Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
Speaker 3: And it seems this week, rob you've got ninjas on
Speaker 3: the brain. You have ninjas on the brain, in the brain,
Speaker 3: coming out of the brain, going in and out in secret.
Speaker 3: What brought you to the topic of the ninja for
Speaker 3: today's episode.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, on one level, obviously, I've always been
Speaker 2: a ninja fan, a big, big fan of the pop
Speaker 2: cultural ninja. As we'll get into, you know, just because
Speaker 2: by virtue of growing up when I grew up in
Speaker 2: the various interests that I have. But then, of course, also,
Speaker 2: as I've mentioned the show before, my family and I
Speaker 2: recently went on a trip to Japan. We got to visit,
Speaker 2: I believe, a couple of historic sites that have ties
Speaker 2: to the historic Nina, and so I thought, well, now
Speaker 2: it's the time. Let's this is the ideal time to
Speaker 2: jump into the subject of the ninja with the acknowledgement
Speaker 2: that's it gets a little complicated in places. It's not
Speaker 2: as cut and dry as some people might expect it
Speaker 2: to be. But there's a fascinating weave of fiction and
Speaker 2: hidden history and also legends and myth totally.
Speaker 3: But I also hear what you're saying about coming of
Speaker 3: age in an era where there was just ninja fever
Speaker 3: in like US pop culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think this would be a great
Speaker 2: place to start and maybe compare notes on sort of
Speaker 2: our generational influences regarding the ninja. I'm a little older
Speaker 2: than you, so I might be exposed to some things
Speaker 2: earlier that you were not, like the Big Divider being
Speaker 2: like teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. By the time they came around,
Speaker 2: I was very into them, but I at the time
Speaker 2: thought that I was too old to be into them,
Speaker 2: So I had this kind of like should I shouldn't
Speaker 2: I relationship with the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles? Then of
Speaker 2: course I should have, and I'm glad that I did
Speaker 2: to the extent I did. But for me, looking back,
Speaker 2: I would say, like the earliest exposures I had to
Speaker 2: ninja media in the US, I would say, certainly, you
Speaker 2: have the g I. Joe ninja characters, storm Shadow and
Speaker 2: Snake Eyes. One wore black and was you know, goodness,
Speaker 2: I can't remember which one was the good cart back.
Speaker 2: I think maybe the good guy wore black and the
Speaker 2: bad guy wore white, which even at the time was
Speaker 2: like stuck stuck out as stuck out as being a
Speaker 2: little unbelievable because even as a kid, you know that
Speaker 2: the ninja is supposed to move through the shadows. Why
Speaker 2: is this ninja wearing all white? It seems like he's
Speaker 2: made some style choices that may backfire on him later on.
Speaker 3: I was just looking up to see if Snake Eyes
Speaker 3: was one of the G I. Joe action figures I had,
Speaker 3: and I think it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I definitely had one or both of these guys,
Speaker 2: and they would go on all sorts of you know,
Speaker 2: ninja related adventures with the other action figures. Inevitably a
Speaker 2: small screwdriver would become involved and and G I. Joe
Speaker 2: Man would be.
Speaker 3: Dismembered swapping heads and stuff. Yeah, yeah, well, I think
Speaker 3: I had some of the same main obviously teenage meaning
Speaker 3: ninja turtles. I fortunately, I think when I first came
Speaker 3: to them, did not have to deal with the internal
Speaker 3: turmoil of thinking I was too old for them. That
Speaker 3: does that sounds rough.
Speaker 2: But I don't know rough is the right way to
Speaker 2: describe it. But you know there is it is that
Speaker 2: that conundrum if the peer pressure is there to make
Speaker 2: you feel like you need to get in a hurry
Speaker 2: to grow up, but you really are not ready to
Speaker 2: put aside things like ninja turtles. You know, at the
Speaker 2: time it may feel like a conundrum, but you know,
Speaker 2: Ninja turtles are awesome.
Speaker 3: Yes, But there was also I know what you're saying,
Speaker 3: in that it was not just a craze in say,
Speaker 3: adult focused media in the US in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: Though there was that, and we can talk about some examples,
Speaker 3: but there was a very kid friendly version of the
Speaker 3: ninja archetype that showed up in a lot of kid
Speaker 3: focused movies, like, for example, the Three Ninjas series.
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever saw any of these, but
Speaker 2: these were like kid Ninjas. This was maybe this was
Speaker 2: Power Ranger inspired to a certain extent.
Speaker 3: Possibly I think I only ever saw the first of
Speaker 3: these movies, never made it to Three Ninjas High Noon
Speaker 3: at Mega Mountain, but I don't remember that much about it.
Speaker 3: I think there are three brothers, and there are kids
Speaker 3: who are learning the ways of the ninja, and some
Speaker 3: like robbers, come into their house like Home Alone style
Speaker 3: or something and they use ninja ninja techniques on them?
Speaker 2: What could be all bad if Victor Wong? Isn't it right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Looking back on ninja movies that I watched, also think
Speaker 2: a major early influence was that I must have seen
Speaker 2: this in like my uncle's house. There were sometimes movies playing,
Speaker 2: like RoboCop that I ended up watching way too early,
Speaker 2: And I do specifically remember watching at least a big
Speaker 2: chunk of the nineteen eighty one Manaham Golan directed ninja
Speaker 2: movie that starred Franco Niro, I believe as a ninja
Speaker 2: titled Enter the Ninja, and I remember it like horrifying
Speaker 2: and enthralling me to varying degrees because you had some,
Speaker 2: you know, a fair amount of like ninja mayhem going on,
Speaker 2: and then also some rather grotesque moments that I probably
Speaker 2: shouldn't have seen it at early age.
Speaker 3: I think that's like a hyper violent movie, isn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember it being hyper violent, But I also
Speaker 2: have not rewatched it since I was a kid, so
Speaker 2: I don't know what was actually violent and what was
Speaker 2: maybe just ridiculous and a little like unbelievably gory, or
Speaker 2: if it like holds up as an actual gore fest. Oh.
Speaker 3: Actually, as far as cartoonified movie Ninja Go, I recently
Speaker 3: before I knew you were going to want to talk
Speaker 3: about this on the show, just like last week with
Speaker 3: my friend Ben, I watched a movie called Ninja three
Speaker 3: The Domination, which is a sequel to Enter the Ninja's.
Speaker 2: Right, this is like the third one in that the
Speaker 2: canon film's Ninja series, Right.
