August 2, 2025 • 54 mins
In this four-part series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the history, science and legend of the ninja or shinobi. Feudal Japan’s espionage specialists might not have resembled the characters in your favorite action movie, but they’ve become fictionalized staples of global popular culture while keeping to the shadows of history. (originally published 8/6/2024)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, it's Robert Lamb. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
It is Saturday, so we have a vault episode for you.
This is going to be The Ninja Part four. It
originally published eight six, twenty twenty four. Let's dive right.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
In Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
And today we're back with part four of our series
on the Ninja. Now, if you haven't heard the previous
three episodes, you should probably go back and check those
out first, but for a brief refresher. In the previous parts,
we talked about the origins of the term ninja and
its functional equivalent shanobi no mono, meaning a person who
(00:57):
practices sneaking secrecy, invisibility or in an alternate reading patience,
or endurance. We talked about the alleged historical origins of
the shinobi nomono as practitioners of espionage and undercover warfare
in Singoku era Japan, which covered parts of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries and was characterized by frequent uprisings and
(01:19):
civil wars, but we also discussed the complicated historical question
of to what extent the people who practiced spying, sabotage,
and sneak attacks during this period can actually be said
to connect to the modern literary archetype of the ninja,
which has evolved over several centuries and is almost certainly
(01:41):
composed in large part of legendary development and invented tradition.
We talked, especially in the first part of this series,
about how the ninja entered international pop culture in the
twentieth century and the characteristics of the pop culture ninja
and how those don't really match up with much of
even the historical legendary version of the ninja. We talked
(02:02):
about some individual shanobi warriors from legend and history, including
stories of ninja esque sorcerers who could ride on spectral toads,
and in the last episode, we talked about some of
the fantastic tools and techniques described in popular ninjitsu manuals
that were compiled and published beginning in the seventeenth century,
(02:23):
including everything from the use of gunpowder and pharmacology to
the so called water spider device that wouldn't allow you
to do something in water questions remain.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's right. And so we're back here for the final installment,
Part four, and as is often the case with our series,
part four is kind of and the rest. So we're
going to have examples of content that match up with
everything we just highlighted from the previous episodes. So like
a little bit more of everything we've been talking about,
(02:55):
I think getting into some I know some things that
were probably you know, pinging in your mind as you
listen to the first three, like when are they going
to talk about throwing stars?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
That's right. One of the inanimate objects most closely associated
with the ninja in modern movies and storytelling is the
shuri can at the throwing star aka the ninja star.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
This is of course one of the big ninja weapons
of pop culture, and one of the things is just
instantly attractive about the ninja that you can't help but
want to throw a shuri caan at somebody or at
the wall. Even when my family when we were in Japan,
one of the hotels that we stayed at in Tokyo
(03:38):
had a ninja theme, and when your families were checking in,
they would give the kids like pretend suri can to
throw at a target on the wall.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yes, I was reading about how shuri caan ranges are
like a common stop on sort of like ninja tourist offerings.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah. Yeah, so literally it basically means a blade in
the hand. And yeah. These are typically depicted in Japanese
ninja media as something you sling out rapid fire, like
kind of like you're dealing cards, throwing cards or something,
while a lot of Western ninja tails tend to present
them as these kind of deadly one shots. I think
(04:18):
we've all seen a movie in which a ninja throws
a shuri can and it gets somebody right in the
forehead and somehow kills them dead.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Rob correct me if you have a different impression. But
I feel like a lot of ninja movies emphasize a
theme with the shuracan that's almost like in fact, you
mention another Western movie that borrows from a Japanese origin,
in The Magnificent Seven, there's that scene where there's you know,
James Coburn brings a knife to a gunfight and he
beats the gunfighter by throwing the knife faster than the
(04:49):
gunfighter can draw his gun. Of course, that movie is
based on seven Samurai originally, but there is I think
a similar thing going on with the Shura can and
a lot of these movies. It's like the blade, the
bladed Star beats technology every time.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, and it helps to have those rapid fire cuts too,
because of course, the way you typically do a knife
throw or a surer can throw in cinema is you
just like cut two or pan over to where the
that the fake surrokin or the fake blade is already
like stuck in the person, so you know it's lightning fast.
It's like bam, there it is. It's like magically appeared
(05:26):
in their forehead.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Now, I think we mentioned in a previous episode. If not,
I'll go ahead and mention now that one thing that
is quite surprising is that suri can actually do not
feature in any of the classic ninjitsu manuals that we
were talking about from beginning in the seventeenth century in
the last episode. Though that doesn't mean they did not
exist at all. There are some historical artifacts that can
(05:51):
sort of fit in this box. It's just the historically
until I'll get to this in a minute, until basically
the twentieth century, they were not particularly associated with ninja
or shanobi.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, and it's it's interesting to sort of tease to
the history of like just the the weapon itself. I
was reading about this in Heroko Yoda and Matt Alts
Ninja Attack, which again is an excellent little illustrated book
that covers all the all these highlights. But they point
out that not all of these various designs of the
(06:24):
shurican that we we do have would have been thrown.
Some of them were simply small handheld blades. And that's
interesting too, because when in ninja media, I can't think
of an example of anyone doing anything with a shurcan
other than throw it. You know, I don't think I've
ever seen anybody like whittle with one, or open open
(06:44):
a soda pop with one, or anything. You know. They're
just for throwing. And apparently of the ones that were thrown,
what the more likely scenario here is that they would
have been a close range nuisance or distraction weapon, as
opposed to that stale the one shot kill.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, that very much squares with my understanding. So I
was reading about the origins of the association between shurikan
and ninja in a book that I've been referencing throughout
this series. It's a book called Ninja Unmasking the Myth
by a historian named Stephen Turnbull, which goes a lot
into the complicated questions the historicity of the ninja tropes
(07:25):
that exist today, and so in order to understand the
association that emerged between shurikan and ninja, it's apparently important
to understand a particular Japanese martial artist and author who
lived in the twentieth century named Fuji ta Seiko, who
was a practitioner and claimed to be a preserver of
(07:49):
the Ninjasu tradition of the Coca region of Japan. Fuji
to Seko lived from eighteen ninety eight to nineteen sixty six,
and fujits the writings were influential in creating the image
of the ninja that emerged in the mid twentieth century
after the conclusion of World War Two. I'm not going
(08:09):
to completely cover his biography, but I will say that
he is a fascinating and somewhat controversial figure worth reading
more about, just to hit some of the top lines.
In nineteen thirty six, he published a book called Ninjutsu Hiroku,
which means something like Secret Notes on Ninjutsu which is
allegedly based on the secret Koca traditions that had been
(08:33):
passed down to his family through direct instruction without being
published for a general audience, and he claimed that he
was publishing this information about ninjutsu to help Japan win
its war against China. However, actually a lot of the
information that he includes in this book does come from
other pre existing ninjitsu manuals like the ones we talked
(08:55):
about in the last part of this series, like the
mans in Chukai or the bens in Chukai. So the
Ninjitsu Heroku reframes a lot of information from these previous
ninjasu manuals of the Tokugawa period, But apparently it does
things like rationalize a lot of magical sounding claims. For example,
techniques that originally were presented as ways of transforming magically
(09:19):
into a rat are instead presented as making a noise
like a rat to confuse and distract guards, Or like
the idea that one could potentially turn invisible is rationalized
as well. You can walk in a certain way so
that you cannot be seen, thus causing the impression that
you've become invisible.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
A lot of this book also concerns self glorifying claims
of practices of physical endurance and austerity. For example, he
claimed that, you know, as part of his practice, he
could like break glass bottles over his own head to
prove his toughness. He says he can do forty glass
bottles in a row.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Oh, do not do not attend that, no idea.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I'm going to mention a few other things. Don't do
any of this, please. This is not a good training regime.
Even if you want to be a ninja, he says.
The shanobi must be able to withstand torture without giving
up information. So he says, I have stabbed myself with
hundreds of needles. Here's a picture of me with all
the needles in me, and I have eaten roof tiles,
(10:22):
glass bricks, and rat poison. Again questionable whether he actually
did some of that. I think people did claim that
they saw him eating glass. I don't know about the poison,
but don't do any of this. He also apparently claimed
that he like knew dog language and thus could like
communicate with dogs to like call them for help if needed,
(10:43):
or make maybe make them fight each other.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, aside from the making them fight each other Please
feel free to experiment with this one. You can talk
to dogs.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yes, better than eating poison and glass. Yeah. But one
of Fujiita Seko's most enduring contrabbutions to the ninja mythology
of today is his attachment of the shuriken in its
current form to the ninja legend. So I'm going to
try to get into that. Steven Turnbull in his book
(11:13):
actually as a whole chapter just on where the shuriican
comes from and how it connects to ninjitsu. So there
are references to the word shuriken in seventeenth century ninjitsu manuals,
but they are apparently referring to completely different objects than
we have in mind. We picture the ninja star that's
(11:36):
got you know. It's a star shaped, vaguely circular object
made of metal that has points all around so you
can throw it in the spinning fashion and wherever it
hits somebody, it's going to stab into them.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
That's right, And again we've seen this in movies time
and time again. I actually looked back at the James
Bond film that we talked about being pivotal in the
history of introducing the idea of the ninja to international
audience only live twice. And look, I didn't watch the
film in full, but I did find some YouTube clips
of it official on the James Bond YouTube page. Okay,
(12:09):
And there is a scene late in the film where
someone I think it's Bond himself throws a shuri can
at Blofeld and Blowfelt has a pistol, hits him in
the hand, knocks a pistol out of his hand.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
This is actually a common thing in the movies where
the ninja will use it to disarm an opponent who
has them at a loss.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, and I guess, again, issues of accuracy and power aside.
You know, I guess that's more realistic than the instant kill.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah. I'm going to get to the likely use of
it in a second, to the extent it's even being
recommended to a ninja. But so, okay, what is this
If the shuracan referenced in the seventeenth century in ninjuitsu
manuals is not what we have in mind, what is it? Well?
One of the earliest references, according to Turnbull, is in
a is in a text called the gun Po Geoshu
(12:58):
of sixteen fifty three, and in this case, the shurcan
is said to be quote a torch made from split
wood and fitted into a metal base with a spike.
So that's interesting a torch. But the idea here is
you're a sentry up on a castle wall, and you
know it's nighttime, surrounded by darkness, and you need to
(13:21):
see what's happening down on the ground below at the
base of the castle wall, so you throw down this shuriken.
