10th February – 如月

忍者　Ninja

Japanese Spy, the person who uses ‘Ninjutsu’= special tricks used for fooling people, not being seen by people in order to accomplish the spy works.

The word ‘Ninja’ has been spread all around the world and most people know who they are: the secret Japanese spy.

Actually, those spy were called differently in the districts, but in 1950s, one of the names ‘Ninja’ became the most common way to call them. The official name for those people is 忍び (Shinobi).

In Sengoku period, Ninja worked for 大名=(Daimyou: feudal lords) and giving the information about the enemies to Daimyou. Moreover, Ninja’s works are various; They sometimes break into the office of the enemies, destroy the castles, ambush or even assassinate enemies.

How do they do those works?

Many people reckon Ninja fight with weapons such as 手裏剣(shuriken), but their main methods are disguising – something like wearing farmers’ clothes and behaving as them.

Then give the false information around the people in the enemies’ territory. They do guerrilla warfare sometimes, but generally calmer methods were used more. As Ninja’s common task is to bring the information about the enemies, so they have to come back alive.

Since Ninja’s secret skills were mostly not written in the paper but told, so not many skills have been discovered. However, the ones which have been revealed, there are

-The use of 手裏剣(shuriken)

-How to run quick and quietly

-How to dive into the water without breathing up

-Talking skills to deceive people

– Costuming methods

etc…

Furthermore, one of the famous Ninjutu are 分身の術 (=Bunshin no jutu: Shadow-cloning technique). Many people would think it must be a fantasy story, would not be true! But there is an assumption that it might be a hypnosis or medicine to make them think it is cloning – There is a fact that Ninja used to study a lot and have great knowledge about those field, not only athletically trained.

The districts where there have the secret knowledge of Ninja are 伊賀(Iga) in Mie prefecture and 甲賀(Kouka) in Shiga prefecture. They are surrounding each other separated by mountains. There are some facilities where you can learn the Ninjutsu, so if you are interested, why don’t you have a look!:)

Ninja must not be know who they are. They pretend as normal people…

Look around, is there anybody who is suspicious?

Ninja might be your best friend!