48 Fun Facts About Ninja

Nokizaru, an old regional nickname for a ninja, literally pictures which animal on the roof?

A monkey: nokizaru means 'macaque on the roof', and other old names included kusa, 'grass', and monomi, 'one who sees', while the word ninja itself was rarely used.

Ninja sometimes travelled disguised as komuso, wandering flute-playing monks who hid their faces under what?

A basket hat covered the whole head, and because komuso held a rare exemption from the shogunate's travel limits, they were rumoured to report back to it on what they saw.

Which 1967 James Bond film sends 007 to train with ninja in Japan?

You Only Live Twice has Bond train with the Japanese secret service's ninja before they storm a volcano base, though the film shows them more as commandos than as traditional ninja.

Which warlord invaded Iga in 1581 and wiped out its organised ninja clans?

Oda Nobunaga led a huge army into Iga in 1581 and burned the province, ending its self-rule and scattering the surviving ninja into the service of lords across Japan.

In Japanese folklore, and again in Naruto, the ninja Jiraiya rides or summons which giant animal?

A toad carries Jiraiya in the 19th-century novel of his adventures, where Tsunade works slug magic and his enemy Orochimaru commands snakes; Naruto reused all three names and their animals.

Which was the highest of the three traditional ninja ranks?

Jonin means 'upper person': he represented the group and hired out its men, while the chunin below him acted as his assistants.

Which creature, sealed inside Naruto as a baby, makes his village shun him?

The Nine-Tailed Fox, named Kurama, had attacked the village before it was sealed in him; it draws on the kitsune of folklore, foxes that grow more tails as they grow older and more powerful.

Films cast ninja as assassins, but what was their chief role in the historical record?

Espionage came first: like modern spies, ninja gathered intelligence on an enemy's strength, and the sword-swinging assassin is an image that came from movies and comics.

What was the ninja's primary form of sabotage?

Arson was the usual method: an abbot's diary for 1541 records men of Iga slipping into Kasagi Castle in secret and setting fire to the priests' quarters.

The oniwaban, spies who took over from the shogun's Iga and Koga guards, were named for which part of Edo Castle?

The garden gave them their name, since they were rumoured to be quartered there; the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, founded the unit, and its low-ranking agents could report to him in person.

The last detailed record of ninja in open warfare comes from which conflict?

The Shimabara Rebellion of 1637-38 ended at Hara Castle, where a diary records Koga men stealing up to the walls by night; after it, ninja fade from the records of open battle.

Which ninja tool, thrown like a dagger in Naruto, was really used for digging and prying, more trowel than weapon?

Kunai were flat iron tools for digging through walls and earth where a gate was too well guarded, closer to a modern survival knife, though small ones could be thrown.

Which haiku poet, born in Iga, does a popular theory claim was secretly a ninja?

Matsuo Basho came from Iga and walked for months through northern Japan in his forties, so a 1966 book imagined him on a secret shogunate mission; a Mie University scholar who checked found his pace no faster than other fit travellers'.

The famous 1676 ninja manual compiled from Iga and Koga knowledge is called what?

Bansenshukai means 'ten thousand rivers flowing together to form an ocean': Fujibayashi Yasutake, heir to one of Iga's great ninja families, gathered the lore of many schools into one work.

Which yellow-clad Mortal Kombat ninja is famous for the shout 'Get over here'?

Scorpion's shout was recorded by series co-creator Ed Boon himself for the 1992 original, and Boon's voice has delivered the line in the games ever since.

The black ninja costume of fiction is thought to imitate which figures from Edo theatre?

Kuroko stagehands wore black so that audiences would ignore them, and dressing a stage ninja the same way is thought to have made his attack a surprise; real ninja wore ordinary, unremarkable colours.

Which 2019 FromSoftware game, starring a one-armed shinobi called Wolf, won Game of the Year at The Game Awards?

Sekiro began as a new entry in Tenchu, the ninja stealth series its studio owns, before outgrowing the idea; the title is a contraction of the Japanese for 'one-armed wolf'.

Which Japanese castle's 'nightingale floors' chirp when walked on, long said to warn of intruders?

Nijo Castle's corridors chirp because clamps under the boards move against nails, and the castle itself calls the intruder-alarm story a mistake.

What does the word shuriken literally mean?

Hand-hidden blade is the literal reading: small enough to palm, shuriken were carried by samurai as well as ninja, and were meant more to distract an opponent than to kill.

Shuriken were reportedly left lying in plain sight, coated in what?

Poison is what the reports describe, meant for whoever picked one up; shuriken could also be wrapped in a lit fuse and thrown to start fires, or planted in the ground to injure anyone who stepped on them.

Makibishi, used to slow pursuers, are the Japanese version of which weapon?

Caltrops is the European name for the same idea: makibishi could pierce the thin straw sandals worn in feudal Japan, and clay spikes thought to be early ones have been dug up at castles besieged in 1590.

In 2025, which country banned the possession and sale of so-called "ninja swords"?

The United Kingdom's ban took effect on 1 August 2025 as the last part of Ronan's Law, named for Ronan Kanda, a 16-year-old killed with such a sword, whose family campaigned for it.

Despite his ninja reputation, what was Hattori Hanzo's actual station in life?

A samurai general is what the records show: Hanzo led a unit of some 200 Iga warriors and is counted among the Tokugawa's sixteen divine generals, while his feats as a ninja belong mostly to later legend.