This object is a sort of combination torch lawn dart,
and the metal spike sticks into the soil and the
torch illuminates the ground around the base of the wall.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
All right, seems reasonable, seems practical.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, that's a totally logical sounding tool. And it's interesting
because again, this sort of crosses that boundary that keeps
getting blurred in the history of ninja lore between weapons
intended for direct violence and things that are just tools
used to gather information. However, when it comes to direct references,
(14:03):
there is another early reference to shuricken that is also dissimilar,
dissimilar to what's the word there, disimilar to or dissimilar from.
It's not the same as a ninja star. This is
the bow churicken mentioned in some seventeenth century texts, which
is a bar or rod shaped object that could be
thrown by hand. So essentially this is just a large
(14:24):
steel dart.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, these these are really neat, and of course when
you start looking up weapons of the sort ninja weapons seeing,
you find there's a lot of drift. There's a lot
of like modernization and whether the weapon actually existed historically
or not somebody has made it now you can you
know again, buy it at the mall or something. But
these are pretty cool, and these are one of I
feel like just to dip back into Dungeons and Dragons
(14:48):
for a second. Anytime darts are are are mentioned, or
darts come up as a possible weapon in Dungeons and Dragons,
I feel like most people's mind, you know, given the
often sort of like Western eye fantasy setting of Dungeons
and Dragons, you often think of like a dart from
a pool hall, right, Yeah, dart board just small, you know,
(15:10):
basically a harmless weapon. And I would always want to
advise me, no, look up some bow shurikean and imagine
that for your character instead. It's still not going to
do a lot of damage in the game, but it
looks cooler.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yes, But coming back to the idea of not necessarily
needing to do a lot of damage. That actually connects
to where we get the first references too star shaped
churicken in an actual ninjitsu text, and that's in the
twentieth century. So here we're coming back to Fujita seiko
in Ninjitsu Heroku again, this is from the year nineteen
(15:45):
thirty six. He has a passage about shurikeen in his text,
and so I'm gonna hear read from Turnbull's featured translation.
So the author here writes, if you have to defend
yourself against a sudden attack by an enemy, puts some
distance between you to ensure your safety. In this case,
use the small weapon called a toby dogu, which means
(16:07):
throwing weapon, known to the author as shuriken. Samurai normally
despised these and other throwing weapons, but they are most
effective if used skillfully. The shuri caan can do great
damage if it hits someone's eye, So even in this
take from the nineteen thirties, the shuri caan is not
a primary weapon, but the idea seems to me to
(16:30):
be more like throwing sand in somebody's eyes. It's like
a trick you can use to buy time or advantage
if you're caught off guard or being chased.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, and in this scenario, especially keeping the samurai from
closing the distance between themselves and you, because that's life
and death at that point. If you can if you
can just keep the distance between yourself and the samurai,
then maybe you've got a chance to get away.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Right, It's the idea is throwing something to keep the
samurai out of sword range.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, this reminds me a little bit. We did, you know,
a past episode of Stuff to Blow your mind. We
did a series talking about like throwing animals, throwing things,
and then we got for one episode into an overview
of like human history with thrown weapon objects, and you know,
they ranged from from well, I would say they range
from rocks to more complex weapons. But I remember, even
(17:21):
in talking about throwing rocks and stones as weapons, you know,
there's a lot more to it. You know, there's a
lot of selection involved in picking up the exact correct object.
And this is a case where we get to that
next level of Okay, what have we crafted the items
that we wish to throw so that they could be
used more.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Optimally describing what devices to throw for this purpose. Fujiita advises,
for one thing, improvised hand thrown weapons such as knives
or hairpins, so it's like, if you know, throw whatever
you can get your hands on, but if you're going
to have a dedicated weapon to throw. He also illustrates
dedicated shurriken designs, and one of the illustrations is a
(18:01):
classic bo shurikan, a large steel dart. But he also
includes pointed metal stars, and so here we get our
first illustration of throwing stars in a ninjutsu text. So
one of the things he illustrates is cross shaped it
has four points, and another one is shown with eight points.
This is in nineteen thirty six, the first ninja text
(18:24):
showing the star shaped shurican. However, it's clear that Fujiita
Seko did not invent this device from his imagination, because
even though earlier ninjitsu texts don't include them, we do
have evidence from earlier periods of vaguely star shaped blades
or cross shaped blades that did exist and could possibly
(18:45):
be thrown. So instead of looking for them in the
nunjitsu manuals, you can find them in the jiu jitsu
arsenals of the Tokugawa period, particularly associated with a martial
arts tradition called the Sego Reu. One of the documents
allegedly associated with this school of martial arts includes an
illustration of a weapon that is quite similar that is
(19:07):
described like two knife blades fastened in the middle with
a hinge. So the way I'm picturing this finder stand
it right, is it's like a pair of scissors, but
instead of one side of each blade being handles, it's
just blades on every point. Now, for several reasons, Turnbull
thinks that Fuji ta Seiko was probably not familiar with
(19:31):
this exact document that I just mentioned, and probably was
getting his knowledge of the star shaped throwing weapon just
from seeing these artifacts around. And there is other evidence
from history of people like having versions of these artifacts
even going back to the Tokugawa period. But they just traditionally,
(19:54):
it doesn't seem like they were super common, and they
weren't particular. They weren't associated as far as anybody knows,
with nujitsu until the twentieth century, and now that's all
they're associated with.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, I think we probably have to sort of try
and imagine that most likely more historically accurate vision of
Shanobi operatives as being you know, plain clothes espionage operatives
who you know, if you're going to carry items on you, like,
are you going to really commit to having these some
sort of a throwing star, sure, a can on your person,
(20:29):
something that again is I think going to be at
least in the modern understanding of it, is going to
be more obviously a weapon and therefore subject to you know,
I mean being judged in the illegal weapon or also
just being suspect in nature that you have it as
a and again, think about when you would supposedly use it,
(20:49):
like when the samurai are coming after you, or when
guards are coming after you, like really in the worst
case scenarios, and that might be a better place to
maybe depend on just throwing say, you know, found objects
like a bottle or some other item in your immediate vicinity,
as opposed to having some specialty device on your person instead.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
There's one detail from Turnbull's chapter that is so interesting
I had to bring it up. It's about the design
that many people have probably seen of these basically swastika
shaped a throwing star that occurs in a lot of media.
This is a very familiar design for movies and stuff,
and apparently a lot of modern ninja books have featured
(21:32):
this design as if it were a traditional shuriken design,
but it is not, and in fact, there is an
anecdote from this chapter about how an actor who worked
on a nineteen sixties TV series in Japan called on Mitsukinschi,
which had a throwing star of this design, described that
(21:56):
really this design was created for the show because pause
these straight pointed throwing stars were deemed too dangerous on set,
so this was essentially a safety innovation that was later
misinterpreted as a real design of throwing stars as weapons.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, that's that's crazy, like basically a safety shit shuriken.
That's great. Yeah, I have another example of shurrokan inspired
fictional weaponry, and this one I thought was interesting because
it kind of stands, at least to my eyes, as
kind of like the ultimate in sci fi and fantasy
(22:34):
transformation of the ninja myth. So in the Warhammer forty
thousand universe, like a far future, you know, grim Dark scenario,
you have these. You have this species known as the
l Dar, and they're kind of like a sci fi
take on the elves. I mean, that's exactly what they are.
And they use pistols and rifles that use shurrocans as ammunition.
(22:58):
So these are said to be molecular, cutting edge weapons
fired in bursts from these guns and like they're so
sharp and they hit so it was with such velocity
that they just shred whatever they hit, be it a
mechanical foe or an organic foe. And again pretty far
removed from anything even remotely realistic we're talking about here,
(23:21):
but again I thought it was interesting. It's kind of
like the extreme transformation of the shuriken in sci fi
and fantasy. I also, I didn't remember this at all
because I don't have a lot of memories regarding two
thousand and four as Alien versus Predator, But you might
remember that in other Predator movies he has this disc
that he throws that cuts people in half. And in
(23:43):
this film they decided they were like, that looks too
much like a frisbee. Let's give the predator a shuriken.
And so he has this thing that it was least
at least described as a shura can. I included an
image here for you, Joe. It's it's really way too large.
It reminds me more of the weaponing Kroll, the what
is it boss?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
The glave Yeah, which also is a word that means
something else elsewhere. But yeah, that's very confusing. It looks
almost exactly like the krawl thing. It's like kind of
almost like starfish shaped in a way, with these wispy
curving blades coming out. It looks too delicate, you know,
(24:20):
it looks like they would break off.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know. I don't remember what
this thing did in action. I guess it just cut
through stuff. But anyway, I wanted to.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Mention that based on my memory, probably doesn't do much
because I remember the Predator is just getting like beat
up in that movie. The movie is very like oh
yeah singles, you know, more full takedown and Predator. It's
kind of surprising.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Uh, well, I think it should. I think it should.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yeah, Okay, it's a fair hunt.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, I don't know. I like to say I don't
remember that film all that well, but I did see it.
I might have seen in the theater. All right. Well, anyway,
coming back to the Shanobi, the pop culture Ninja and
(25:12):
the shur Can again, it's like you got to if
you try and think you know, realistically about any scenario
in which you have to bring a certain amount of tools,
you have your sort of desert island list of tools
to bring. Would throwing stars make the list? Again, items
that might only be used when you were about to
kill a samurai, and your main defense is like, what
(25:34):
have I made them angry? So I think there's reason
to doubt that. And it's interesting too when you look
at some of these ninjitsu manuals, again with proper caveats
about where they factor into the transformation from historical accuracy
into myth and fiction. There are sometimes lists of tools,
(25:55):
and in fact, there's a sixteen eighty one text Sho Ninki,
a Record of proper Nanjotsu, that includes six tools that
apparently every ninja had to have, and throwing stars did
not make the list. Instead, you have and I think
this is actually kind of a telling list, Like this
is a list that I mean, it certainly can apply
(26:15):
to any pop cultural view of vision of the ninja
that you have, but it also makes a lot of
sense if you're just imagining some sort of espionage operative
that's maybe doing like some extra sneaky stuff, Because the
list includes first of all kagi nawa a grappling hook
and rope, All right, makes sense. You need to get
(26:36):
over a wall. Grappling hook and some rope is a
way to do it. Then you've got this one. This one.
I was surprised by kasa a conical straw hat, like
a wide brimmed straw hat. This would have been widely
used by plenty of people who are not involved in
shanobi operations. But that's part of a part of it, right,
It's like not conspicuous, and you could apparently hide tools,
(27:00):
like it's large enough, you could, you know, maybe secret
some items up there under the brim.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
It makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, And then here's a good one. Chalk in order
to leave irasable secret messages for other operatives.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Ah. Yeah, that's interesting because when you think about some
of these other Ninjasu manuals we were talking about, like
the Men's in Chucai, places a big emphasis on the
the operative must survive in order to deliver information. So
it's like propagandizing the reader against the idea of you know,
going out to die in honorable death while doing the mission.