Speaker 3: That's right. So this entry is about an LA aerobics
Speaker 3: instructor who gets possessed by the ghost of a ninja
Speaker 3: hit man who wants revenge against the police who put
Speaker 3: a stop to his Ninja rampage on a golf course,
Speaker 3: which took place on a golf course in which he
Speaker 3: like single handedly destroys a helicopter and a bunch of
Speaker 3: other stuff. And then the aerobics instructor is possessed by
Speaker 3: the ghost of the evil Ninja and then falls in
Speaker 3: love with one of the cops on the Ninja Spirits
Speaker 3: Naughty list, so uh oh, and then she has to
Speaker 3: get the ghost purged out of her body by a
Speaker 3: mystical priest.
Speaker 1: Or.
Speaker 3: Actually, I think maybe that the attempt to do that fails,
Speaker 3: but it's sort of a cross between you know, it's
Speaker 3: a equal to enter the Ninja. So it's got that
Speaker 3: kind of sleazy nineteen eighties La van Halen guitar lick
Speaker 3: ninja movie feeling. But then it's also got elements of
Speaker 3: the Exorcist, and then it's also a cop movie and
Speaker 3: also just aerobics, you know, dance aerobics all over the place.
Speaker 2: I am on board for all of that. That sounds amazing.
Speaker 2: We might have to consider that for Weird House, in
Speaker 2: part because on Weird House Cinema we have talked about
Speaker 2: the movie blood Beat in the past, which has a
Speaker 2: ghost samurai. So it seems fitting that we should have
Speaker 2: a film at some point that has a ghost ninja's.
Speaker 3: Ghost ninja possession.
Speaker 2: Now, obviously there are tons of additional Western ninja properties
Speaker 2: we could side here. There's so much kid stuff. Certainly
Speaker 2: video games are big, some being imports, like I do
Speaker 2: remember the Shanobi Arcade game, though I don't know how much.
Speaker 2: I don't know how strong the ninja vibes are in
Speaker 2: that one. But then eventually you get things like Mortal Kombat,
Speaker 2: which has you know, some version of Ninja's in them, often,
Speaker 2: of course with all sorts of crazy colors that that
Speaker 2: again don't make sense if you're if you're engaging with
Speaker 2: the idea of ninja as a stealth operative, but if
Speaker 2: you're engaging within the idea of ninja as a user
Speaker 2: of magic, then as we'll get into, then I guess
Speaker 2: Mortal Kombat isn't too unbelievable. And then during junior high,
Speaker 2: probably like early junior high, it ended up picking up
Speaker 2: Showgun and reading it, and there was a lot I
Speaker 2: didn't understand at the time. But then there's like a
Speaker 2: lot of just you know, ideas about Japanese history and
Speaker 2: Japanese culture that they're loaded in that volume. And it
Speaker 2: does contain a very memorable section that involves the shinobi
Speaker 2: the ninja. So we'll come back to that, because, as
Speaker 2: it turns out, the novel Showgun has a very important
Speaker 2: influence on the idea and the popularity of the ninja
Speaker 2: outside Japan.
Speaker 3: Well, regarding the idea of the ninja outside of Japan
Speaker 3: and the word ninja as an enters sort of the
Speaker 3: English lexic. I came across a really interesting fact in
Speaker 3: a book that I'm going to reference a bunch of
Speaker 3: times in this series. It's been one of my main
Speaker 3: sources here by a British historian named Stephen Turnbull called
Speaker 3: Ninja Unmasking the Myth. This is one of the best
Speaker 3: looking historical books and investigating the history of the concept
Speaker 3: of the ninja in the English language. And what Turnbull
Speaker 3: says that really shocked me is that the word ninja
Speaker 3: with its current romanized spelling did not appear in any
Speaker 3: Japanese English dictionary until the year nineteen seventy four, and
Speaker 3: there were plenty of Japanese English dictionaries before this, going
Speaker 3: back to the nineteenth century. Before the mid twentieth century,
Speaker 3: the favored Japanese pronunciation for the same concept the same
Speaker 3: kanji idiographs was shinobi mono or shanoby no mono. But
Speaker 3: there's an alternate pronunciation of the same idiographs nin ninsha
Speaker 3: or ninja, which became the dominant way of expressing the
Speaker 3: idea out loud in English in English contexts, at least
Speaker 3: I guess, beginning in somewhere in the mid twentieth century
Speaker 3: or the nineteen seventies or so, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: That's just surprisingly late to me. I've read in a
Speaker 3: few sources that consciousness of the idea of the shnobi
Speaker 3: or ninja in English speaking cultures traces in large part
Speaker 3: to the nineteen sixty seven James Bond movie You Only
Speaker 3: Live Twice, which is pretty fun, does have some great
Speaker 3: ninja action, and it is also wildly racially and culturally problematic,
Speaker 3: but apparently was a big sort of funnel of the
Speaker 3: idea of the ninja or shanobi into the international market.
Speaker 2: Yeah, You Only Live Twice definitely a Bond film I
Speaker 2: saw as a kid, and I was surprised to learn
Speaker 2: of its historical importance to this topic. It's not a
Speaker 2: film that has ever stuck in my mind as being like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is important, this is bringing cultures together or anything
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Oh, but in some ways it kind of is, I
Speaker 3: mean nick like you know you can. There's a lot
Speaker 3: to criticize there, but also there are some great scenes
Speaker 3: of like the ninja training scene where they're like out
Speaker 3: there practicing all their skills and techniques on the target dummies.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 2: So one of my main sources for this is an
Speaker 2: excellent and well sided book titled Ninja Attack. True Tales
Speaker 2: of Assassin, Samurai and Outlaws Outlaws by Heroko Yoda and
Speaker 2: Matt Alt matt All type referenced on the show before
Speaker 2: for some of his other writings about Japanese culture and
Speaker 2: Japanese popular culture. And in this book they point out
Speaker 2: as well that You Only Lived Twice was the first
Speaker 2: ninja screen appearance in international cinema. They write that while
Speaker 2: You Only Live Twice is the first international film concerning ninja,
Speaker 2: it was directly influenced by the nineteen sixty five film Shinobio,
Speaker 2: which was in turn inspired by the success of the
Speaker 2: various ninja short stories of Futaro Yamada, who lived nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty two through two thousand and one. This is a
Speaker 2: writer who is discovered by Atogawa Rampo, who we've talked
Speaker 2: about in Weird House Cinema because his writings have been
Speaker 2: adapted to the screen numerous times.
