Talk:Ninja

This is a controversial topic, which may be disputed. Please read this talk page discussion before making substantial changes. (This message should only be placed on talk pages.)

Concerning the Peter Nepstad link

In Nepstad's article, it says that the two kanji characters for shinobi-no-monoo are pronounced nin-sha in Mandarin, nin meaning concealment and sha meaning person.

I'm Chinese myself, and am self-studying Japanese and studying ninja for school. However, I don't know pinyin, as I'm Taiwanese.

The pronounciation of the first character is close, but would be better sound-translated as ren, with the second rising tone. It also does not mean concealment, but means endurance. This can be double-checked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninjutsu.

The translation of the second character is accurate, meaning person. However, the pronounciation is not sha, but something more like zuh with the third tone, represented by a hook.

I'm going to add an etymology section. If a mainland China person would come and correct my pinyin, it would be most appreciated.

P.S. I've changed all the "ninjas" to "ninja". In Japanese, the plural form of nouns are the same as the singular.

Actually, I don't know if the pinyin is correct. I'll get one of my mailand friends to fix it.

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I'm not expert, so I'm not going to correct the page, but to me this page seems very biased. It is written in such a way that claims that Ninja's 'abilities' are exagerated or fictional. While this belief is common in the modern western supposedly scientific mindset, it is not the only belief. The ninja's did have quite a bit of spiritual training, and these abilities are believed by many to be real. This page really needs to be cleaned up to make it clear that this stuff being mythical is a common belief, but not the only belief. Neither side can claim with any knowledge to have the truth.

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Ninja, like Bushido and Samurai, followed their own special code of conduct called Ninpo.

Something's wrong with this sentence. It's pretty vague about the relationship between Samurai and Ninja, and implies that Bushido is another class of warrior. It should clearly state (not verbatim) that Samurai are to Bushido as Ninja are to Ninpo. DryGrain 21:44, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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Apparently 203.45.155.14 has got it in for this page and related pages. See my comment on Talk:Ninjutsu. He's been at it for the last few days. Tim Starling 01:27 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

I've put his/her favourite pages on my watchlist, and will be keeping an eye out for him/her. This isn't something I know a heck of a lot about though, so I'm probably not the best person for the job. If you're listening in, by the way, anonymous editor, and you do have a genuine gripe with this and related pages, then explaining them here on this talk page or on Talk:Ninjutsu might help us to understand what you're trying to achieve - that way we may be able to improve the article. If you just remove content without explanation, on the other hand, it will just be put back. --Camembert

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This needs integrating -- there are contradictory statements throughout the article. Simmmm, would you consider editing the original text instead of contradicting it with "The truth:"? If it's the truth, the original shouldn't be there at all! And if someone disagrees with your facts then the discussion can be had on this page until we get an agreed text. Mswake 11:43 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

Just like to say I agree with his "truth" in this case; ninja did have their own code of honor. I don't agree that they were spies, they were also used as assassins, and on occasion as elite soldiers in field battle. There were also ranks but I really shouldn't go into that. Not that I remember the names of the ranks in Japanese. - Nocturnal

Well, it's all a bit vague, isn't it - there weren't many records kept. The most common thread I've seen were that the people who became ninjas were immigrants from China, who lived separately from the Japanese, who were barely, if at all, tolerated, who needed to develop their arts to avoid invasion from far greater forces, which lead to them becoming in demand as both spies and assassins. -- Jim Regan 03:37, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This link looks to be the best researched article around on the topic - among other things, it attributes the costume associated with ninjas as being an invention of kabuki. -- Jim Regan 03:49, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This link better illustrate or rather, the only external link seemed have been written by someone with a wildest imagination who never spent time reading books. I'll get back to this after I finished writing another article. Revth 15:03, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Am I mistaken in thinking the plural of ninja is also "ninja"? - Nocturnal