What nickname did Hattori Hanzo earn for his ferocity in the early 1570s?

Demon Hanzo, or Oni no Hanzo, also served to tell him apart from another Tokugawa commander who shared the name Hanzo.

What is named Hanzomon after Hattori Hanzo in modern Tokyo?

A palace gate and subway line carry the name: his house stood by that gate of the shogun's castle, now the Imperial Palace, and the Hanzomon Line was named after the gate.

Films arm him with a legendary sword, but which weapon of the real Hattori Hanzo is kept at Tokyo's Sainen-ji temple?

His spear, by tradition a reward from Ieyasu for valour in battle, was once over four metres long; it lost its tip in the 1855 Edo earthquake and was damaged again in the 1945 bombing of Tokyo.

A retired swordsmith named Hattori Hanzo forges the heroine's blade in which 2003 film?

Kill Bill: Volume 1 named its swordsmith as a tribute to his actor: Sonny Chiba had played ninja leaders called Hattori Hanzo in a 1980s Japanese television series, as Tarantino pointed out himself.

A viral 2019 Facebook joke proposed 'Naruto running' past the guards of which US site?

Area 51's mock raid drew more than two million sign-ups on the theory that the arms-back anime run would outpace bullets, and law enforcement in Nevada took it seriously enough to issue warnings.

Which weapon does Donatello, the purple-masked Ninja Turtle, fight with?

A bo staff: Donatello is the brains of the team, a scientist and inventor, yet he carries the simplest weapon of the four, a plain wooden pole.

Legendary outlaw Ishikawa Goemon was executed in 1594 by what method?

Boiled alive in an iron cauldron in Kyoto, he left his name to the goemonburo, the 'Goemon bath': a deep iron tub shaped like a kettle.

In the best-known legend, whom did Ishikawa Goemon try to assassinate?

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the target: in one telling Goemon crept into Fushimi Castle, knocked a bell off a table in the warlord's room and woke the guards.

The word kunoichi, used for female ninja, was originally slang meaning what?

The three characters ku, no and ichi are said to be the strokes that make up the kanji for woman.

Whose workshop built the Turtle costumes for the 1990 live-action Ninja Turtles film?

Jim Henson's workshop built the suits as one of his last projects: the Muppets creator died only weeks after the film opened in March 1990.

Which Saturday Night Live comedian played Haru, the clumsy hero of 1997's Beverly Hills Ninja?

Chris Farley's Haru is a foundling raised by a ninja clan that takes him for the great master of its legends, a prophecy he fulfils mostly by falling over.

Which Japanese maker's Ninja sport bike, launched in 1984, did Tom Cruise ride in Top Gun?

Kawasaki first put the Ninja name on the GPZ900R, and its appearance in Top Gun made the bike a cultural icon; the company has sold Ninja models ever since.

What has Jinichi Kawakami, who says he is the 21st head of a Koka ninja family, decided about its future?

Name no successor: he has said that with guns, the internet and modern medicine 'the art of ninjutsu has no place in the modern age', so his line will end with him.

What did thieves take from the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in three minutes in August 2020?

The office safe, a 150 kg strongbox holding more than a million yen in admission fees, was gone before police arrived; 'it was a three-minute job,' a museum official said.

Which masked, silent ninja commando is one of G.I. Joe's original members?

Snake Eyes never speaks because a helicopter explosion on an early mission wrecked his face and vocal cords; writer Larry Hama created him for the 1980s toy line.

Which 1981 Cannon film, starring Franco Nero and Sho Kosugi, kicked off a Hollywood craze?

Enter the Ninja opened Cannon Films' Ninja Trilogy; Sho Kosugi, who plays the rival ninja hired to kill its hero, came back as the hero of the next film, Revenge of the Ninja.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were created in 1984 by Kevin Eastman and whom?

Peter Laird was the housemate Eastman's joke sketch of a masked turtle was meant to amuse; the pair printed their first issue in 1984 with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle.

The four Turtles are named after artists of which period?

The Italian Renaissance supplied Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo: the creators first considered Japanese names, then decided the artists' names were 'just quirky enough'.

Which Marvel hero's ninja elements did the Turtles comic originally parody?

Daredevil's origin is the joke: like him, the Turtles are changed by radioactive material, and their teacher Splinter is a play on his teacher, Stick.

The Shredder leads which ninja clan in the Turtles franchise?

The Foot is a joke on the Hand, the ninja clan in the Marvel comics that the Turtles spoofed; its New York branch is led by Oroku Saki, the Shredder.

Who wrote and drew the ninja manga Naruto?

Masashi Kishimoto gave his hero his own tastes: asked why Naruto loves ramen, he said simply that he likes eating it himself.

What title does Naruto dream of earning as leader of his village?

Hokage is the title of the village's leader, and Naruto wants it to win the approval of the neighbours who shunned him as a boy.

What does American Ninja Warrior call its finals course, after Sasuke's Japanese studio?

Mount Midoriyama is no real peak: the name comes from the Midoriyama studios in Yokohama, where the original Japanese show is recorded.

Naruto's home, Konohagakure, is known in English as the Hidden what Village?

Leaf is the answer: Naruto is shunned in the Hidden Leaf Village as a boy and ends the series as its leader.

The Ninja Gaiden video games were released under what title in Europe?

Shadow Warriors was the title on the first arcade and Nintendo releases in Europe, in the same years that the Ninja Turtles were renamed 'Hero Turtles' in some regions; 'gaiden' simply means side story.