Speaker 3: So how did ninjas end up in James Bond.
Speaker 2: Well, it involves the screenwriter, who was of course Roald Dahl,
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen ninety. You know, we
Speaker 2: often associate with Willie walk in The Chocolate Factory and
Speaker 2: various other works, but he was a screenwriter on You
Speaker 2: Only Live Twice and apparently went on a research trip
Speaker 2: to Japan to prepare for this, And while in Japan
Speaker 2: he watched the movie in question, that nineteen sixty five
Speaker 2: Ninja film, and realized, well, this is what the screenplay needs,
Speaker 2: we need ninja and ninja were added. Good choice. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and again you know, popular, big budget film that is
Speaker 2: exactly the thing that will propel a new concept into
Speaker 2: the public mindset. Now, this book gets into the overall
Speaker 2: sort of tangled web of pop culture ninjas and in
Speaker 2: and out of Japan, going all the way back to
Speaker 2: things like a seventeen seventy eight kabuki play that involves ninja.
Speaker 2: And they actually have a lovely flow chart that includes
Speaker 2: everything from Ninja scroll to kill Bill. I'll come back
Speaker 2: to more of what they have to say about ninja,
Speaker 2: popular culture, and ninja fiction here in a bit.
Speaker 3: Now, I think maybe we should do a rundown of
Speaker 3: some of the common characteristics of the twentieth century movie Ninja,
Speaker 3: the international market movie Ninja. So usually this ninja is
Speaker 3: a stealthy assassin dressed head to toe in cloth coverings,
Speaker 3: usually black cloth or a black costume, with a mask
Speaker 3: that covers most of the face except maybe like an
Speaker 3: opening for the eyes or some other kind of gap
Speaker 3: in the face covering, but otherwise head to toe, head
Speaker 3: to toe black cloth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just the iconic idea of a ninja. You
Speaker 2: can't say the word ninja without picturing that.
Speaker 3: On some level, what does the ninja do well? The
Speaker 3: ninja is a master of martial arts combat with a
Speaker 3: batman style belt of special tools and weapons, often including
Speaker 3: a grappling hook for climbing, smoke bombs to hide an escape,
Speaker 3: and pointed metal throwing stars that can be thrown with
Speaker 3: deadly accuracy.
Speaker 2: Right along with of course the katana for some sword play,
Speaker 2: maybe various other little shorter sword, yeah, shorter swords, and
Speaker 2: various you know, various gadgets has required generally all related
Speaker 2: to stell then assassination.
Speaker 3: They are often depicted as capable of almost superhuman acrobatics,
Speaker 3: bordering on the ability to fly, And I think it's
Speaker 3: interesting Turnbull actually points this out in his book that
Speaker 3: it is often within settings that are taken as otherwise realistic,
Speaker 3: or within fictional settings where magic is not otherwise assumed
Speaker 3: to exist, that ninja have these apparently supernatural abilities. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not a full fantasy world, it's like realistic setting
Speaker 3: but the ninjas can basically fly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get into more on that in a bit.
Speaker 2: I'd say other aspects of the pop culture ninja is
Speaker 2: that the ninja there's no like Ninja by night, blank
Speaker 2: by day. Ninja are generally depicted as being like fanatics,
Speaker 2: as being completely devoted to their art of stealth and assassination,
Speaker 2: and in generally and oftentimes they're you know, villains and
Speaker 2: sometimes secondary villains and a lot of properties, So there's
Speaker 2: not a lot of effort given to develop their characters
Speaker 2: outside of the adversary that they're presented as.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes they're presented as members of a sort of
Speaker 3: secret international brotherhood of some kind that they belong to
Speaker 3: some corpus or body of similarly trained people. In some cases,
Speaker 3: I do think there are sort of alter ego you know,
Speaker 3: Clark Kent Superman ninjas. In fact, I think there is
Speaker 3: one in Ninja three, the Domination. Oh okay, so I
Speaker 3: think it pops up from time to time, but I
Speaker 3: agree that most of the time, in like American movies,
Speaker 3: it's as if all they ever do is like sneak
Speaker 3: around and do stealth missions.
Speaker 2: Right and have great, great eyes. We really want to
Speaker 2: have really expressive eyes in your cinematic ninjas, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's all you're going to see of the actor
Speaker 2: at least, and when they're in ninja.
Speaker 3: Mode, brows that narrow dramatically. Yeah, there's one more thing
Speaker 3: I came across in Turnbull that I really liked regarding,
Speaker 3: like the ninja's obscure tools techniques. There's one that is
Speaker 3: from a novel by Yamato Futaro, who you mentioned a
Speaker 3: minute ago is writing these influential ninja stories and novels
Speaker 3: in the nineteen fifties. This is from a nineteen fifty
Speaker 3: eight novel called Coca Ninpocho, which Turnbull says is basically
Speaker 3: a mostly accurate historical setting, but the ninjas within the
Speaker 3: story can turn their hair into porcupine quills, which they
Speaker 3: like shoot off and launch his weapons, So like weaponized hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the dark magic of the ninja. Now I
Speaker 2: want to come back to Showgun for a second here. Showgun,
Speaker 2: of course, it was a nineteen seventy five novel. There
Speaker 2: is a subsequent TV mini series about it based on it,
Speaker 2: and then there's been a more recent twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: adaptation of Showgun that is quite excellent. I loved it.
Speaker 2: My wife and I loved it. Everyone I've talked to
Speaker 2: has really enjoyed it, and they went to great pains
Speaker 2: with this adaptation to sort of make sure that it
Speaker 2: was grounded as properly as they could in history and
Speaker 2: in Japanese culture. Though James Colvell's Showgun is like an
Speaker 2: adaptation of history, I guess you would say it is.
Speaker 2: It is a work of fiction based on history, written
Speaker 2: by an outsider who who was interested in these things.