I guess so. Japanese language has no basic plural rule. When absolutely needed, ninja would be plurarized to "ninja-tachi" in Japanese. tachi can be used on other Japanese nouns that describe a person like "samurai" and "sensei". Theoretically, it could be "ninjas" if you follow general rules for making a plural form in English. Revth 15:03, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Is it just me, or does this wiki entry seem like a joke... im going to make some changes to make it seem a little more ... I dont know if professional is the word, but maybe more relevant

-- Catskul

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The last paragraph of this article is basically a see-also to an article that doesn't exist (although something like it probably should). -- Jmabel 17:35, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do with that. There's some in the article already. Meelar 17:37, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Whisper to me, please stop reverting this page to add misleading and redundant information against the wishes of all other users who contribute to Japan-related articles who have joined the discussion. Exploding Boy 12:15, May 22, 2004 (UTC)

Ninja and nunchaku

The entry for Ninja contains the following:

Contrary to popular belief, nunchaku were never used by the ninja, or indeed any mainland Japanese traditional martial art.

However, the entry for nunchaku claims:

The most common martial arts to use nunchaku are the Japanese martial arts such as some forms of karate,

and talks about nunchaku in relation to Japan. Which is it?

Nunchaku is a weapon used in Okinawan style of martial art, namely karate, and Okinawa is some several hundred kilometers away from the mainland Japan. Until Meiji-era, Okinawa was an independent country called "Ryukyu" and none of the samurai or ninja had ever had a chance to see or learn karate. So both facts are true as they are. Revth 14:31, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Meaning of "ninja"

The author and a poster to this discussion page has made an error on the translation of the first character. While "enduring" is a proper meaning, it is not the one intended here. The proper meaning is "hidden". I have verified this with native Japanese speakers and also looked this up in the "Nelson Japanese-English Reader's Dictionary" pp.395 1993 37th printing. Historically this is because Ninja were considered "non-people"; they had no identity. If I do not see a correction made or an answer to this new information made in a week, I will correct the article with the permission of any interested party. [unsigned comment from anonymous user at 68.5.251.35]

I changed it to "concealed", which has the same meaning as "hidden". You are correct in that it doesn't mean "enduring", though that could be applied as well given the stories surrounding the ninja. :-) --nihon 08:56, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I accept your interpretation, although it is not "on the mark". The actual meaning does not have a clean translation to English. I would offer that "non-person" is very close, however. I base this on what I know about Japanese history (My minor in college was Asian studies) and discussion with many of my close japanese friends (I am still a student of the culture and the language). I would very much like to see other opinions on this topic.

[unsigned comment from anonymous user at 65.216.122.126]

I don't think the kanji "忍" has the literal meaning of "concealed" at all; "non" is even more unlikely. However, a homophone, "隠", does mean "concealed". Since "enduring person" is obviously wrong (as I can verify with my dictionary, but my level of Japanese is too low to understand the explanation given), may I propose that the word "ninja" does not have a literal meaning, but is rather a pun on words with a hidden meaning?—Gniw (Wing) 19:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Whether or not you think "忍" has a literal meaning of "concealed" is beside the point. It does, however, have that meaning. You can check any kanji dictionary out there, including WWWJDIC (which is conveniently online), and you'll see that "忍" has meanings including: "endure; bear; put up with; conceal; secrete; spy; sneak". In the case of the word 忍者, the word literally means "concealed person" or "hidden person", as well as "spy" (which is actually one of the jobs they traditionally held).

