.920 --> 0:45:39.440 signed an individual by the name of Musque Hatsumi, the 0:45:39.560 --> 0:45:43.680 last living descendant of the Tokukushi school of ninja, who 0:45:43.880 --> 0:45:47.840 stated that quote, if one can know the truth about ninjutsu, 0:45:48.000 --> 0:45:52.359 it isn't really ninjutsu. So this reminds me a bit 0:45:52.480 --> 0:45:56.879 of the nineteen sixty seven Japanese crime thriller Branded to Kill, 0:45:57.280 --> 0:46:02.040 which is a very stylish noir action picture about assassins. 0:46:02.080 --> 0:46:04.960 But in that movie, which again is very much work 0:46:05.000 --> 0:46:07.359 of fiction, that's not to be taken in reality, it's 0:46:07.640 --> 0:46:11.239 very surreal in some ways. But in that fiction, there's 0:46:11.360 --> 0:46:14.800 like this ranking of assassins, and there's supposedly a number 0:46:14.840 --> 0:46:19.239 one assassin, like the best assassin in the world of 0:46:19.320 --> 0:46:23.040 Japanese crime. But they are almost like a ghost. They 0:46:23.160 --> 0:46:26.359 might not even exist, or perhaps they've kind of transcended 0:46:26.719 --> 0:46:29.600 traditional existence by being the best at what they do. 0:46:30.760 --> 0:46:33.120 So yeah, I do like this idea, and I think 0:46:33.160 --> 0:46:35.480 there may be is something to acknowledge there that you're 0:46:35.520 --> 0:46:38.759 dealing with the secret of organization that wouldn't want there 0:46:38.800 --> 0:46:40.680 to be a bunch of records about what they did 0:46:40.760 --> 0:46:43.400 and what they're doing. They would have wanted to remain 0:46:43.440 --> 0:46:45.919 in the shadow. And then the third point they make 0:46:46.120 --> 0:46:50.160 is that during the heyday of the Sengoku era, the 0:46:50.160 --> 0:46:53.759 warring States of fourteen sixty seven through fifteen seventy three, 0:46:53.840 --> 0:46:58.160 roughly the ninja were not fun. They were synonymous with 0:46:58.200 --> 0:47:01.920 trouble and unrest. Again coming back to the idea of 0:47:01.960 --> 0:47:05.720 shinobi as an adjective as well, And it was only later, 0:47:05.880 --> 0:47:08.440 during the comparable piece and stability of say the Edo 0:47:08.520 --> 0:47:12.200 period sixteen oh three through eighteen sixty eight, that new 0:47:12.280 --> 0:47:16.080 generations had the luxury of turning and looking back to 0:47:16.120 --> 0:47:19.080 the horrors of the past to spin out new tales 0:47:19.160 --> 0:47:23.080 of their stealthy exploits for entertainment purposes. 0:47:23.560 --> 0:47:26.000 Well, I think maybe we are out of time for 0:47:26.080 --> 0:47:28.000 part one, but there's a lot more to say about 0:47:28.000 --> 0:47:33.120 the ninja, trying to unravel the historical complexities, the differences 0:47:33.160 --> 0:47:36.000 between what we know and what is more likely some 0:47:36.080 --> 0:47:40.759 kind of historical fiction or invented tradition, untangling those differences, 0:47:41.120 --> 0:47:43.520 as well as getting into some of the great anecdotes 0:47:43.800 --> 0:47:48.279 and stories about historical alleged historical Ninja, as well as 0:47:48.320 --> 0:47:50.440 maybe some of the science of their tools and tricks. 0:47:50.680 --> 0:47:53.040 Yeah, I think we can definitely spin off some ninja 0:47:53.120 --> 0:47:57.399 science in a subsequent episode. So excited to get into 0:47:57.400 --> 0:47:59.440 that later on. But we have a lot more to cover, 0:48:01.160 --> 0:48:06.880 various named ninjas of history and legend worth talking about 0:48:07.400 --> 0:48:10.520 some more about just how you know this, this interwoven 0:48:10.600 --> 0:48:14.400 idea of the ninja comes to fruition and so forth, 0:48:14.640 --> 0:48:16.919 So keep on the lookout for that. By the way, 0:48:16.920 --> 0:48:19.840 that book that I mentioned by Yoda and Alt Ninja Attack, 0:48:20.360 --> 0:48:22.680 this is one of three books that they put out. 0:48:23.000 --> 0:48:26.040 The other two are on Yo Kai and Yuri. If 0:48:26.040 --> 0:48:27.560 you look these up, you're going to notice that it 0:48:27.560 --> 0:48:30.520 has some very flashy, fun illustrations on the cover. I 0:48:30.560 --> 0:48:35.040 believe that the illustrator is Utaka Kondo, and it has 0:48:35.080 --> 0:48:39.000 like a very fun manga look to everything. But these 0:48:39.040 --> 0:48:44.319 are very informative, very well cited texts. I highly recommend them. 0:48:44.360 --> 0:48:46.760 There are a lot of fun that the Yo Kai book. 0:48:47.280 --> 0:48:49.719 I read with my son. We really got into that one. 0:48:50.440 --> 0:48:53.680 And yeah, you'll learn a lot about Japanese culture and history. 