Speaker 2: But there is, of course this this pivotal sequence in
Speaker 2: the novel and in adaptations that involved the ninja, and
Speaker 2: it has been argued that Clavel helped introduce the concept
Speaker 2: of ninja into the West. I've also read it argue
Speaker 2: that like, for a while, this was a very successful novel,
Speaker 2: a lot of people read it like a lot of
Speaker 2: what many Westerners knew about about Japanese history in Japanese
Speaker 2: culture was based on this book. You know, It's like
Speaker 2: it was. It kind of had the same role as
Speaker 2: you only live twice in this regard, a very popular
Speaker 2: work of media that was for many people their their
Speaker 2: first or primary exposure to this different culture and different
Speaker 2: time period. Again, the novel's based on history, it's not
Speaker 2: one accurate. I think the recent TV series does a
Speaker 2: pretty good job of updating everything as far as I
Speaker 2: understand it, and so the ninja or shinobi that we
Speaker 2: see in it, they seem like they seem to have
Speaker 2: done what they could to sort of ground it more properly.
Speaker 2: Though I think they're still sort of reflecting the trappings
Speaker 2: of the ninja's pop culture glow. So they're not all
Speaker 2: dressed in black, and they're certainly not wearing white or
Speaker 2: you know, bright Mortal Kombat colors, but they are they
Speaker 2: are more recognizable as pop culture ninjas. Quick note on
Speaker 2: the word ninja plural and singular is ninja, but I
Speaker 2: am inevitably going to keep saying ninja's from time to time,
Speaker 2: So my apologies.
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about that exact thing. I realized, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's ninja is plural, but I bet I've already said ninja's.
Speaker 3: I can't stop myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But on the Showgun issue, I turned to editor
Speaker 2: Henry Smith's book Learning from Showgun Japanese History in Western Fantasy.
Speaker 2: This is put out as part of the program in
Speaker 2: Asian Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in
Speaker 2: the editor and the authors here point out that ninjas
Speaker 2: in the novel Showgun Quote reflect the romanticization of the
Speaker 2: ninja in modern Japanese popular entertainment. So the idea here
Speaker 2: that what we see in the novel and inevitably in
Speaker 2: any adaptation, we see the ninja as this violent death
Speaker 2: cult of fanatical assassins. And as we'll be discussing, there's
Speaker 2: some truth to that, to their role in assassination and
Speaker 2: stealth and even military endeavors. But there's a lot more
Speaker 2: of the myth in the legend here in this usage
Speaker 2: of the ninja than anything.
Speaker 3: Else, and the overtaking of historical fact by sort of
Speaker 3: myth and storytelling and romanticization of the ninja, that that
Speaker 3: tradition that goes way back. Actually it's not just a
Speaker 3: twentieth century thing.
Speaker 2: And it's not just a Western appropriation of it or
Speaker 2: anything like that. Like it would be easier to sort
Speaker 2: of sum it all up if it were like, well,
Speaker 2: there's the Japanese reality of what ninjas were, and then
Speaker 2: westerner's got a hold of it, and of course they
Speaker 2: transformed it. There is some Western transformation of it involved,
Speaker 2: but for the most part, this transformation of the historic
Speaker 2: ninja into the pop cultural trope of the ninja. This
Speaker 2: all occurred within Japanese popular culture well in advance of
Speaker 2: anything James Bond got up to.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One thing I think we should establish early, and
Speaker 3: this is something that is a major theme of this
Speaker 3: book by Turnbull that I've been referencing, is that apparently
Speaker 3: a huge amount of what is commonly said about the ninja,
Speaker 3: even in apparently authoritative books and museums and other historical sources,
Speaker 3: is based on text traditions that do not necessarily reflect
Speaker 3: what really happened in history. So there is sort of
Speaker 3: a ninja tradition, or maybe to be more phonetically accurate,
Speaker 3: a shanobi tradition that is Japanese in origin and does
Speaker 3: in many ways go back hundreds of years, but still
Speaker 3: may not be based on real figures and practices in
Speaker 3: history that the term shinobi originally referred to.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Like in the past, I've heard people be
Speaker 2: as firm as to say the ninja didn't really exist,
Speaker 2: the ninja are a myth, and I think you could
Speaker 2: basically say that that's a true statement to some degree,
Speaker 2: Like the ninja as we see them in popular culture
Speaker 2: didn't really exist, but they are based on a thing
Speaker 2: that did, and it's fun to get into that and
Speaker 2: try and piece apart, like what was real, what was
Speaker 2: probably real, what isn't an embellishment, and why does that
Speaker 2: embellishment mean. In the book by Yoda and All, they
Speaker 2: point out that, like basically the term ninja or even snob,
Speaker 2: we're dealing with a colloquial term that can be translated
Speaker 2: to things like, you know, a clandestine person or one
Speaker 2: who is invisible. But historically they would have been known
Speaker 2: by a whole bunch of different colloquial terms, including, but
Speaker 2: not limited to, a few of these examples. So there's
Speaker 2: ninjutsu tuska, which means like a practitioner of ninjutsu the
Speaker 2: art of stealth. There's one called omitsu, which would have
Speaker 2: meant like the secret service. And then there are a
Speaker 2: couple here I want to include that I think are
Speaker 2: neat because they kind of hint at some of the other,
Speaker 2: like non stereotypical modern ninja things they would have been
Speaker 2: up to. There's one which we have translated to the shortcutters,
Speaker 2: which I rather like, you know, it's like you have
Speaker 2: some sort of a political, military, or social problem, and
Speaker 2: traditional honorable means of dealing with those problems are not achievable.
Speaker 2: So what do you need. You need a shortcut, and
Speaker 2: that's why you seek out the shortcutters.
Speaker 3: That's very cool.
Speaker 2: There's another one that I believe is ukami that I've
Speaker 2: seen translated as the silent watchers, And I think that's
Speaker 2: also important here because while, yeah, while while the historic
Speaker 2: ninjas would have involved themselves or been hired to deal
Speaker 2: in military and assassination type scenarios, they also might have
Speaker 2: been involved in entirely non violent affairs as well, things
Speaker 2: that we might typically describe more as like straight up
Speaker 2: spy and espionage business.
Speaker 3: And often I think I've seen the word ukami translated
Speaker 3: as spy. Yeah, And that leads back to how I
Speaker 3: think many of the earliest understandings of the ninja or
Speaker 3: shanobi have to do with spying and infiltration in warfare,
Speaker 3: and so to situate the classical understanding of the nin
Speaker 3: within a conceptual context, I wanted to talk briefly about
Speaker 3: the precedent of using spies and infiltrators in war and
Speaker 3: Turnbull does this by making reference in his book to
Speaker 3: the classic Chinese text The Art of War by sun
Speaker 3: Zu or Turnbull calls him sun Z. I guess they're
Speaker 3: different ways of pronouncing the name, but I think I'm
Speaker 3: gonna say sun Zu because that's more familiar to me.