You are correct in that "隠" means "conceal; hide; cover", but it is not said "nin", but rather "in" or "on". --nihon 03:52, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I was not even opposing the statement that "ninja" means "concealed person", and if you read my comments you should know that I have read the dictionary. And my dictionary disagrees with your statement. I will unwatch this article and stop bothering with it then.—Gniw (Wing) 03:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I was confused, then, by your statement, "I don't think the kanji "忍" has the literal meaning of "concealed" at all." I took this to mean that you didn't think the character meant "concealed", and therefore 忍者 didn't mean "concealed person". Can you see how I could be confused by the apparent contradiction? I posted this on your talk page, too, since you said you were unwatching the article simply because you disagreed. --nihon 04:12, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

If I may butt in: the operative word, regardless of what kanji is used, is shinobu, which in this case probably means less "endure", let alone "hide" or "conceal", than it does "sneak (around)" or "use stealth." In my experience, it's a bad idea to seek the etymologies of Japanese words—whether they are native ones like shinobu or Sino-Japanese ones like ninja—by dissecting their orthography. And with Sino-Japanese words, any Chinese meaning or pronunciation is usually only of passing interest unless it is directly related to how the word is used in Japanese. I'm sure you're familiar with Japanese words like リフォーム (to remodel, as a house) and アルバイト (part-time job, derived from Arbeit, German for work); what makes you think the same sort of distortion of original meaning did not take place with many Chinese words adopted into Japanese? The doesn't even address the phenomenon of pseudo-Sino-Japanese words (such as ninja might be) that the Japanese invented.

Besides what any kanji dictionaries might say about the meaning of 忍, what evidence do you have to offer from etymological sources that indicate that 忍者 means "concealed person"? For ninja, one of my dictionaries says 「敵方（てきかた）に忍び入り（しのびいり）、様子(ようす)をさぐるなどするもの」(someone who sneaks into/infiltrates enemy territory to do things like reconnoiter). The main thing that ninja did was sneak around. Notice the "など" to cover for activities such as assassination, which were probably secondary. Have fun, but keep in factual... Jim_Lockhart 06:51, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

As I could not find a proper place to put this, it has come to my attention that modern ninja aren't ninja at all. That ninjas came from people being hidden in dark clothes in japanese plays, that the original meaning was "hidden" and that they weren't stealth assassins or anything like that but more a spy. Zanduar 21:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Ninja garb

Along these lines, did they wear black pajamas or not? The article says "Most of the time, a ninja did not[...]dress in an all black suit." Next sentence says they rarely did so, and further down it says they never did: "In actual practice, ninja did not wear the commonly depicted all black suit." Tgroch 09:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

The classical ninja Pajyamas, or so I understand it, is in fact, Kabuki Stagehand Wear, derived from a need to make persons playing the role of Ninja in Kabuki theatre more or less invisible.

As far as I understand, thus, they never wore anything like it, ever. Am I mistaken here, or is the article's statement about dark green suits et al really accurate?...

My understanding is that indeed it did result from the stagehand wear, not so much for the actual concealment value, but to take advantage of the tacit understanding that a stagehand so attired was considered to be invisible. Therefore, the "ninja" clad similarly would be considered invisible. One of those things which would be very nifty if true. Fuzzy 21:53, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Merging content from Ninja in western fiction

Hi, I've merged some content from Ninja in western fiction according to the VfD results there. I've merged the extra content in the Ninja in fiction section. --Deathphoenix 00:58, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ninja Ranks

Is the jounin/chunin/genin info in this article under Culture of Ninja for real? What's the source? I don't believe this is common knowledge, and it sounds suspiciously like some made up detail from Naruto.

I was wondering that myself, too, but it seems that at least Stephen K. Hayes mentions those ranks in his book Ninja: Spirit of the Shadow Warrior (1980). —Noldis 19:10:53, 2005-08-02 (UTC)

I suspect that's where it's from. It is common for skills to be organized into three groups, ge (beginning techniques), chu (middle techniques), and jo (advanced techniques), and for each to be mastered before moving on. I've never, ever heard anyone be called jounin, chunin, or genin though. --Fri Oct 14 18:05:57 UTC

The TicK???

Ninja play an important role in the first major story arc of the hilarious The Tick comic book. This should be included...

I disagree. As much as I may like the tick (SPOON!) if we were to include a reference as esoteric as this, we would be somewhat obliged to include jsut about every ninja reference ever made. Shaggorama 12:44, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

modern ninja?