(27:35):
It's like, no, you must live in order to deliver
the information. But if you can deliver information in some
other way, like by writing a message somewhere, you know,
down somewhere for someone else to read, then I guess
that takes some of the pressure off.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, yeah, so it makes sense. And also, like chalk
generally not considered sus if you're caught with chalk, it's
not You're not going to be instantly sent to your execution.
I'm assumed, all right. Some of the others a tinder box,
you know, just for a little fire, a towel, bring
a towel with you, you know, it's there are a
lot of uses for the towel is very versatile. And
(28:09):
then there's also this category kusuri, and this would have
been various chemical compounds for different purposes. And this would
include things like poison but also basically like first aid
as well as bug repellent. So I feel like this
is a pretty solid list because, if nothing else, it
speaks to some of the practical aspects of imagine shanobi activities.
(28:31):
You might need some bugspray, you might need to bring
a light, you might need to bring a towel.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah, I mean, towel's just always a good idea.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, In the book Ninja Attack, Yoda and All highlight
some other alleged Ninja weapons, and they're kind of a
mix of things that maybe feel a little more fantasy
based and others that just sound very standard. Like one
is a kunai, a standard field knife. I think we
mentioned this in passing in the last one when we're
talking about the the idea that ninja's had a specialized
(29:03):
ninja would have a specialized sword, and we brought up that, well,
why would you have this illegal weapon on you that
takes up a fair amount of room that also might
not serve your mission all that well, when you could
just bring like a standard field knife, something that would
not necessarily be considered a straight up weapon and would
have various practical uses. There's another one, goshiki may, which
(29:25):
would have been it's supposed to have been dyed rice
grains that you could leave, you could leave behind you
as as a codd trail. Again, I'm not so sure
about that when that one sounds a little more exciting,
like maybe a little too exciting to be an actual,
you know, artifact of spycraft. Now, Gandhal a bucket based
(29:46):
focused lantern that does sound useful for sneaking around, you know,
basically like a you know something, so you're not lighting
up in the whole room, you're not lighting yourself up,
but you can have a very focused light for sneaking around,
maybe looking at document.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's oh, I see sort of a beam light. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Another one is a michi hakari. This would have been
like a measuring stick. Again. You know, sometimes espionage is boring.
It's just about how how bigger things, So you might
need to measure things when you when you're when you're
out and about.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Uh, this is not boring at all. This is a
major part of espionage activities in these old warfare manuals.
It's about like giving giving dimensions and topography. It's like,
go somewhere and tell me what it's like. Make a map.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, they mentioned shakomi and this would have been like
various concealed weapons, including cane swords, blow guns, that sort
of thing. Again. Uh, certainly this would make sense, especially
if you're engaging in some sort of potential assassination scenario.
But it also of course leans I think heavily into
(30:50):
the myth of espionage. I mean, who doesn't love a
good secret weapon. Some sort of a James Bond device right.
Then there's a shikoro. This would have been like a
serrated hand tool for sawing, again like a basic tool
that might come in handy for certain practices. And then
there's a casou gai. This would have been These would
have been climbing aids, like specialized like iron climbing aids
(31:13):
for foot and hand holds. It could be inserted into
the cracks of a wall that the examples that are
included in the book are pretty neat looking. I'm not
sure how historically accurate this would be, again, because we
talked about the importance of a ladder, and certainly, you know,
we talked about you know, grappling hooks, So I don't know,
I'm not sure if this is if this is something
(31:35):
that would have been regularly done, because the ladder is
also included in the in the book. Here, there's also
uh subo kiri, like a handheld drilling tool from like
making a like holes in a wall for like a
peep pole. Yeah, peep pole, So this sounds reasonable. They
mentioned they mentioned the fabulous floating shoes that we talked
(31:56):
about last time, but they also mentioned something called mizugaki,
which would have been would have been apparently a type
of footwear that was useful in muddy areas. Okay, yeah,
and I guess this is reasonable, right, if you're like
potentially sneaking out of of of a building or an area,
or dealing in any fashion with a moat, it might
(32:18):
make sense to have specialized footwear.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Well, right, as we talked about it in the last episode,
the idea of the mizugumo, the water walking shoes, the
water spider shoes almost certainly would not work as generally
interpreted in twentieth century sources, where like they allow you
to walk across the top of the water. So if
such a device were actually used, it was probably more
like an inner tube type thing that you would sit
(32:41):
in and float across the water in.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, yeah, kind of like a makeshift raft, which was
is Actually there's another item like this included in the book,
the kami Gatta, which would apparently have been and I
don't have a clear vision of what this would look like,
but a makeshift raft using a bamboo frame in empty
clay jars. So you know, perhaps a scenario where it's like, Okay,
(33:05):
I got to I got to build a boat tonight
in order to make it across this river or this
moat or what have you. What could you use to
make it? How you could you mcguiver up a boat.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
That's good knowledge to have.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Now, there are various other ninja weapons that we could
potentially talk about. I think the common thread, though, is
going to be how realistic is this and how much
historical evidence is there for this? And how cool does
it look? You know, like you see things like Techo
Kagi and Nko te These would have been two different
(33:42):
versions of like giving your ninja's claws, so the former
being like a wolverine claw that you wear as a gauntlet.
I guess also you could this is like basically what
Shreder has in teenage mutant ninja turtles. And then the
neck o t would would have been something that goes
over your fingertips. And these would have been like poisoned
or some sort of a nuisance weapon for like scratching somebody.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Over the fingertips. Yikes.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, so like you with the.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Open hand swinging at the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Well, you're not as big as Freddy Krueger or anything.
I think I did an artifact episode a while back
talking about like some of the physics of strapping blades
to your fingers, Like that's Freddy Krueger glove would be
a great way to break all your fingers. You can
actually use that as a weapon, and you are not
a supernatural entity of some sort. Yes, but if it's
wrist mounted, okay, you know potentially that could work. But
(34:34):
then again you get into that question why would it
work more than a standard weapon? Why would it be
a better choice compared to a knife or a sword
or what have you.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
As with a lot of these things we're describing, you
can see how they might have more appeal as a
meme than actual functional utility, Like they could be successful
in texts like these because they're interesting ideas.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, Another thing that comes up is like, which cases
do we see some sort of an alleged ninja weapon
that might have its roots in sort of a repurposing
of other items, Like for instance, there are various forms
of teko or techo, and these would have been I've
seen it seen it written that these would have been
like a basically a weaponized iron stirrup that is turned
(35:20):
into something kind of like brass knuckles, you know, And
I think like brass knuckles are a great example of
something where you can see various knucks and other weapons
that can be very specialized and ornate, but various other
things could also work, you know, like a roll of
quarters or you know, some other just like a simple
band of iron that goes around your knuckles, that sort
(35:41):
of thing. And so there's a long list of alleged
ninja weapons. They include miniaturized firearms, sharpened hair ornaments, and chopsticks,
particularly for female shanobi. And you know, I think part
of that is just like the idea of like, oh,
these the hair ornaments look very sharp, they look like
they could be a weapon. What if they were a weapon?
(36:05):
And therefore the myth building takes place. There are at
least a couple of chain based weapons, the manriki gusari.
This is like a length of chain with a weight
on either end, and I think the basic idea here
is like, the samurai are coming to kill you, what again,
what can you throw at them to potentially buy yourself
(36:26):
a little time and or wrap around their weapons. There's
also one the kusari gama, which would have been much
the same idea, but with a blade or sickle on
one end of the chain. This would ideal. It yeah,
be a situation where someone's coming at you with a weapon,
maybe you could use the chain to like wrap up
their weapon and so forth. So again, all the standard
caveats apply to considering the historical accuracy of these weapon descriptions.
(36:50):
But I think we if we scrape the ninja mystique
off of each of them, while still acknowledging the use
of some form of martial art, we're dealing with sneaky
weapons that have as much, if not more in common
with typical criminal implements like small knives, small clubs, concealable firearms,
maybe even concealed swords and cane swords and all you know,
(37:14):
hidden blades, hidden flails and so forth. But again, I
think you end up having pasked that question like would
this actually be practical? Can you see somebody using this
in a very serious life and death, you know, very
risky scenario where the goal might not be some sort
of like crazy cinematic ninja scenario, but something more like
(37:37):
getting the measurements of a guard house, or you know,
looking at some documents, overhearing something that you're not supposed
to hear, and so forth. Now, there are various techniques
that ninja techniques that are brought up in the book
by Yoda and Alt and one that I was particularly
amused by is the idea that you could as a ninja,
as a shanobi operative out in the field, you need
(37:59):
to tell what time it is without any other information
to go on. You could look into a cat size
and therefore tell what time it is.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Oh interesting, now is this telling time in the nighttime
or in the daytime.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I have a lot of questions about how practical this
would be. I think this is definitely one of those
ideas that sounds more intriguing than it actually you know,
and then than it is useful. I think maybe it
has something to do with the idea quite understandably that
we feel a kinship between the ninja and the cat.
We like the idea too of a ninja stopping and maybe,
(38:36):
you know, talking with the cat like your the household
cat doesn't care he or she is ready to sell
you out to the shnovii at a moment's notice. They're
happy to conspire.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Cast speak with animals.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah, yeah, But the basic idea is that, okay, the
shape of the pupil in the cat's eye is going
to change throughout the day, and you could potentially match
it up with specific times. The trick, the challenge that
Yoda and All point out is that, of course you
would have to be able to get close enough to
the cat to do this, presumably a stranger's cat to
(39:10):
make this reading, which is betting a lot on random
cat personalities, because there are cats that I've seen plenty
of times and I've never gotten close enough to look
at their pupils. But then you'll just encounter like a
cat out on a walk, and the cat will come
straight up and is like ready to share that information
with you.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
This is why you rub your face with sardines, you
get the cat in there.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
So I looked into this a little bit more. I
couldn't find much concrete and about this, because, of course,
the other question is like, what kind of specific scenario
is this where there is no other information to go
on other than a cat's eide. You know, I feel
like you'd have a there would be better ways to
reasonably estimate what time it.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Is, and hey, you know, it's not impossible that someone
could find clever ways of getting surprisingly accurate information from
the natural world. I often think back to that series
of episodes we did about Pacific islander navigation techniques that
you know, without any kind of electronics or modern equipment,
people were able to figure out incredibly accurate ways of navigating.