Speaker 3: So this is a classic Chinese text, usually dated to
Speaker 3: the fifth century BCE. Apparently many of the authors of
Speaker 3: the Tokugawa period who wrote the Tales of the Shinobi
Speaker 3: establishing a lot of this lore, would have been very
Speaker 3: familiar with Sunzu in the Art of War and other
Speaker 3: sort of warfare manuals of this type. And apparently Sunzu
Speaker 3: talks about the concept of a secret agent, referring to
Speaker 3: it with the Chinese character khan, which means the space
Speaker 3: between two objects or discord. So this refers to the
Speaker 3: use of secret agents to undermine alliances and sew division
Speaker 3: within within societies or within within armies. And sons who
Speaker 3: actually sort of lays out a taxonomy of five different
Speaker 3: kinds of secret agents. I thought this was interesting. So
Speaker 3: first of all, you've got your incon or native agents.
Speaker 3: These are villagers of an enemy's province or country. He says,
Speaker 3: you can't really expect them to do like risky work
Speaker 3: or carry out difficult missions, so they are mainly useful
Speaker 3: for just gathering general information about the enemy's disposition, maybe
Speaker 3: like where the enemy is or the direction of travel
Speaker 3: and so forth. Then after that you've got nikon, which
Speaker 3: are inside agents. These are officials of the enemy government
Speaker 3: drafted to your side by bribes or pay. These agents
Speaker 3: can supply much better quality information and they are especially
Speaker 3: useful for creating discord within enemy ranks. And if you
Speaker 3: want to identify these people, you can look for officials
Speaker 3: within the government who have been slighted in some way,
Speaker 3: like maybe being insulted or passed over for promotion. Find
Speaker 3: someone who has power who thinks that your enemy has
Speaker 3: treated them unfairly. After that you've got yukon or friendly agents.
Speaker 3: This apparently refers to double agents. So the enemy has
Speaker 3: spies as well you are. If you want a double agent,
Speaker 3: you can recruit the enemy's spy to actually spy for
Speaker 3: you or to feed false information to their masters. Classic
Speaker 3: double agents set up. Yeah, then there's one called chi khan,
Speaker 3: which means dead agents. This one is interesting and pretty cold.
Speaker 3: It's the idea of expendable allies who can unknowingly be
Speaker 3: given false information which they believe to be true, and
Speaker 3: then sent deliberately into enemy capture, so when information is
Speaker 3: extracted from them, it will mislead the enemy command.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is cold.
Speaker 3: But then finally you get to Chokan, the last of
Speaker 3: the five, who are called living agents, and what Turnbull
Speaker 3: says about them is the following quote. They go boldly
Speaker 3: into enemy territory and return with valuable information. For this purpose,
Speaker 3: men who are pre eminent in intelligence are selected. They
Speaker 3: have the ability to withstand great hardship and have the
Speaker 3: social skills to gain access to those of the enemy
Speaker 3: who are closest to the seat of power. These are
Speaker 3: the classic spies envisaged by the ninja myth. So to
Speaker 3: be clear, these are not being called ninja or anything
Speaker 3: in this context. This is a much earlier work, but
Speaker 3: it's establishing this sort of principle within warfare and within
Speaker 3: the taxonomy of spies and secret agents, that there's already
Speaker 3: this idea of this like James Bond spy kind of figure,
Speaker 3: or this ninja, this person who is who is an
Speaker 3: agent who can strike out on their own, who can
Speaker 3: act and has some kind of like has capability, has powers,
Speaker 3: and they can go into hostile territory and carry out
Speaker 3: a mission to gather information or sow discord or do
Speaker 3: whatever is needed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course, in all of this, sun Zoo
Speaker 2: is codifying like realities that already existed in warfare. One
Speaker 2: thing that Yoda and all point out is you can
Speaker 2: look into various old texts and some ancient texts, and
Speaker 2: you can see allusions to this kind of spycraft. There
Speaker 2: are apparently examples from the Old Testament that also involve,
Speaker 2: you know, something you could interpret us as spy work
Speaker 2: and espionage, like you go out on this mission, do
Speaker 2: this thing, you know, so, you know, again codifying realities
Speaker 2: that were already present, but meaningfully doing so meaningfully and
Speaker 2: in a very influential way that with the ripples are
Speaker 2: going to spread of course, out of China, through Japan
Speaker 2: and ultimately globally.
Speaker 3: I do think it's kind of interesting that if you
Speaker 3: think beyond the concept of just the ninja and to
Speaker 3: the broader idea of like any character in fiction who
Speaker 3: is depicted as having like peak abilities in almost every domain,
Speaker 3: like they know everything, they're the smartest, they speak all
Speaker 3: these languages, they're you know, unbeatable in hand to hand combat.
Speaker 3: I would say the most common profession this character has
Speaker 3: is spy. Isn't that kind of interesting?
Speaker 2: It is interesting? Yeah, I mean on one level, I
Speaker 2: think it it's a realization of the intense level of
Speaker 2: danger that individuals like this would put themselves in. Like
Speaker 2: even if they're you know, not involved in an actual
Speaker 2: like ninja movie fight and stealth sequence, you know, it's
Speaker 2: like the intense danger of engaging in that level of
Speaker 2: deception and betrayal, you know, like on just like a
Speaker 2: social level and a legal level, like you're in you're
Speaker 2: engaging in a high level of danger. Now, another interesting
Speaker 2: thing we didn't mention this when we talked about the
Speaker 2: trope of the ninja in popular culture, But another thing
Speaker 2: you frequently see you will see examples of ninja is who,
Speaker 2: you know, use modern gadgets and or are robots or cyborgs.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of fun to be had there. But
Speaker 2: a lot of times the ninja is depicted as an
Speaker 2: operative even in like a modern or nineteen eighties nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety setting, who depends in large part on traditional even
Speaker 2: archaic weapons used with great skill. But like if a
Speaker 2: ninja needs to you know, get past a you know,
Speaker 2: computer console on a security door. You're more likely to
Speaker 2: see that movie Ninja throw a throwing star through it, right,
Speaker 2: or shoot it with a bow and arrow, as opposed
Speaker 2: to get down there and stick in a USB stick
Speaker 2: or start you know, hacking the computer system.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I really have a picture in my mind of
Speaker 3: somebody like chucking a throwing star into a computer and
Speaker 3: like sparks shoot out of it. Yeah, that's that's how
Speaker 3: you get past security.