Yes, there are modern ninja, but it is not commonly know, do to the fact that most government around the world would force us to disband.

in Africa...

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Vandalism

User 209.86.9.45 vandalised Ninja between 20:24 and 20:48 (UTC), 8 August 2005 (NINJA TURTLES LIKE PIZZA!!! OMG!!! LOL!!!) --Taejo 20:51, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Traveling Poet

The author(s) of the article mention that the view of a travelling poet is dismissed by nearly all historians, yet is still included in the article. Why?

Factuality of article

I know quite a bit about ninjas, and this article is not really factually correct. An example: in the beginning it says the two common weapons for ninjas. One of them is NOT a shiruken. Shirukens were used as distractions (they are shiny and a ninja would throw them to the side of an enemy to confuse him with a flying object) and almost never used as a weapon.

Shuriken

Ninja would use shuriken as more of a psychological weapon, throwing glancing blows that would cut instead of aiming for vitals. This would let the person on the recieving end of the shuriken think he or she is being attacked by an invisible swordsman. Nothing's worse than an invisible swordsman!

Photo

The photo represents a Korean martial-artist. And as this discussion notes, the all black outfits are from dramatizations of ninja, and not true ninja. Perhaps a change of caption, or a removal of the pic?

I agree, like get a pic from a ukiyo-e or something like that.

Current Ninjitsu and Old Ninjitsu

I mean, my Kendo master explained us that Modern Ninjitsu lost a lot of it's essnce and that Ninjitsu was a secret art and was not supposed to be teached outside the ninjitsu circle and after the ninjas that learnt the secret arts started to disappear, Ninjitsu disappeared and a different one appeared, but doesn't rensemble the old secret ninjitsu. Is this true? Is ninjitsu a lot different than old times?--Vodka Martini, Shaken Not Stirred 19:07, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Go ask an old secret ninjitsu practitioner. --Spook` 13:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ninja Ninja Ninja (version of Badger Badger Badger)

The video "Holy Shit! Ninjas!" (linked to from the ninja page) contains, among other things, a scene that is obviously based on "Badger Badger Badger", featuring guitar-playing ninjas. Does anyone know if there is a complete "Ninja Ninja Ninja" parody? If so, please add link to it. SpectrumDT 00:09, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Template

Check out the ninja template i made here

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Clealy, sir, the article should mention the single most important fact about this subject: the purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people, and ninjas fight ALL THE TIME.

Weird new additions to the article

Check them out here. Is there any reference material supporting these edits? --nihon 08:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Shuriken

Reference the entry on shuriken "Ninja would use shuriken as more of a psychological weapon, throwing glancing blows that would cut instead of aiming for vitals"

This part of the statement is pretty much what I was taught which was that Shuriken (sharpened wheel washer's etc.) were usually left out in the rain or wet and left so they become rusty - In medieval Japan there was no cure for Tetanus so a 'nick' from a rusty shuriken was sometimes all that was needed to effectively assassinate a person in the long run.

If it took two weeks for the person to become infected and die then all the better, the Ninja would have long made his exit by then.

BIG problem with the article.

Ninja fans of all age, I have to say I do not like this article. It should be completely redone and EVERYONE must read serious articles on the subject this time instead of watching the ninja turtles and browsing the net. I'm ready to help and learn more on the subject but for now this page has NO credibility in my opinion. Bragador 18:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur--at least with the fact that the external links need some serious revision. The vast majority of them are popular ninja parodies, and that's not at all what the article is about. We need some real sites that pertain to ninjas factually, not just humorous sites that relate to them. Honestly, I don't know enough about ninjas to agree/disagree with the accusation that this page has no credibility, but I'm open to the possibility. authraw 21:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Uh, no. Based on your user contributions, adding the 'primary sources' tag seems to be a bit of a hobby for you. That tag was not added based on consensus arrived at here on the talk page, nor was it added by an admin. It shouldn't be there, and there is no need to insult the people who have worked on it in the past with that "ninja turtles" nonsense. The vast majority of this page is thoroughly connected and referenced with materials within the topic field and is not substantively different from any other article of its kind. I've removed the two sections that are exceptions to that, namely the Ninja / Samurai sections and the Modern Ninja Are Fake section. Neither of those are sourced or referenced with anything more specific than "Some people think..." Those should be allowed to stand until they have ground to stand on. Gorilla Jones 18:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