(40:19):
And so maybe there's stuff like this in the eyes
of animals or in plants that can tell you exactly
what time it is. Is it true?
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, I've looked up an article. I found this article
on the website of the National Wildlife Federation by one
Donna Johnson, who, by the way, alludes to this being
a New England tradition. So I don't know where it originates.
Maybe it originates in multiple culture anytime you're close enough
to a cat to look at their eyes. But she
(40:49):
does do a breakdown of the idea, like, basically, cats
have elliptically shaped pupils to compensate for their light sensitivity,
which otherwise aids them in low light hunts. But the
greater the amount of light, the more slit like the pupil.
So it technically works, but it also seems again like
(41:09):
maybe not the most reliable time telling technique. And I
can't imagine a situation where the cat's eyes would be
the only thing to go off of, so many questions
would emerge here, but it's a neat idea. I guess, well.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
I mean, if the cats eyes are responding to the
level of light, would the ninja not also be able
to see the level of light exactly?
Speaker 1 (41:41):
All right? The final thing I want to hit on
here in this series is the idea of the ninja
as hero, because when it comes to pop cultural transformations,
I think it's always interesting to look at the point
where something completely flips from what it originally was. For instance,
in past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we
discussed how various fear some monsters, especially in Japanese culture,
(42:03):
but we also looked at some examples from Western horror movies,
eventually make the transformation from like a symbol symbolized like
aspect of reality, you know, some sort of you know,
dark aspect of reality that is embodied in some sort
of a being and imagine being, you know, a fearsome entity.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
The point at which we take that and flip it
into something cute, something that would you know, make for
a nice mascot, look at it on a bumper sticker,
or even be a stuffed animal. I think there's something
telling about reaching that point when the monster becomes cute
or in this case, when the ninja becomes a hero.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
When we've talked about this with regard to monsters, I
remember one of my thoughts about it was that this
impulse is driven by franchising concerns, Like the further you
get into sequels and the more like movies or stories
you've had exposing you to this monster over and over,
the less comfortable it is for the monster to continue
(43:03):
to be purely fearsome or evil, and there's an impulse
to make it more friendly or at least maybe funnier
or something. So you can see this in you know,
like Godzilla originally is not nice and is not fun,
but eventually it becomes Godzilla becomes the defender essentially against
these worst monsters. You know, the new monster is the
(43:26):
worst one and Godzilla is the one we're familiar with
fighting it off. And you can see over time that
Freddy Krueger goes from being just like a gross, disgusting
murderer into becoming like a jokester who's more just kind
of like mugging for the camera and yuck, yucks.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, he becomes a violent clown.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Yeah, and so forth. I think it's a really common pattern.
It's something about like familiarity takes the edge off of
something and makes you want to recast it as a
friend rather than a foe.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
And so with the Ninja, you know, we've discussed at
length than nebulous reality and origins of the shnobi, and
how we're mostly talking about shadowy espa espionage operatives made
up of commoners and even criminals that engage in dirty,
if not outright shameful acts that are necessary, a necessary
part of warfare, alongside the more celebrated noble and aristocratic
(44:18):
exploits of rulers in the Samurai. But then coming out
of the Warring States period and into the Edo period
and beyond, we see the myth making. We see the
fiction transforming the myth of the ninja in numerous ways,
giving it the form everyone instantly recognizes today. And so
many Ninja remain villains in these later treatments, but they
inevitably cross over into anti hero and even hero territory.
(44:41):
And this kind of takes me back to our initial
discussion talking about our initial introductions to ninja growing up,
and I look back and I think some of my
initial introductions to ninja actually cast them as heroes, like
that nineteen eighty one canon film Entered the Ninja has
been built around Franco Niro, an Italian actor, as at
(45:06):
least an anti hero. I don't think he's maybe quite
a hero in that, but he's at least an anti hero.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
I feel like the majority of the ninja media I
consumed when I was a kid had ninjas as heroes
rather than villains, or had them as both.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, I think that's not very common as well, going
back to like g I Joe, like Snake Eyes is
a black clad ninja and is very much on the
certified good guy team. There's no it's it's black and white.
Literally though it's flipped because our black clad ninja is
good and our white clad ninja is bad.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Yeah or yeah, so often they were both, but I
think there's an impulse there that it's just like, well,
especially in kid focus to media, ninja's are cool, and
kids want to root for the good guys, and they
want they want the good guys to be cool, So
you got to make the ninja a good guy.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, Like I mean, the teenage meeting ninja turtles. Obviously
they're turtles they're teenagers, but they are ninjas. They're very
much the good guys. But then, going back to the
Bond film You Only Live Twice again vitally important in
bringing the Ninja into the international market and into Western cinema.
All the Ninja in that all the Shnobi operatives were
(46:15):
working on James Bod's Bond's team. They were all good
guys essentially.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I think so there might be some
working for the bad guys, but I don't recall specifically.
The ones I remember are good guys.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, there's like the big scene at the end where
they storm the Specter compound and Bond lets the Ninjas in.
He's like he opens the door and here come the
Ninjas down on like wires and all.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
So, anyway, like getting down to discussion like when when
are ninjas allowed to become not just anti heroes but
outright good guys. Well, according to Yoda and all discussion
in Ninja Ninja Attack, there's a definite place to single
out perhaps is the first true ninja heroes in popular culture,
and it's the Chikawa pocket books. This would have been
(47:02):
the period around nineteen twelve through nineteen twenty six series
of books written by a group of writers that were
credited as Seka Sanjan a series of novels for juvenile
so like essentially like young reader or children's books that
detailed the adventures of a pair of rival ninja that
(47:22):
they were on the same team. To be clear, they're
not like rival teams or rival clans, but they have
differing personalities. They're kind of an odd couple, and that's
Saratobi Saske and Kira Gakura Saizo. And these books established
these two as quote poster boys for the ego koga
rivalry and ninja as a potential force for good. And
(47:46):
it was inspired by These tales were inspired by both
real life at least attributed ninja exploits, as well as
the Chinese literary classic Journey into the West. How is
it related to the Journey into the West. A lot
of it comes down to the character of Saratobi Saske,
a young boy raised by monkeys and then taken in
(48:06):
by a ninja master and then recruited by the warlords
Sonata due to his mischievous nature and his great skill
and of course the ninja arts, so he ends up
going on missions for his master but he's also, you know,
a bit of a trickster, a bit happy go lucky,
and he does a lot of side quests to help
the less fortunate. But the name here Saratobi means leaping monkey,
(48:28):
and he is in some ways a Japanese ninja version
of the Monkey King.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
It's interesting that you mentioned him doing sort of side
quests to help the less fortunate, because I have seen
that it is I have read at least that it
is common in literature that portrays the ninja as heroes
or good guys to include some kind of class element
where they are sort of they act on behalf of
(48:54):
the economic underclass of like the of the poor and
the less fortunate, and help them in the face of say,
like rich oppressors, like an evil samurai.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Yeah yeah, and a lot of the I think we
touched on some of these older tales that are either
ninja or ninja adjacent that are essentially robin hood stories,
like some sort of person from the criminal element, you know,
and from the lower classes that is sticking up for
the little guy. Now, the other of these two the rival.
So we have the happy go lucky guy, the more
(49:25):
like the sort of the more pure hero here. But
then we have Kira Gakua Saizo, who is born into
the ninja life. It has said he's trained with the best,
and he has become a master of clouds and lightning,
of mists and thunder, so you know, he can summon
various weather effects to mask his ninja movements. And the
name here means cloaked and missed. So while Saske is lighthearted,
(49:50):
Sizo is brooding, like this is more of your your
kind of like goth superstar character here. Nice they wind
up on the same ninja team. This would be Sonata
as Ten Heroes or the Ten Braves, but their rivals.
They're an odd couple to say the least. And Yoda
and all point out that, yeah, the nature of these
two characters kind of flows perfectly into modern times. So
(50:13):
Saske was always a hit with the kids, but then
Sizo was irresistible to you know, many in the post
war period, especially as like you know, older ninja fans
and adults told and retold stories. He's like a natural
character to latch onto. He's got this kind of angst
sort of in bridging the gap between anti hero and hero,
(50:36):
you know, So it fits that mold of the brooding
sort of Batman esque hero. I guess I included an
image here, Joe. This is from one of the many
more modern treatments from anime and manga. And you can
guess which one is which you know, which one is
your brooding character and which one is your more happy,
go lucky character.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Oh, Sizo even has like emo hair.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah yeah, yes, like again, just a natural fit, you know,
for for like kind of an angsty emo character. And
then we have the Trickster, the essentially the monkey King
in ninja form. Of course they're not going to completely
get along, but they are going to ultimately work, you know,
for the same cause.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
That's sweet.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, so yeah, I thought that was interesting, this idea
of like, okay, these might be the patient zeros for
good guy ninjas in popular culture, and these are characters
that get used again and again. Now I think Sizo
has also been used as an antagonist in some modern treatment.
So it kind of comes back to what we were
saying about monsters. Just because a monster goes cute, it
(51:38):
doesn't mean you can't go back and make them fearsome again.
This kind of thing happens all the time, and so
there's always going to be continued exploration and re exploration.
Just because Ninja's become heroes or anti heroes in one
property doesn't mean they can't be just absolute villains in another.
You know, we can continue to have fun in that regard.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Yeah, it's a saw tooth effect. I mean you you
know the seventies, you've already got all monsters attack and
the ones where Godzilla is like, oh, he's a good dad.
But then you come back decades later and you can
get Chinn Godzillo. Yeah, where the monster is a problem
yet again.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah, all right, Well there you have it Part four
of the Ninja. I don't know that we covered everything,
but we covered a lot of things related to the Ninja.
If we missed anything, or if there's some detail you
would like to bring up, write in. We would love
to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to
Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast
(52:34):
with core episodes in Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do a
short form episode on Wednesdays. Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.
That's our time to set aside most serious concerns to
just talk about what a weird film and currently we
run rerun or volve episodes on Saturdays and on Mondays,
where we've been experimenting with different format. But we are
(52:54):
going to have more listener mail episodes pop up. In fact,
there should be one popping up this Thursday. Then goes
according to plan and let's see finally, Oh yeah, if
you're on social media, look us up. We're probably on there.
Follow us. If you're on Instagram, we are st b
y M podcast. Just help me help us get our
our subscriber or follower base up there a bit. It's
(53:16):
a it's a newer account. The old one went away
and ninjas took it down, so so help us get
some numbers on that new one if you use the format,
but don't sign up for it if you're not using
it already, I mean really all the social media stuff, yeah,
don't put a lot of work into it.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio for
more podcasts from my heart Radio. It's the heart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
(54:22):
M
Hey, it's Robert Lamb. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
It is Saturday, so we have a vault episode for you.