Speaker 2: But an important point that Yoda and altamaic about the
Speaker 2: the the myth of the Ninja and the modern idea
Speaker 2: of the Ninja versus the historic reality as we understand it,
Speaker 2: is that these individuals would not have been picky about
Speaker 2: like what level of technology that they used. In fact,
Speaker 2: they would have used like the latest advancements available, such
Speaker 2: as gunpowder for example. So it's kind of just a
Speaker 2: virtue of us spinning modern tales about an older pop
Speaker 2: cultural idea than anything like. So, yeah, if the Ninja
Speaker 2: had access to James Bond spy gadgets, they would use
Speaker 2: those James Bond spy gadgets like they are like any
Speaker 2: espionage operative out there. They'll make use of the best
Speaker 2: tools available to pull off the deed.
Speaker 3: Now, another interesting way of understanding that the ninja character archetype,
Speaker 3: by contrast, is something that the Turnbull highlights in the book,
Speaker 3: which is the idea of the ninja as the quote
Speaker 3: dark antithesis of the samurai, another historical character. Now, again,
Speaker 3: this is something that is not necessarily a historical reality.
Speaker 3: This is something that is That is how the ninja
Speaker 3: archetype is reflected within storytelling and tradition, not necessarily historically real,
Speaker 3: but within these traditions you can see that see the
Speaker 3: contrast here. The samurai are warriors who are nobles. The
Speaker 3: ninja are often represented as commoners. The samurai are depicted
Speaker 3: as loyal and honorable, the ninja as treacherous and mercenary.
Speaker 3: The samurai fight their enemy face to face, while the
Speaker 3: ninja sneak up on people, you know that, stab people
Speaker 3: in the back. And as a spy, the ninja must
Speaker 3: always survive the mission at all costs to deliver the
Speaker 3: gathered intelligence, whereas the samurai is very often depicted as
Speaker 3: dying selflessly in battle and maintaining having an honorable death.
Speaker 3: And so in all these ways, within the storytelling tradition,
Speaker 3: the ninja could often be seen as positioned as like
Speaker 3: the the the negative mirror image of the samurai warrior trope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that that is key, and it
Speaker 2: does seem to get into some historic realities like, for instance,
Speaker 2: the idea that that that apparently ninja would have very
Speaker 2: often been lower born men and women as opposed to
Speaker 2: warrior class individuals. So there is this like the social
Speaker 2: distinction there. But and then also when it comes down
Speaker 2: to what stories are told and celebrated, the stories of
Speaker 2: the samurai were celebrated and told and retold, and legends
Speaker 2: were told about them far ahead of anything like this
Speaker 2: with the ninja. The ninja would would have been essentially
Speaker 2: been the dirty tricks department for any feudal lord looking
Speaker 2: to solve some sort of again political, military, or social
Speaker 2: problem that they couldn't their wise approach, and it was
Speaker 2: not something that you would have talked about in polite society.
Speaker 2: Like the shnobi and the various colloquial terms would have
Speaker 2: been synonymous with trouble. They weren't to be celebrated, even
Speaker 2: if you prize their skills secretly, and in employing them
Speaker 2: you would have hoped to retain plausible deniability over whatever
Speaker 2: was about to happen. In general, we may we may
Speaker 2: get into some you know, some some examples to the contrary,
Speaker 2: but in general like this, this was this was the
Speaker 2: dirty tricks department.
Speaker 3: But yes, to come back to your point, despite the
Speaker 3: later profusion of valorizing tales, you know, often at the time, people, uh, people,
Speaker 3: people don't feel so excited or proud about I don't know,
Speaker 3: deception in warfare or secretive military activities, even if they
Speaker 3: are necessary to winning.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, yeah, better to celebrate the tale of the noble
Speaker 2: and victorious samurai than the the shnov that you pay
Speaker 2: to go in and stab somebody in the back. Now,
Speaker 2: I want to at a quick note, I mentioned men
Speaker 2: and women, and on the subject of female ninja, they
Speaker 2: did apparently exist, though the reality was likely nowhere near
Speaker 2: what image may be summoned in your head here. You know,
Speaker 2: the various pop culture ideas of a female ninja. Yoda
Speaker 2: and all point out that there's no indication that any
Speaker 2: female ninja ever engaged in combat of any kind, or
Speaker 2: again that we have no direct evidence or writings of that.
Speaker 2: But female spies at the very least would have been
Speaker 2: able to move through parts of society that would have
Speaker 2: been less accessible or inaccessible to men, or move in
Speaker 2: ways that men would easily overlook. They might disguise themselves
Speaker 2: as entertainers, as prostitutes, as household staff, and of particular note,
Speaker 2: as transient Mico holy women. So these would have been
Speaker 2: the modern version is this. They tend to Shinto shrines
Speaker 2: and so forth. But this would have been like a
Speaker 2: loose knit order, so not a lot of like you know,
Speaker 2: you can't like check the papers as much of these individuals,
Speaker 2: and they would have traveled around, So it's a great
Speaker 2: cover story. If for any female ninjas, female spies that
Speaker 2: would have been utilized, it would have been an ideal cover.
Speaker 2: And these are sometimes referred to as the kono ichi,
Speaker 2: but very little is known about them. The use of
Speaker 2: female spies may have been considered even more taboo than
Speaker 2: just using spies or shnovi in general. And we really
Speaker 2: only have legends about a single named female ninja. This
Speaker 2: would have been the sixteenth century figure Mochizuki chi Yojo.
Speaker 2: It is thought that she was a real person, but
Speaker 2: we don't even know the like one correct pronunciation of
Speaker 2: her name. But still it was probably a real person.
Speaker 2: Based on what I've been reading. But anyway, all of
Speaker 2: this makes sense because again, this is about not playing
Speaker 2: by the rules. This is about breaking the rules, doing
Speaker 2: the taboo thing in order to achieve your military political goals.
Speaker 2: And so in that case, you know, all cards are
Speaker 2: on the table there, Rob.
