awesome feats to the grave. There’s actually an old ninja saying that goes, “if you’ve got a reputation, you’re still a chunin”—just a mid-level practitioner of the craft.
“If one can know the truth about ninjutsu, it isn’t really ninjutsu.”
The concept of ninjutsu, the term for the martial art of espionage, is maddeningly difficult to pin down. Perhaps none has expressed the quantum nature of it as well as Masaaki Hatsumi, the last living descendent of the Togakushi school, who explained, “If one can even know the truth about ninjutsu, it isn’t really ninjutsu.” This is one reason why we chose to focus on the stories of the ninja themselves, rather than their martial art. The other is that martial arts are only part of the story. The trappings so intimately associated with ninja both in Japan and abroad—the outfits, the death-defying leaps and jumps, the exotic weapons and accoutrements—are, in the end, secondary to the men and women behind the masks.
Which brings us to another point. Those masks are largely a work of fiction, as are the infamous all-black outfits. As for the question of what ninja actually did wear, ask yourself this: what does the average spy wear? The answer, of course, is whatever it takes to blend in and get the job done, whether that means shorts and a T-shirt, military fatigues, or a suit and tie. The same was true of the ninja. Hiding in plain sight was their entire modus operandi. Most dressed like farmers, both because it worked well as camouflage in a nation of farmers, and because most of them really were farmers. A real ninja would laugh at the portrayal of an intruder tiptoeing across a rooftop wearing black pajamas in broad daylight.
But if that’s the case, why is that particular image so enduring, both in Japan and abroad? It’s safe to say that the Japanese didn’t invent the concept of assassins or spies, yet the ninja have pretty much become the world’s poster children for espionage, mayhem, and generally sneaky behavior. One possible answer lies in Japan’s proven ability to create internationally compelling pop-cultural characters, from ferocious monsters like Godzilla all the way down to cute and cuddly kittens like Hello Kitty. The key points of what constitute a ninja in the public mind—the masks, the shuriken stars, the black outfits—have been honed into a visual shorthand that happens to appeal to people around the world. Ninja may have been some scary customers in real life, but they have been tamed and distilled down to an instantly recognizable essence over generations of books, comics, films, and television shows.
A ninja as seen by woodblock print master Katsushika Hokusai. This 1814 sketch is thought to be the first depiction of the classic black ninja suit.
Another conflicting point with what appears in fiction: ninja didn’t harbor a blind allegiance to traditional weaponry. They were, in fact, at the forefront of the military technology of their day. Already innovators in explosives, firearms, and communication systems, a sixteenth-century ninja would undoubtedly have been overjoyed with a modern pair of night-vision goggles or a high-powered sniper rifle. They devised cunning new techniques through direct observation and experimentation, making them something akin to field scientists as well. As you will discover in the pages of this book, they certainly didn’t let tradition get in the way if they discovered a better tool for doing a job. The image of a traditional ninja stalking the streets of a modern city is undeniably seductive, but even if one did somehow find his or her way to the modern era, it’s hard to imagine them sticking with a vintage sword and chainmail instead of, say, an assault rifle and a bulletproof vest.
Let us cut right to the next point. Ninja don’t exist anymore. Or more precisely, they don’t exist in the form in which they appear in the pages of this book. This isn’t to say that there aren’t intrepid martial arts students out there who study and even practice ninjutsu. But the era in which ninja represented the cutting edge of espionage, in which great rulers turned to them for assistance on and off the battlefield, in which clans kept their traditions secret in hidden villages far from the prying eyes of the authorities, is long over. The ninja are inseparable from the historical context in which they evolved.
But this doesn’t mean that there is nothing for the ninja of old to teach us.
“Ninja are inseparable from the historical context in which they evolved.”
Ninja History in a Nutshell
Legend has it that the first ninja in Japan, called the shinobi, were employed in the seventh century. This isn’t really saying much, as leaders have relied on spies since time immemorial. (There is something quintessentially ninja about Ulysses dressing as a beggar to sneak within the walls of Troy in the Odyssey. And there is even a ninja-like episode in the Bible, in which Joshua dispatches a pair of secret agents to infiltrate the city of Jericho.)
But there is no question that the Japanese took the general idea and ran with it. The fifteenth century marked the rise of the ninja as we generally portray them today. As regional warlords jockeyed for power and position, the weakening of central authority prompted villages in certain areas to fortify themselves into independent entities. Perhaps nowhere was this trend more evident than in the isolated mountain provinces of Iga and Koga, where heavily forested terrain offered tremendous advantages to local fighters inclined toward guerilla tactics. In 1487, a tiny number of Koga ninja did the unthinkable by slicing an expeditionary force of the shogun’s heavily armed troops to ribbons. (You can read more about the battle on page 47.)
Word of the Koga’s success in repelling the shogun’s forces—and according to some accounts, actually killing the shogun—spread like wildfire among the other warlords, and thrust the ninja into the spotlight of legend. The ninja “arms race” was officially on.
Realizing that their homegrown skills were suddenly in high demand served to strengthen the various ninja clan organizations, and the Iga and Koga in particular. They abandoned their farming work on the infertile local soil for the more lucrative field of military consulting, and continued to hone their unique suite of abilities for various “clients.” Some clans, such as the Koga, or the Rappa of the Kanto region, went on to associate themselves with specific warlords. Others chose to remain fiercely independent, selling their skills to the highest bidder. Sometimes allies, sometimes rivals to the point of finding themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield, it was always business and never personal with these guys.
“Ninja proved so good that they became a direct threat to the warlords.”
Over the next century, the ninja proved so good at their work that they grew into a direct threat to the warlords themselves. In 1579, “ninja destroyer” Oda Nobunaga flooded the Iga region with troops in an ultimately successful campaign to rid himself of the threat that the ninja there posed to his authority. He countered their guerilla tactics with an indiscriminate swath of destruction through the countryside, killing many thousands of civilians in the process. And by co-opting or destroying rival warlords, he deprived many of the other ninja clans of their main benefactors. By the last decade of the 1500s, the era of unrestrained ninja warfare was rapidly drawing to a close.
But it can be tough to keep masters of tactics and subterfuge down, especially when they are still a useful commodity. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the warlord who became Japan’s most powerful Shogun, relied heavily on remnants of ninja forces to lead a personal army that vanquished his enemies on the battlefield and defended his capital city of Edo. And, in fact, a ninja can be said to run through the city even today. One of Tokyo’s major subway lines, the Hanzomon, is named after the most famous ninja of all: Tokugawa’s lead military advisor, Hattori Hanzo.
So put aside your preconceptions. Put aside, for the moment, the ninja movies you’ve seen, the games you’ve played, the comic books you’ve read over the years.