This is going to be The Ninja Part four. It
originally published eight six, twenty twenty four. Let's dive right.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
In Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
And today we're back with part four of our series
on the Ninja. Now, if you haven't heard the previous
three episodes, you should probably go back and check those
out first, but for a brief refresher. In the previous parts,
we talked about the origins of the term ninja and
its functional equivalent shanobi no mono, meaning a person who
(00:57):
practices sneaking secrecy, invisibility or in an alternate reading patience,
or endurance. We talked about the alleged historical origins of
the shinobi nomono as practitioners of espionage and undercover warfare
in Singoku era Japan, which covered parts of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries and was characterized by frequent uprisings and
(01:19):
civil wars, but we also discussed the complicated historical question
of to what extent the people who practiced spying, sabotage,
and sneak attacks during this period can actually be said
to connect to the modern literary archetype of the ninja,
which has evolved over several centuries and is almost certainly
(01:41):
composed in large part of legendary development and invented tradition.
We talked, especially in the first part of this series,
about how the ninja entered international pop culture in the
twentieth century and the characteristics of the pop culture ninja
and how those don't really match up with much of
even the historical legendary version of the ninja. We talked
(02:02):
about some individual shanobi warriors from legend and history, including
stories of ninja esque sorcerers who could ride on spectral toads,
and in the last episode, we talked about some of
the fantastic tools and techniques described in popular ninjitsu manuals
that were compiled and published beginning in the seventeenth century,
(02:23):
including everything from the use of gunpowder and pharmacology to
the so called water spider device that wouldn't allow you
to do something in water questions remain.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's right. And so we're back here for the final installment,
Part four, and as is often the case with our series,
part four is kind of and the rest. So we're
going to have examples of content that match up with
everything we just highlighted from the previous episodes. So like
a little bit more of everything we've been talking about,
(02:55):
I think getting into some I know some things that
were probably you know, pinging in your mind as you
listen to the first three, like when are they going
to talk about throwing stars?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
That's right. One of the inanimate objects most closely associated
with the ninja in modern movies and storytelling is the
shuri can at the throwing star aka the ninja star.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
This is of course one of the big ninja weapons
of pop culture, and one of the things is just
instantly attractive about the ninja that you can't help but
want to throw a shuri caan at somebody or at
the wall. Even when my family when we were in Japan,
one of the hotels that we stayed at in Tokyo
(03:38):
had a ninja theme, and when your families were checking in,
they would give the kids like pretend suri can to
throw at a target on the wall.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yes, I was reading about how shuri caan ranges are
like a common stop on sort of like ninja tourist offerings.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah. Yeah, so literally it basically means a blade in
the hand. And yeah. These are typically depicted in Japanese
ninja media as something you sling out rapid fire, like
kind of like you're dealing cards, throwing cards or something,
while a lot of Western ninja tails tend to present
them as these kind of deadly one shots. I think
(04:18):
we've all seen a movie in which a ninja throws
a shuri can and it gets somebody right in the
forehead and somehow kills them dead.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Rob correct me if you have a different impression. But
I feel like a lot of ninja movies emphasize a
theme with the shuracan that's almost like in fact, you
mention another Western movie that borrows from a Japanese origin,
in The Magnificent Seven, there's that scene where there's you know,
James Coburn brings a knife to a gunfight and he
beats the gunfighter by throwing the knife faster than the
(04:49):
gunfighter can draw his gun. Of course, that movie is
based on seven Samurai originally, but there is I think
a similar thing going on with the Shura can and
a lot of these movies. It's like the blade, the
bladed Star beats technology every time.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, and it helps to have those rapid fire cuts too,
because of course, the way you typically do a knife
throw or a surer can throw in cinema is you
just like cut two or pan over to where the
that the fake surrokin or the fake blade is already
like stuck in the person, so you know it's lightning fast.
It's like bam, there it is. It's like magically appeared
(05:26):
in their forehead.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Now, I think we mentioned in a previous episode. If not,
I'll go ahead and mention now that one thing that
is quite surprising is that suri can actually do not
feature in any of the classic ninjitsu manuals that we
were talking about from beginning in the seventeenth century in
the last episode. Though that doesn't mean they did not
exist at all. There are some historical artifacts that can
(05:51):
sort of fit in this box. It's just the historically
until I'll get to this in a minute, until basically
the twentieth century, they were not particularly associated with ninja
or shanobi.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, and it's it's interesting to sort of tease to
the history of like just the the weapon itself. I
was reading about this in Heroko Yoda and Matt Alts
Ninja Attack, which again is an excellent little illustrated book
that covers all the all these highlights. But they point
out that not all of these various designs of the
(06:24):
shurican that we we do have would have been thrown.
Some of them were simply small handheld blades. And that's
interesting too, because when in ninja media, I can't think
of an example of anyone doing anything with a shurcan
other than throw it. You know, I don't think I've
ever seen anybody like whittle with one, or open open
(06:44):
a soda pop with one, or anything. You know. They're
just for throwing. And apparently of the ones that were thrown,
what the more likely scenario here is that they would
have been a close range nuisance or distraction weapon, as
opposed to that stale the one shot kill.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, that very much squares with my understanding. So I
was reading about the origins of the association between shurikan
and ninja in a book that I've been referencing throughout
this series. It's a book called Ninja Unmasking the Myth
by a historian named Stephen Turnbull, which goes a lot
into the complicated questions the historicity of the ninja tropes
(07:25):
that exist today, and so in order to understand the
association that emerged between shurikan and ninja, it's apparently important
to understand a particular Japanese martial artist and author who
lived in the twentieth century named Fuji ta Seiko, who
was a practitioner and claimed to be a preserver of
(07:49):
the Ninjasu tradition of the Coca region of Japan. Fuji
to Seko lived from eighteen ninety eight to nineteen sixty six,
and fujits the writings were influential in creating the image
of the ninja that emerged in the mid twentieth century
after the conclusion of World War Two. I'm not going
(08:09):
to completely cover his biography, but I will say that
he is a fascinating and somewhat controversial figure worth reading
more about, just to hit some of the top lines.
In nineteen thirty six, he published a book called Ninjutsu Hiroku,
which means something like Secret Notes on Ninjutsu which is
allegedly based on the secret Koca traditions that had been
(08:33):
passed down to his family through direct instruction without being
published for a general audience, and he claimed that he
was publishing this information about ninjutsu to help Japan win
its war against China. However, actually a lot of the
information that he includes in this book does come from
other pre existing ninjitsu manuals like the ones we talked
(08:55):
about in the last part of this series, like the
mans in Chukai or the bens in Chukai. So the
Ninjitsu Heroku reframes a lot of information from these previous
ninjasu manuals of the Tokugawa period, But apparently it does
things like rationalize a lot of magical sounding claims. For example,
techniques that originally were presented as ways of transforming magically
(09:19):
into a rat are instead presented as making a noise
like a rat to confuse and distract guards, Or like
the idea that one could potentially turn invisible is rationalized
as well. You can walk in a certain way so
that you cannot be seen, thus causing the impression that
you've become invisible.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
A lot of this book also concerns self glorifying claims
of practices of physical endurance and austerity. For example, he
claimed that, you know, as part of his practice, he
could like break glass bottles over his own head to
prove his toughness. He says he can do forty glass
bottles in a row.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Oh, do not do not attend that, no idea.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I'm going to mention a few other things. Don't do
any of this, please. This is not a good training regime.
Even if you want to be a ninja, he says.
The shanobi must be able to withstand torture without giving
up information. So he says, I have stabbed myself with
hundreds of needles. Here's a picture of me with all
the needles in me, and I have eaten roof tiles,
(10:22):
glass bricks, and rat poison. Again questionable whether he actually
did some of that. I think people did claim that
they saw him eating glass. I don't know about the poison,
but don't do any of this. He also apparently claimed
that he like knew dog language and thus could like
communicate with dogs to like call them for help if needed,
(10:43):
or make maybe make them fight each other.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, aside from the making them fight each other Please
feel free to experiment with this one. You can talk
to dogs.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yes, better than eating poison and glass. Yeah. But one
of Fujiita Seko's most enduring contrabbutions to the ninja mythology
of today is his attachment of the shuriken in its
current form to the ninja legend. So I'm going to
try to get into that. Steven Turnbull in his book
(11:13):
actually as a whole chapter just on where the shuriican
comes from and how it connects to ninjitsu. So there
are references to the word shuriken in seventeenth century ninjitsu manuals,
but they are apparently referring to completely different objects than
we have in mind. We picture the ninja star that's
(11:36):
got you know. It's a star shaped, vaguely circular object
made of metal that has points all around so you
can throw it in the spinning fashion and wherever it
hits somebody, it's going to stab into them.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
That's right, And again we've seen this in movies time
and time again. I actually looked back at the James
Bond film that we talked about being pivotal in the
history of introducing the idea of the ninja to international
audience only live twice. And look, I didn't watch the
film in full, but I did find some YouTube clips
of it official on the James Bond YouTube page. Okay,
(12:09):
And there is a scene late in the film where
someone I think it's Bond himself throws a shuri can
at Blofeld and Blowfelt has a pistol, hits him in
the hand, knocks a pistol out of his hand.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
This is actually a common thing in the movies where
the ninja will use it to disarm an opponent who
has them at a loss.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, and I guess, again, issues of accuracy and power aside.
You know, I guess that's more realistic than the instant kill.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah. I'm going to get to the likely use of
it in a second, to the extent it's even being
recommended to a ninja. But so, okay, what is this
If the shuracan referenced in the seventeenth century in ninjuitsu
manuals is not what we have in mind, what is it? Well?
One of the earliest references, according to Turnbull, is in
a is in a text called the gun Po Geoshu
(12:58):
of sixteen fifty three, and in this case, the shurcan
is said to be quote a torch made from split
wood and fitted into a metal base with a spike.
So that's interesting a torch. But the idea here is
you're a sentry up on a castle wall, and you
know it's nighttime, surrounded by darkness, and you need to
(13:21):
see what's happening down on the ground below at the
base of the castle wall, so you throw down this shuriken.
This object is a sort of combination torch lawn dart,
and the metal spike sticks into the soil and the
torch illuminates the ground around the base of the wall.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
All right, seems reasonable, seems practical.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, that's a totally logical sounding tool. And it's interesting
because again, this sort of crosses that boundary that keeps
getting blurred in the history of ninja lore between weapons
intended for direct violence and things that are just tools
used to gather information. However, when it comes to direct references,
(14:03):
there is another early reference to shuricken that is also dissimilar,
dissimilar to what's the word there, disimilar to or dissimilar from.