Speaker 3: So you found something about like the earliest references to
Speaker 3: ninjas in their all black costume.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this was really interesting because you know,
Speaker 2: the iconic vision of the of the ninja, as we've
Speaker 2: been discussing, is that of the ninja and all black,
Speaker 2: you know, blending into the shadows, creeping along the rooftops
Speaker 2: and so forth, like you just you can't separate that
Speaker 2: from the pop culture idea of the ninja. But this seemed,
Speaker 2: this idea that they wore all black and trooped around
Speaker 2: like this apparently did not emerge in Japan until around
Speaker 2: eighteen seventeen, or at least that's when we see the
Speaker 2: first known print, the first known image of a ninja
Speaker 2: wearing this sort of garb, and it actually ties into
Speaker 2: a very important figure in Japanese art history, Katsushi Kuhoku Sai, who,
Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with his name, you're very familiar
Speaker 2: with at least his most famous piece, and that is
Speaker 2: the great wave of kind of Gatwa. This artist lives
Speaker 2: seventeen sixty through eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 3: And so what do we see in his woodblock featuring
Speaker 3: a ninja.
Speaker 2: Well, we see something that is just instantly recognizable as
Speaker 2: a modern ninja. Like you could not mistake this for
Speaker 2: anything else, right, because it is a man all in black,
Speaker 2: everything covered except his eyes, and he's climbing a rope
Speaker 2: and you just know he's climbing. You know, he's climbing
Speaker 2: somewhere he's not supposed to be, or he's returning from
Speaker 2: that place having assassinated somebody, or having stolen some important
Speaker 2: scrolls or something to that. To that effect, Now, where
Speaker 2: does this come from? I mean, I'm you would be tempted,
Speaker 2: and I think would be very understandable to guess, well,
Speaker 2: you're just you're making an assumption that if you're up
Speaker 2: to secretive things, you might wear all black to blend in, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, it makes sense, and it it has been
Speaker 2: pointed out that, you know, it would be ridiculous to say,
Speaker 2: no historic ninja's ever dressed like this, because in the
Speaker 2: art of espionage, it you know, it might make sense
Speaker 2: to do so at some point, but it's been interpreted
Speaker 2: that what we see here is essentially like a use
Speaker 2: or a repurpose of what in Japanese theater is known
Speaker 2: as a kuroko, which is someone that is dressed all
Speaker 2: in black, essentially a stage hand that is there to
Speaker 2: aid in the production in ways that you know, that
Speaker 2: don't distract from the key performance. And this is something
Speaker 2: we see in theater arts around the world as well.
Speaker 2: You see it in puppetry, for example, you want an
Speaker 2: invisible puppeteer, then you have them just wear all black
Speaker 2: and black over their faces as well, so they blend
Speaker 2: into the background and don't distract from the central performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when I've done theater, you know, people working backstage
Speaker 3: were dressed in all black, and I guess the idea
Speaker 3: is you're you're just less likely to be seen that way.
Speaker 3: But yeah, hern Bul talks about this that in traditional
Speaker 3: kabuki theater, there were these figures, the corogo or the coroko,
Speaker 3: who would wear all black to like move scenery around
Speaker 3: or maybe like help the actors change costume within view
Speaker 3: of the audience or something. But they would be dressed
Speaker 3: in black and they would have a mask over their face,
Speaker 3: and this would symbolize it would not only make them
Speaker 3: stand out less visually, but also apparently would like symbolize invisibility.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what we're looking at here is interesting. It's
Speaker 2: kind of a mash up, a visual mashup of the
Speaker 2: idea of the invisible ninja and the mostly invisible presence
Speaker 2: of the stage hand. And of course the stage hand
Speaker 2: is literally manipulating reality, but in a way that is
Speaker 2: supposed to be secondary to the performers. Also interesting to
Speaker 2: think about that a lot of these productions are going
Speaker 2: to involve samurai, you know, so you're going to have
Speaker 2: like the samurai in the forefront doing all the really
Speaker 2: important dramatic stuff, but in the background there are these
Speaker 2: almost invisible characters who are doing something else, something that
Speaker 2: that we're not meant to know about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but of course, the ironic thing about like dressing
Speaker 3: in a full black costume head to toe is that
Speaker 3: if somebody saw you and you were wearing this costume
Speaker 3: you were you would instantly stand out in reality, like
Speaker 3: with not in the context of a stage play or something.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, it's it's a contradiction to what would
Speaker 3: actually be said in most of the texts that talk
Speaker 3: about ninja or shanobi going way back, they say, oh,
Speaker 3: you know what these people would do is wear a disguise,
Speaker 3: so you blend in with the people that you're trying
Speaker 3: to infiltrate. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, in general, when we think about what would
Speaker 2: a ninja look like, what would a shnobi look like,
Speaker 2: they would just look like anybody else. The best way
Speaker 2: to move from point A to point B through the
Speaker 2: people is to look like the people, and so that's
Speaker 2: what they would have done. I guess James Bond does this.
Speaker 2: I can't remember. James Bond's always wearing it. He's always
Speaker 2: going places where you wear a tuxedo anyways, so I
Speaker 2: guess it's like he's doing that. But you know, in general,
Speaker 2: like a spy is going to want to blend into
Speaker 2: the crowd. They don't want to stand out. You know,
Speaker 2: It's that you want to be the least interesting looking
Speaker 2: person in the room because nobody is supposed to know
Speaker 2: you're there.
Speaker 3: I guess it actually highlights a tension between the reality
Speaker 3: of intelligence gathering and spy work and the sort of
Speaker 3: the media demands, which is like, when you want to
Speaker 3: read a spy story, you want it to be the
Speaker 3: most thrilling and exciting thing possible. So you want the
Speaker 3: spy hero to be like to stand out, to be
Speaker 3: notable and exciting in every way, And in reality, if
Speaker 3: you were doing spy work, you would want to be
Speaker 3: the least exciting, least notable looking person on earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely so. I guess at this point we might summarize,
Speaker 2: as we kind of reached towards the end of this episode,
Speaker 2: that the Ninja is there's a historical like bedrock, and
Speaker 2: then there is all of this fiction and legend making
Speaker 2: and mythology on top of that. And one of the
Speaker 2: additional challenges here is that there's there's less historical record
Speaker 2: down there on the bedrock than one would like. There's
Speaker 2: a lot more fiction and legend making, and it can
Speaker 2: make things things difficult. It can make it difficult to
Speaker 2: sort of try to weed out what exactly is the
Speaker 2: historic reality of the Shanoby. And then these various groups
Speaker 2: that are described as Shanoby and there apparently are according
Speaker 2: to Yoda and A there are like three different ways
Speaker 2: of sort of looking at why this is the case.