So because my hobby on wikipedia is to push people to be more professionnal I am at fault ? Don't forget that the very existence of the ninjas is a very controversial topic. No tangible proof exist so this might as well be an article about a fairy tale. Bragador 13:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I also concur with Bragador, so now you've got three who think this article is written on flimsy sources and contains a lot of dodgy material that needs to be either substantiated (with primary or as-near primary as possible) or removed. I'm approaching this from linguistic, common-sense-on-the-ground, and editorial perspectives.

The "definition" of ninja, for instance, is an exercise in amateur etymology by someone with fairly shallow experience in Japanese making judgments on the basis of English glosses rather than Japanese semantics; other material is, even from the standpoint of someone with little specialized knowledge of ninja, is fanciful at best; and the quality of the writing, while not poor, is sub-standard for an encyclopedia. My original intent was to give this article a good copyedit for stylistic problems, but on reading it I decided against spending time on it until, first, the factual issues could be worked out.

I support Bragador's insertion of the "primary sources" tag precisely because there has been no consensus here on the problems of this article. It's time to move away from pure enthusiasm and towards enthusiasm tempered by factual reporting. Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 03:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

false information

In the first paragraph where it says that ninja were actualy samurai is false. They were enemies and at war for many generations till samurai decided to hire a few rogues to do there dirty work. This information can be found in books written by Massaki Hatsumi and Stephan K. Hayes, 2 of the worlds leading scholars on the sublect.

This is untrue, Stephen K. Hayes mistranslated a book my Massaki Hatsumi, All historical evidence points to ninja being samurai. hayes has since retracted that statement.

It appears that there is a large dispute over this fact--what is the standard wikipedia procedure for disputes of this nature? authraw 23:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Re:

The only reason that there seems to be a dispute is due to people uneducated on the subject matter taking what they see in carttons and such and calling it reality. There are many books in print on the subject by authors such as Dr. Massaki Hatsumi, stephan K. hayes, Robert Bussey, etc. None of these authors, one of which is the Grandmaster of the Togakure Ryu, has ever claimed that ninja and smurai are one and the same.

Yes they have. Essence of Ninjutsu, it lists historical ninja, all of whom are samurai.

The contradiction to this is that ninja disguised themselves as samurai. Being an acknowledged nobleman would be the perfect cover story/alibi for a spy. --Spook` 13:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopaedia article or comic book?

The insertion of so much admittedly legendary material as fact isn't really on here at Wikipedia. I've cleaned up some of it, but even the sources cited are suspect. The modern "ninja" authors want to sell their books after all. --Fire Star 07:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

try this link and learn something

http://www.n-i-n.com/Masaaki_Hatsumi.html

Ninjutsu styles (changes of 2006.1.20)

The previous naming of this section called ninjutsu styles "teaching styles," a misnomer. Though in a practical sense today, this may seem a trivial semantic difference, but it shouldn't be to a purist: the styles address here are schools of the ninjutsu art, not methods of how the ninjutsu art is taught. I hope to have clarified this with my change.

Further, the opening paragraph said that these ryu were sorted by "current prefectures," even though the second item on the list was not a prefecture, but a section of Tokyo (Akihabara); I've attempted to address this, but fear another inaccuracy may also be involved: Could someone with specific knowledge of the ryu check the accuracy of the Akihabara = Akiba-ryū association? Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 04:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)