It's not the same as a ninja star. This is
the bow churicken mentioned in some seventeenth century texts, which
is a bar or rod shaped object that could be
thrown by hand. So essentially this is just a large
(14:24):
steel dart.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, these these are really neat, and of course when
you start looking up weapons of the sort ninja weapons seeing,
you find there's a lot of drift. There's a lot
of like modernization and whether the weapon actually existed historically
or not somebody has made it now you can you
know again, buy it at the mall or something. But
these are pretty cool, and these are one of I
feel like just to dip back into Dungeons and Dragons
(14:48):
for a second. Anytime darts are are are mentioned, or
darts come up as a possible weapon in Dungeons and Dragons,
I feel like most people's mind, you know, given the
often sort of like Western eye fantasy setting of Dungeons
and Dragons, you often think of like a dart from
a pool hall, right, Yeah, dart board just small, you know,
(15:10):
basically a harmless weapon. And I would always want to
advise me, no, look up some bow shurikean and imagine
that for your character instead. It's still not going to
do a lot of damage in the game, but it
looks cooler.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yes, But coming back to the idea of not necessarily
needing to do a lot of damage. That actually connects
to where we get the first references too star shaped
churicken in an actual ninjitsu text, and that's in the
twentieth century. So here we're coming back to Fujita seiko
in Ninjitsu Heroku again, this is from the year nineteen
(15:45):
thirty six. He has a passage about shurikeen in his text,
and so I'm gonna hear read from Turnbull's featured translation.
So the author here writes, if you have to defend
yourself against a sudden attack by an enemy, puts some
distance between you to ensure your safety. In this case,
use the small weapon called a toby dogu, which means
(16:07):
throwing weapon, known to the author as shuriken. Samurai normally
despised these and other throwing weapons, but they are most
effective if used skillfully. The shuri caan can do great
damage if it hits someone's eye, So even in this
take from the nineteen thirties, the shuri caan is not
a primary weapon, but the idea seems to me to
(16:30):
be more like throwing sand in somebody's eyes. It's like
a trick you can use to buy time or advantage
if you're caught off guard or being chased.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, and in this scenario, especially keeping the samurai from
closing the distance between themselves and you, because that's life
and death at that point. If you can if you
can just keep the distance between yourself and the samurai,
then maybe you've got a chance to get away.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Right, It's the idea is throwing something to keep the
samurai out of sword range.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, this reminds me a little bit. We did, you know,
a past episode of Stuff to Blow your mind. We
did a series talking about like throwing animals, throwing things,
and then we got for one episode into an overview
of like human history with thrown weapon objects, and you know,
they ranged from from well, I would say they range
from rocks to more complex weapons. But I remember, even
(17:21):
in talking about throwing rocks and stones as weapons, you know,
there's a lot more to it. You know, there's a
lot of selection involved in picking up the exact correct object.
And this is a case where we get to that
next level of Okay, what have we crafted the items
that we wish to throw so that they could be
used more.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Optimally describing what devices to throw for this purpose. Fujiita advises,
for one thing, improvised hand thrown weapons such as knives
or hairpins, so it's like, if you know, throw whatever
you can get your hands on, but if you're going
to have a dedicated weapon to throw. He also illustrates
dedicated shurriken designs, and one of the illustrations is a
(18:01):
classic bo shurikan, a large steel dart. But he also
includes pointed metal stars, and so here we get our
first illustration of throwing stars in a ninjutsu text. So
one of the things he illustrates is cross shaped it
has four points, and another one is shown with eight points.
This is in nineteen thirty six, the first ninja text
(18:24):
showing the star shaped shurican. However, it's clear that Fujiita
Seko did not invent this device from his imagination, because
even though earlier ninjitsu texts don't include them, we do
have evidence from earlier periods of vaguely star shaped blades
or cross shaped blades that did exist and could possibly
(18:45):
be thrown. So instead of looking for them in the
nunjitsu manuals, you can find them in the jiu jitsu
arsenals of the Tokugawa period, particularly associated with a martial
arts tradition called the Sego Reu. One of the documents
allegedly associated with this school of martial arts includes an
illustration of a weapon that is quite similar that is
(19:07):
described like two knife blades fastened in the middle with
a hinge. So the way I'm picturing this finder stand
it right, is it's like a pair of scissors, but
instead of one side of each blade being handles, it's
just blades on every point. Now, for several reasons, Turnbull
thinks that Fuji ta Seiko was probably not familiar with
(19:31):
this exact document that I just mentioned, and probably was
getting his knowledge of the star shaped throwing weapon just
from seeing these artifacts around. And there is other evidence
from history of people like having versions of these artifacts
even going back to the Tokugawa period. But they just traditionally,
(19:54):
it doesn't seem like they were super common, and they
weren't particular. They weren't associated as far as anybody knows,
with nujitsu until the twentieth century, and now that's all
they're associated with.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, I think we probably have to sort of try
and imagine that most likely more historically accurate vision of
Shanobi operatives as being you know, plain clothes espionage operatives
who you know, if you're going to carry items on you, like,
are you going to really commit to having these some
sort of a throwing star, sure, a can on your person,
(20:29):
something that again is I think going to be at
least in the modern understanding of it, is going to
be more obviously a weapon and therefore subject to you know,
I mean being judged in the illegal weapon or also
just being suspect in nature that you have it as
a and again, think about when you would supposedly use it,
(20:49):
like when the samurai are coming after you, or when
guards are coming after you, like really in the worst
case scenarios, and that might be a better place to
maybe depend on just throwing say, you know, found objects
like a bottle or some other item in your immediate vicinity,
as opposed to having some specialty device on your person instead.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
There's one detail from Turnbull's chapter that is so interesting
I had to bring it up. It's about the design
that many people have probably seen of these basically swastika
shaped a throwing star that occurs in a lot of media.
This is a very familiar design for movies and stuff,
and apparently a lot of modern ninja books have featured
(21:32):
this design as if it were a traditional shuriken design,
but it is not, and in fact, there is an
anecdote from this chapter about how an actor who worked
on a nineteen sixties TV series in Japan called on Mitsukinschi,
which had a throwing star of this design, described that
(21:56):
really this design was created for the show because pause
these straight pointed throwing stars were deemed too dangerous on set,
so this was essentially a safety innovation that was later
misinterpreted as a real design of throwing stars as weapons.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, that's that's crazy, like basically a safety shit shuriken.
That's great. Yeah, I have another example of shurrokan inspired
fictional weaponry, and this one I thought was interesting because
it kind of stands, at least to my eyes, as
kind of like the ultimate in sci fi and fantasy
(22:34):
transformation of the ninja myth. So in the Warhammer forty
thousand universe, like a far future, you know, grim Dark scenario,
you have these. You have this species known as the
l Dar, and they're kind of like a sci fi
take on the elves. I mean, that's exactly what they are.
And they use pistols and rifles that use shurrocans as ammunition.
(22:58):
So these are said to be molecular, cutting edge weapons
fired in bursts from these guns and like they're so
sharp and they hit so it was with such velocity
that they just shred whatever they hit, be it a
mechanical foe or an organic foe. And again pretty far
removed from anything even remotely realistic we're talking about here,
(23:21):
but again I thought it was interesting. It's kind of
like the extreme transformation of the shuriken in sci fi
and fantasy. I also, I didn't remember this at all
because I don't have a lot of memories regarding two
thousand and four as Alien versus Predator, But you might
remember that in other Predator movies he has this disc
that he throws that cuts people in half. And in
(23:43):
this film they decided they were like, that looks too
much like a frisbee. Let's give the predator a shuriken.
And so he has this thing that it was least
at least described as a shura can. I included an
image here for you, Joe. It's it's really way too large.
It reminds me more of the weaponing Kroll, the what
is it boss?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
The glave Yeah, which also is a word that means
something else elsewhere. But yeah, that's very confusing. It looks
almost exactly like the krawl thing. It's like kind of
almost like starfish shaped in a way, with these wispy
curving blades coming out. It looks too delicate, you know,
(24:20):
it looks like they would break off.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know. I don't remember what
this thing did in action. I guess it just cut
through stuff. But anyway, I wanted to.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Mention that based on my memory, probably doesn't do much
because I remember the Predator is just getting like beat
up in that movie. The movie is very like oh
yeah singles, you know, more full takedown and Predator. It's
kind of surprising.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Uh, well, I think it should. I think it should.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yeah, Okay, it's a fair hunt.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, I don't know. I like to say I don't
remember that film all that well, but I did see it.
I might have seen in the theater. All right. Well, anyway,
coming back to the Shanobi, the pop culture Ninja and
(25:12):
the shur Can again, it's like you got to if
you try and think you know, realistically about any scenario
in which you have to bring a certain amount of tools,
you have your sort of desert island list of tools
to bring. Would throwing stars make the list? Again, items
that might only be used when you were about to
kill a samurai, and your main defense is like, what
(25:34):
have I made them angry? So I think there's reason
to doubt that. And it's interesting too when you look
at some of these ninjitsu manuals, again with proper caveats
about where they factor into the transformation from historical accuracy
into myth and fiction. There are sometimes lists of tools,
(25:55):
and in fact, there's a sixteen eighty one text Sho Ninki,
a Record of proper Nanjotsu, that includes six tools that
apparently every ninja had to have, and throwing stars did
not make the list. Instead, you have and I think
this is actually kind of a telling list, Like this
is a list that I mean, it certainly can apply
(26:15):
to any pop cultural view of vision of the ninja
that you have, but it also makes a lot of
sense if you're just imagining some sort of espionage operative
that's maybe doing like some extra sneaky stuff, Because the
list includes first of all kagi nawa a grappling hook
and rope, All right, makes sense. You need to get
(26:36):
over a wall. Grappling hook and some rope is a
way to do it. Then you've got this one. This one.
I was surprised by kasa a conical straw hat, like
a wide brimmed straw hat. This would have been widely
used by plenty of people who are not involved in
shanobi operations. But that's part of a part of it, right,
It's like not conspicuous, and you could apparently hide tools,
(27:00):
like it's large enough, you could, you know, maybe secret
some items up there under the brim.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
It makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, And then here's a good one. Chalk in order
to leave irasable secret messages for other operatives.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Ah. Yeah, that's interesting because when you think about some
of these other Ninjasu manuals we were talking about, like
the Men's in Chucai, places a big emphasis on the
the operative must survive in order to deliver information. So
it's like propagandizing the reader against the idea of you know,
going out to die in honorable death while doing the mission.