Speaker 2: And the first is something that we've touched on already,
Speaker 2: and that is that, okay, if if Shanoby operatives were
Speaker 2: generally common born dirty tricks specialists who were you know,
Speaker 2: taboo to use and not something you'd brag about, they're
Speaker 2: totally not on the same level of cultural esteem and
Speaker 2: power as the samurai warrior class. So the samurai are
Speaker 2: going to get all the stories and the legends and
Speaker 2: the tales at least during their initial that the key
Speaker 2: period of operations here in the Ninja are going to
Speaker 2: be ignored for the most part. Now, another important thing
Speaker 2: to keep in mind is that the Ninja would have
Speaker 2: inevitably been a secretive bunch. They were working in the shadow,
Speaker 2: they existed under the radar, and Yoda and Auld actually
Speaker 2: signed an individual by the name of Musque Hatsumi, the
Speaker 2: last living descendant of the Tokukushi school of ninja, who
Speaker 2: stated that quote, if one can know the truth about ninjutsu,
Speaker 2: it isn't really ninjutsu. So this reminds me a bit
Speaker 2: of the nineteen sixty seven Japanese crime thriller Branded to Kill,
Speaker 2: which is a very stylish noir action picture about assassins.
Speaker 2: But in that movie, which again is very much work
Speaker 2: of fiction, that's not to be taken in reality, it's
Speaker 2: very surreal in some ways. But in that fiction, there's
Speaker 2: like this ranking of assassins, and there's supposedly a number
Speaker 2: one assassin, like the best assassin in the world of
Speaker 2: Japanese crime. But they are almost like a ghost. They
Speaker 2: might not even exist, or perhaps they've kind of transcended
Speaker 2: traditional existence by being the best at what they do.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I do like this idea, and I think
Speaker 2: there may be is something to acknowledge there that you're
Speaker 2: dealing with the secret of organization that wouldn't want there
Speaker 2: to be a bunch of records about what they did
Speaker 2: and what they're doing. They would have wanted to remain
Speaker 2: in the shadow. And then the third point they make
Speaker 2: is that during the heyday of the Sengoku era, the
Speaker 2: warring States of fourteen sixty seven through fifteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: roughly the ninja were not fun. They were synonymous with
Speaker 2: trouble and unrest. Again coming back to the idea of
Speaker 2: shinobi as an adjective as well, And it was only later,
Speaker 2: during the comparable piece and stability of say the Edo
Speaker 2: period sixteen oh three through eighteen sixty eight, that new
Speaker 2: generations had the luxury of turning and looking back to
Speaker 2: the horrors of the past to spin out new tales
Speaker 2: of their stealthy exploits for entertainment purposes.
Speaker 3: Well, I think maybe we are out of time for
Speaker 3: part one, but there's a lot more to say about
Speaker 3: the ninja, trying to unravel the historical complexities, the differences
Speaker 3: between what we know and what is more likely some
Speaker 3: kind of historical fiction or invented tradition, untangling those differences,
Speaker 3: as well as getting into some of the great anecdotes
Speaker 3: and stories about historical alleged historical Ninja, as well as
Speaker 3: maybe some of the science of their tools and tricks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we can definitely spin off some ninja
Speaker 2: science in a subsequent episode. So excited to get into
Speaker 2: that later on. But we have a lot more to cover,
Speaker 2: various named ninjas of history and legend worth talking about
Speaker 2: some more about just how you know this, this interwoven
Speaker 2: idea of the ninja comes to fruition and so forth,
Speaker 2: So keep on the lookout for that. By the way,
Speaker 2: that book that I mentioned by Yoda and Alt Ninja Attack,
Speaker 2: this is one of three books that they put out.
Speaker 2: The other two are on Yo Kai and Yuri. If
Speaker 2: you look these up, you're going to notice that it
Speaker 2: has some very flashy, fun illustrations on the cover. I
Speaker 2: believe that the illustrator is Utaka Kondo, and it has
Speaker 2: like a very fun manga look to everything. But these
Speaker 2: are very informative, very well cited texts. I highly recommend them.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of fun that the Yo Kai book.
Speaker 2: I read with my son. We really got into that one.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you'll learn a lot about Japanese culture and history.
Speaker 2: So anyway, we're going to go and close out here,
Speaker 2: but write in. We'd love to hear from you if
Speaker 2: you have any thoughts on anything we discussed here, including
Speaker 2: your first exposures to the wonderful world of the of
Speaker 2: the pop culture Ninja. Where did what? What? Where? Was it?
Speaker 2: What did you see? Was it a video game? Was
Speaker 2: it a TV show? Was it a Japanese film? Uh?
Speaker 2: We we want to know. We're very interested in this
Speaker 2: in the global legend of the Ninja.
Speaker 3: Did anybody out there ever beat Ninja Gaiden? Oh?
Speaker 2: Man, I don't think. I don't think I played that one,
Speaker 2: but that is another huge ninja video game franchise.
Speaker 3: Of note, we accept your tall tales about how you
Speaker 3: were almost to the last stage but then kept getting
Speaker 3: knocked off the ledge by that thing that spawns over
Speaker 3: and over.
Speaker 2: Now, this is this one that you could actually beat,
Speaker 2: because I know there have been some of the In fact,
Speaker 2: I think there's a teenage meaning Ninja Turtle game for
Speaker 2: like any s that it was only later that that
Speaker 2: people realize, oh, you couldn't actually make some pivotal jump.
Speaker 2: That is, nobody could actually beat it.
Speaker 3: I don't know we've talked about this before. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: remember that, but I don't know about Ninja, and I
Speaker 3: just remember it being hard.
Speaker 2: They used to make the game, those games so hard.
Speaker 2: I did not miss it. Some people were nostalgic for
Speaker 2: impossible games. I occasionally play one of these and I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: I want to I want to be able to beat
Speaker 2: this and move on from it. This is not a
Speaker 2: lifelong struggle I'm signing up for.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm with you there.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: People play video games for different reasons, I guess, but
Speaker 3: if I play video game, I'm not looking to test
Speaker 3: my metal. I'm just like I'm trying to relax.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I want to feel like a competent Ninja
Speaker 2: in this video game, not an incompetent one. I didn't
Speaker 2: sign up for a bunch of ninja fails.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well there were a lot of those in that anyway. Okay,
Speaker 3: so I guess you know. We're wrapping up for today,
Speaker 3: but we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2: Uh.
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 at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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