0:48:53.880 --> 0:48:55.640 So anyway, we're going to go and close out here, 0:48:55.800 --> 0:48:57.520 but write in. We'd love to hear from you if 0:48:57.520 --> 0:49:00.239 you have any thoughts on anything we discussed here, including 0:49:00.560 --> 0:49:04.680 your first exposures to the wonderful world of the of 0:49:04.719 --> 0:49:07.680 the pop culture Ninja. Where did what? What? Where? Was it? 0:49:07.719 --> 0:49:09.360 What did you see? Was it a video game? Was 0:49:09.360 --> 0:49:13.920 it a TV show? Was it a Japanese film? Uh? 0:49:14.480 --> 0:49:17.000 We we want to know. We're very interested in this 0:49:17.600 --> 0:49:19.880 in the global legend of the Ninja. 0:49:20.040 --> 0:49:23.560 Did anybody out there ever beat Ninja Gaiden? Oh? 0:49:23.640 --> 0:49:25.799 Man, I don't think. I don't think I played that one, 0:49:25.800 --> 0:49:29.400 but that is another huge ninja video game franchise. 0:49:29.440 --> 0:49:32.160 Of note, we accept your tall tales about how you 0:49:32.200 --> 0:49:34.720 were almost to the last stage but then kept getting 0:49:34.760 --> 0:49:36.960 knocked off the ledge by that thing that spawns over 0:49:37.000 --> 0:49:37.319 and over. 0:49:37.719 --> 0:49:39.839 Now, this is this one that you could actually beat, 0:49:39.840 --> 0:49:41.319 because I know there have been some of the In fact, 0:49:41.320 --> 0:49:43.480 I think there's a teenage meaning Ninja Turtle game for 0:49:43.600 --> 0:49:46.560 like any s that it was only later that that 0:49:46.640 --> 0:49:49.680 people realize, oh, you couldn't actually make some pivotal jump. 0:49:51.080 --> 0:49:53.359 That is, nobody could actually beat it. 0:49:53.560 --> 0:49:55.920 I don't know we've talked about this before. Yeah, I 0:49:55.960 --> 0:50:00.480 remember that, but I don't know about Ninja, and I 0:50:00.560 --> 0:50:01.680 just remember it being hard. 0:50:02.680 --> 0:50:04.560 They used to make the game, those games so hard. 0:50:04.760 --> 0:50:06.840 I did not miss it. Some people were nostalgic for 0:50:06.880 --> 0:50:10.200 impossible games. I occasionally play one of these and I'm like, no, 0:50:10.280 --> 0:50:11.719 I want to I want to be able to beat 0:50:11.760 --> 0:50:14.040 this and move on from it. This is not a 0:50:14.160 --> 0:50:17.279 lifelong struggle I'm signing up for. 0:50:17.760 --> 0:50:18.839 Oh yeah, I'm with you there. 0:50:18.880 --> 0:50:19.520 I don't know. 0:50:19.920 --> 0:50:22.040 People play video games for different reasons, I guess, but 0:50:22.480 --> 0:50:24.600 if I play video game, I'm not looking to test 0:50:24.719 --> 0:50:27.560 my metal. I'm just like I'm trying to relax. 0:50:27.320 --> 0:50:30.240 Like, yeah, I want to feel like a competent Ninja 0:50:30.280 --> 0:50:33.279 in this video game, not an incompetent one. I didn't 0:50:33.320 --> 0:50:34.960 sign up for a bunch of ninja fails. 0:50:35.200 --> 0:50:37.759 Yeah, well there were a lot of those in that anyway. Okay, 0:50:37.800 --> 0:50:39.600 so I guess you know. We're wrapping up for today, 0:50:40.200 --> 0:50:41.560 but we'll see you next time. 0:50:41.719 --> 0:50:41.839 Uh. 0:50:42.640 --> 0:50:46.800 Huge, thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 0:50:47.239 --> 0:50:48.880 If you would like to get in touch with us 0:50:48.920 --> 0:50:51.320 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 0:50:51.320 --> 0:50:53.200 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 0:50:53.600 --> 0:50:56.120 you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 0:50:56.160 --> 0:51:04.440 your Mind dot com. 0:51:04.520 --> 0:51:07.480 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 0:51:07.560 --> 0:51:10.359 more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:51:10.520 --> 0:51:28.200 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.