(27:35):
It's like, no, you must live in order to deliver
the information. But if you can deliver information in some
other way, like by writing a message somewhere, you know,
down somewhere for someone else to read, then I guess
that takes some of the pressure off.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, yeah, so it makes sense. And also, like chalk
generally not considered sus if you're caught with chalk, it's
not You're not going to be instantly sent to your execution.
I'm assumed, all right. Some of the others a tinder box,
you know, just for a little fire, a towel, bring
a towel with you, you know, it's there are a
lot of uses for the towel is very versatile. And
(28:09):
then there's also this category kusuri, and this would have
been various chemical compounds for different purposes. And this would
include things like poison but also basically like first aid
as well as bug repellent. So I feel like this
is a pretty solid list because, if nothing else, it
speaks to some of the practical aspects of imagine shanobi activities.
(28:31):
You might need some bugspray, you might need to bring
a light, you might need to bring a towel.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah, I mean, towel's just always a good idea.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, In the book Ninja Attack, Yoda and All highlight
some other alleged Ninja weapons, and they're kind of a
mix of things that maybe feel a little more fantasy
based and others that just sound very standard. Like one
is a kunai, a standard field knife. I think we
mentioned this in passing in the last one when we're
talking about the the idea that ninja's had a specialized
(29:03):
ninja would have a specialized sword, and we brought up that, well,
why would you have this illegal weapon on you that
takes up a fair amount of room that also might
not serve your mission all that well, when you could
just bring like a standard field knife, something that would
not necessarily be considered a straight up weapon and would
have various practical uses. There's another one, goshiki may, which
(29:25):
would have been it's supposed to have been dyed rice
grains that you could leave, you could leave behind you
as as a codd trail. Again, I'm not so sure
about that when that one sounds a little more exciting,
like maybe a little too exciting to be an actual,
you know, artifact of spycraft. Now, Gandhal a bucket based
(29:46):
focused lantern that does sound useful for sneaking around, you know,
basically like a you know something, so you're not lighting
up in the whole room, you're not lighting yourself up,
but you can have a very focused light for sneaking around,
maybe looking at document.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's oh, I see sort of a beam light. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Another one is a michi hakari. This would have been
like a measuring stick. Again. You know, sometimes espionage is boring.
It's just about how how bigger things, So you might
need to measure things when you when you're when you're
out and about.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Uh, this is not boring at all. This is a
major part of espionage activities in these old warfare manuals.
It's about like giving giving dimensions and topography. It's like,
go somewhere and tell me what it's like. Make a map.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, they mentioned shakomi and this would have been like
various concealed weapons, including cane swords, blow guns, that sort
of thing. Again. Uh, certainly this would make sense, especially
if you're engaging in some sort of potential assassination scenario.
But it also of course leans I think heavily into
(30:50):
the myth of espionage. I mean, who doesn't love a
good secret weapon. Some sort of a James Bond device right.
Then there's a shikoro. This would have been like a
serrated hand tool for sawing, again like a basic tool
that might come in handy for certain practices. And then
there's a casou gai. This would have been These would
have been climbing aids, like specialized like iron climbing aids
(31:13):
for foot and hand holds. It could be inserted into
the cracks of a wall that the examples that are
included in the book are pretty neat looking. I'm not
sure how historically accurate this would be, again, because we
talked about the importance of a ladder, and certainly, you know,
we talked about you know, grappling hooks, So I don't know,
I'm not sure if this is if this is something
(31:35):
that would have been regularly done, because the ladder is
also included in the in the book. Here, there's also
uh subo kiri, like a handheld drilling tool from like
making a like holes in a wall for like a
peep pole. Yeah, peep pole, So this sounds reasonable. They
mentioned they mentioned the fabulous floating shoes that we talked
(31:56):
about last time, but they also mentioned something called mizugaki,
which would have been would have been apparently a type
of footwear that was useful in muddy areas. Okay, yeah,
and I guess this is reasonable, right, if you're like
potentially sneaking out of of of a building or an area,
or dealing in any fashion with a moat, it might
(32:18):
make sense to have specialized footwear.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Well, right, as we talked about it in the last episode,
the idea of the mizugumo, the water walking shoes, the
water spider shoes almost certainly would not work as generally
interpreted in twentieth century sources, where like they allow you
to walk across the top of the water. So if
such a device were actually used, it was probably more
like an inner tube type thing that you would sit
(32:41):
in and float across the water in.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, yeah, kind of like a makeshift raft, which was
is Actually there's another item like this included in the book,
the kami Gatta, which would apparently have been and I
don't have a clear vision of what this would look like,
but a makeshift raft using a bamboo frame in empty
clay jars. So you know, perhaps a scenario where it's like, Okay,
(33:05):
I got to I got to build a boat tonight
in order to make it across this river or this
moat or what have you. What could you use to
make it? How you could you mcguiver up a boat.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
That's good knowledge to have.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Now, there are various other ninja weapons that we could
potentially talk about. I think the common thread, though, is
going to be how realistic is this and how much
historical evidence is there for this? And how cool does
it look? You know, like you see things like Techo
Kagi and Nko te These would have been two different
(33:42):
versions of like giving your ninja's claws, so the former
being like a wolverine claw that you wear as a gauntlet.
I guess also you could this is like basically what
Shreder has in teenage mutant ninja turtles. And then the
neck o t would would have been something that goes
over your fingertips. And these would have been like poisoned
or some sort of a nuisance weapon for like scratching somebody.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Over the fingertips. Yikes.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, so like you with the.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Open hand swinging at the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Well, you're not as big as Freddy Krueger or anything.
I think I did an artifact episode a while back
talking about like some of the physics of strapping blades
to your fingers, Like that's Freddy Krueger glove would be
a great way to break all your fingers. You can
actually use that as a weapon, and you are not
a supernatural entity of some sort. Yes, but if it's
wrist mounted, okay, you know potentially that could work. But
(34:34):
then again you get into that question why would it
work more than a standard weapon? Why would it be
a better choice compared to a knife or a sword
or what have you.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
As with a lot of these things we're describing, you
can see how they might have more appeal as a
meme than actual functional utility, Like they could be successful
in texts like these because they're interesting ideas.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, Another thing that comes up is like, which cases
do we see some sort of an alleged ninja weapon
that might have its roots in sort of a repurposing
of other items, Like for instance, there are various forms
of teko or techo, and these would have been I've
seen it seen it written that these would have been
like a basically a weaponized iron stirrup that is turned
(35:20):
into something kind of like brass knuckles, you know, And
I think like brass knuckles are a great example of
something where you can see various knucks and other weapons
that can be very specialized and ornate, but various other
things could also work, you know, like a roll of
quarters or you know, some other just like a simple
band of iron that goes around your knuckles, that sort
(35:41):
of thing. And so there's a long list of alleged
ninja weapons. They include miniaturized firearms, sharpened hair ornaments, and chopsticks,
particularly for female shanobi. And you know, I think part
of that is just like the idea of like, oh,
these the hair ornaments look very sharp, they look like
they could be a weapon. What if they were a weapon?
(36:05):
And therefore the myth building takes place. There are at
least a couple of chain based weapons, the manriki gusari.
This is like a length of chain with a weight
on either end, and I think the basic idea here
is like, the samurai are coming to kill you, what again,
what can you throw at them to potentially buy yourself
(36:26):
a little time and or wrap around their weapons. There's
also one the kusari gama, which would have been much
the same idea, but with a blade or sickle on
one end of the chain. This would ideal. It yeah,
be a situation where someone's coming at you with a weapon,
maybe you could use the chain to like wrap up
their weapon and so forth. So again, all the standard
caveats apply to considering the historical accuracy of these weapon descriptions.
(36:50):
But I think we if we scrape the ninja mystique
off of each of them, while still acknowledging the use
of some form of martial art, we're dealing with sneaky
weapons that have as much, if not more in common
with typical criminal implements like small knives, small clubs, concealable firearms,
maybe even concealed swords and cane swords and all you know,
(37:14):
hidden blades, hidden flails and so forth. But again, I
think you end up having pasked that question like would
this actually be practical? Can you see somebody using this
in a very serious life and death, you know, very
risky scenario where the goal might not be some sort
of like crazy cinematic ninja scenario, but something more like
(37:37):
getting the measurements of a guard house, or you know,
looking at some documents, overhearing something that you're not supposed
to hear, and so forth. Now, there are various techniques
that ninja techniques that are brought up in the book
by Yoda and Alt and one that I was particularly
amused by is the idea that you could as a ninja,
as a shanobi operative out in the field, you need
(37:59):
to tell what time it is without any other information
to go on. You could look into a cat size
and therefore tell what time it is.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Oh interesting, now is this telling time in the nighttime
or in the daytime.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I have a lot of questions about how practical this
would be. I think this is definitely one of those
ideas that sounds more intriguing than it actually you know,
and then than it is useful. I think maybe it
has something to do with the idea quite understandably that
we feel a kinship between the ninja and the cat.
We like the idea too of a ninja stopping and maybe,
(38:36):
you know, talking with the cat like your the household
cat doesn't care he or she is ready to sell
you out to the shnovii at a moment's notice. They're
happy to conspire.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Cast speak with animals.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah, yeah, But the basic idea is that, okay, the
shape of the pupil in the cat's eye is going
to change throughout the day, and you could potentially match
it up with specific times. The trick, the challenge that
Yoda and All point out is that, of course you
would have to be able to get close enough to
the cat to do this, presumably a stranger's cat to
(39:10):
make this reading, which is betting a lot on random
cat personalities, because there are cats that I've seen plenty
of times and I've never gotten close enough to look
at their pupils. But then you'll just encounter like a
cat out on a walk, and the cat will come
straight up and is like ready to share that information
with you.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
This is why you rub your face with sardines, you
get the cat in there.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
So I looked into this a little bit more. I
couldn't find much concrete and about this, because, of course,
the other question is like, what kind of specific scenario
is this where there is no other information to go
on other than a cat's eide. You know, I feel
like you'd have a there would be better ways to
reasonably estimate what time it.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Is, and hey, you know, it's not impossible that someone
could find clever ways of getting surprisingly accurate information from
the natural world. I often think back to that series
of episodes we did about Pacific islander navigation techniques that
you know, without any kind of electronics or modern equipment,
people were able to figure out incredibly accurate ways of navigating.
(40:19):
And so maybe there's stuff like this in the eyes
of animals or in plants that can tell you exactly
what time it is. Is it true?
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, I've looked up an article. I found this article
on the website of the National Wildlife Federation by one
Donna Johnson, who, by the way, alludes to this being
a New England tradition. So I don't know where it originates.
Maybe it originates in multiple culture anytime you're close enough
to a cat to look at their eyes. But she
(40:49):
does do a breakdown of the idea, like, basically, cats
have elliptically shaped pupils to compensate for their light sensitivity,
which otherwise aids them in low light hunts. But the
greater the amount of light, the more slit like the pupil.
So it technically works, but it also seems again like
(41:09):
maybe not the most reliable time telling technique. And I
can't imagine a situation where the cat's eyes would be
the only thing to go off of, so many questions
would emerge here, but it's a neat idea. I guess, well.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
I mean, if the cats eyes are responding to the
level of light, would the ninja not also be able
to see the level of light exactly?
Speaker 1 (41:41):
All right? The final thing I want to hit on
here in this series is the idea of the ninja
as hero, because when it comes to pop cultural transformations,
I think it's always interesting to look at the point
where something completely flips from what it originally was. For instance,
in past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we
discussed how various fear some monsters, especially in Japanese culture,
(42:03):
but we also looked at some examples from Western horror movies,
eventually make the transformation from like a symbol symbolized like
aspect of reality, you know, some sort of you know,
dark aspect of reality that is embodied in some sort
of a being and imagine being, you know, a fearsome entity.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
The point at which we take that and flip it
into something cute, something that would you know, make for
a nice mascot, look at it on a bumper sticker,
or even be a stuffed animal. I think there's something
telling about reaching that point when the monster becomes cute
or in this case, when the ninja becomes a hero.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
When we've talked about this with regard to monsters, I
remember one of my thoughts about it was that this
impulse is driven by franchising concerns, Like the further you
get into sequels and the more like movies or stories
you've had exposing you to this monster over and over,
the less comfortable it is for the monster to continue
(43:03):
to be purely fearsome or evil, and there's an impulse
to make it more friendly or at least maybe funnier
or something. So you can see this in you know,
like Godzilla originally is not nice and is not fun,
but eventually it becomes Godzilla becomes the defender essentially against
these worst monsters. You know, the new monster is the
(43:26):
worst one and Godzilla is the one we're familiar with
fighting it off. And you can see over time that
Freddy Krueger goes from being just like a gross, disgusting
murderer into becoming like a jokester who's more just kind
of like mugging for the camera and yuck, yucks.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, he becomes a violent clown.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Yeah, and so forth. I think it's a really common pattern.
It's something about like familiarity takes the edge off of
something and makes you want to recast it as a
friend rather than a foe.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
And so with the Ninja, you know, we've discussed at
length than nebulous reality and origins of the shnobi, and
how we're mostly talking about shadowy espa espionage operatives made
up of commoners and even criminals that engage in dirty,
if not outright shameful acts that are necessary, a necessary
part of warfare, alongside the more celebrated noble and aristocratic
(44:18):
exploits of rulers in the Samurai. But then coming out
of the Warring States period and into the Edo period
and beyond, we see the myth making. We see the
fiction transforming the myth of the ninja in numerous ways,
giving it the form everyone instantly recognizes today. And so
many Ninja remain villains in these later treatments, but they
inevitably cross over into anti hero and even hero territory.
(44:41):
And this kind of takes me back to our initial
discussion talking about our initial introductions to ninja growing up,
and I look back and I think some of my
initial introductions to ninja actually cast them as heroes, like
that nineteen eighty one canon film Entered the Ninja has
been built around Franco Niro, an Italian actor, as at
(45:06):
least an anti hero. I don't think he's maybe quite
a hero in that, but he's at least an anti hero.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
I feel like the majority of the ninja media I
consumed when I was a kid had ninjas as heroes
rather than villains, or had them as both.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, I think that's not very common as well, going
back to like g I Joe, like Snake Eyes is
a black clad ninja and is very much on the
certified good guy team. There's no it's it's black and white.
Literally though it's flipped because our black clad ninja is
good and our white clad ninja is bad.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Yeah or yeah, so often they were both, but I
think there's an impulse there that it's just like, well,
especially in kid focus to media, ninja's are cool, and
kids want to root for the good guys, and they
want they want the good guys to be cool, So
you got to make the ninja a good guy.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, Like I mean, the teenage meeting ninja turtles. Obviously
they're turtles they're teenagers, but they are ninjas. They're very
much the good guys. But then, going back to the
Bond film You Only Live Twice again vitally important in
bringing the Ninja into the international market and into Western cinema.
All the Ninja in that all the Shnobi operatives were
(46:15):
working on James Bod's Bond's team. They were all good
guys essentially.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I think so there might be some
working for the bad guys, but I don't recall specifically.
The ones I remember are good guys.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, there's like the big scene at the end where
they storm the Specter compound and Bond lets the Ninjas in.
He's like he opens the door and here come the
Ninjas down on like wires and all.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
So, anyway, like getting down to discussion like when when
are ninjas allowed to become not just anti heroes but
outright good guys. Well, according to Yoda and all discussion
in Ninja Ninja Attack, there's a definite place to single
out perhaps is the first true ninja heroes in popular culture,
and it's the Chikawa pocket books. This would have been
(47:02):
the period around nineteen twelve through nineteen twenty six series
of books written by a group of writers that were
credited as Seka Sanjan a series of novels for juvenile
so like essentially like young reader or children's books that
detailed the adventures of a pair of rival ninja that
(47:22):
they were on the same team. To be clear, they're
not like rival teams or rival clans, but they have
differing personalities. They're kind of an odd couple, and that's
Saratobi Saske and Kira Gakura Saizo. And these books established
these two as quote poster boys for the ego koga
rivalry and ninja as a potential force for good. And
(47:46):
it was inspired by These tales were inspired by both
real life at least attributed ninja exploits, as well as
the Chinese literary classic Journey into the West. How is
it related to the Journey into the West. A lot
of it comes down to the character of Saratobi Saske,
a young boy raised by monkeys and then taken in
(48:06):
by a ninja master and then recruited by the warlords
Sonata due to his mischievous nature and his great skill
and of course the ninja arts, so he ends up
going on missions for his master but he's also, you know,
a bit of a trickster, a bit happy go lucky,
and he does a lot of side quests to help
the less fortunate. But the name here Saratobi means leaping monkey,
(48:28):
and he is in some ways a Japanese ninja version
of the Monkey King.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
It's interesting that you mentioned him doing sort of side
quests to help the less fortunate, because I have seen
that it is I have read at least that it
is common in literature that portrays the ninja as heroes
or good guys to include some kind of class element
where they are sort of they act on behalf of
(48:54):
the economic underclass of like the of the poor and
the less fortunate, and help them in the face of say,
like rich oppressors, like an evil samurai.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Yeah yeah, and a lot of the I think we
touched on some of these older tales that are either
ninja or ninja adjacent that are essentially robin hood stories,
like some sort of person from the criminal element, you know,
and from the lower classes that is sticking up for
the little guy. Now, the other of these two the rival.
So we have the happy go lucky guy, the more
(49:25):
like the sort of the more pure hero here. But
then we have Kira Gakua Saizo, who is born into
the ninja life. It has said he's trained with the best,
and he has become a master of clouds and lightning,
of mists and thunder, so you know, he can summon
various weather effects to mask his ninja movements. And the
name here means cloaked and missed. So while Saske is lighthearted,
(49:50):
Sizo is brooding, like this is more of your your
kind of like goth superstar character here. Nice they wind
up on the same ninja team. This would be Sonata
as Ten Heroes or the Ten Braves, but their rivals.
They're an odd couple to say the least. And Yoda
and all point out that, yeah, the nature of these
two characters kind of flows perfectly into modern times. So
(50:13):
Saske was always a hit with the kids, but then
Sizo was irresistible to you know, many in the post
war period, especially as like you know, older ninja fans
and adults told and retold stories. He's like a natural
character to latch onto. He's got this kind of angst
sort of in bridging the gap between anti hero and hero,
(50:36):
you know, So it fits that mold of the brooding
sort of Batman esque hero. I guess I included an
image here, Joe. This is from one of the many
more modern treatments from anime and manga. And you can
guess which one is which you know, which one is
your brooding character and which one is your more happy,
go lucky character.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Oh, Sizo even has like emo hair.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah yeah, yes, like again, just a natural fit, you know,
for for like kind of an angsty emo character. And
then we have the Trickster, the essentially the monkey King
in ninja form. Of course they're not going to completely
get along, but they are going to ultimately work, you know,
for the same cause.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
That's sweet.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, so yeah, I thought that was interesting, this idea
of like, okay, these might be the patient zeros for
good guy ninjas in popular culture, and these are characters
that get used again and again. Now I think Sizo
has also been used as an antagonist in some modern treatment.
So it kind of comes back to what we were
saying about monsters. Just because a monster goes cute, it
(51:38):
doesn't mean you can't go back and make them fearsome again.
This kind of thing happens all the time, and so
there's always going to be continued exploration and re exploration.
Just because Ninja's become heroes or anti heroes in one
property doesn't mean they can't be just absolute villains in another.
You know, we can continue to have fun in that regard.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Yeah, it's a saw tooth effect. I mean you you
know the seventies, you've already got all monsters attack and
the ones where Godzilla is like, oh, he's a good dad.
But then you come back decades later and you can
get Chinn Godzillo. Yeah, where the monster is a problem
yet again.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah, all right, Well there you have it Part four
of the Ninja. I don't know that we covered everything,
but we covered a lot of things related to the Ninja.
If we missed anything, or if there's some detail you
would like to bring up, write in. We would love
to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to
Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast
(52:34):
with core episodes in Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do a
short form episode on Wednesdays. Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.
That's our time to set aside most serious concerns to
just talk about what a weird film and currently we
run rerun or volve episodes on Saturdays and on Mondays,
where we've been experimenting with different format. But we are
(52:54):
going to have more listener mail episodes pop up. In fact,
there should be one popping up this Thursday. Then goes
according to plan and let's see finally, Oh yeah, if
you're on social media, look us up. We're probably on there.
Follow us. If you're on Instagram, we are st b
y M podcast. Just help me help us get our
our subscriber or follower base up there a bit. It's
(53:16):
a it's a newer account. The old one went away
and ninjas took it down, so so help us get
some numbers on that new one if you use the format,
but don't sign up for it if you're not using
it already, I mean really all the social media stuff, yeah,
don't put a lot of work into it.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio for
more podcasts from my heart Radio. It's the heart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
(54:22):
M
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.