THE RETRO NINJA ALIVE AND KICKING

There is always some dude on the internet, grinning like a possum eating a sweet potato who wants to tell you how to think or feel about the subject of the Ninja.  I recently sat down and watched a vid of some English dude running his meat sucker that he single handedly killed the ninja.  Now mind you there is no shortage of ass holes on the internet who think their OPINIONS should hold weight. There probably isn’t a bigger political shit storm in martial arts than the subject of the ninja.

If you were a kid or teenager in the 80s, you remember, the movies, the music, MTV, the clothes, the big hair and the NINJA. Yep, the eighties would be the decade of the NINJA there was no ignoring the ninja in the 80’s.  America was still climbing out of the 70s, the hot trend in films between the Star Wars movies was the NINJA movie. The image of the NINJA was adopted whole heartedly in the 80s by American teenage boys looking for a new martial arts hero. Yep, for those that aren’t old enough to remember it was NINJA! NINJA! NINJA! To get a grasp of this you have to understand this was long before the internet, but the ninja craze spread so fast and so strong the image literally took over all aspects of life. You could not go anywhere with out seeing a marque, a toy, a lunch box something with a ninja on it.

My earliest remembrance of the eighties NINJA came about in September of 1980 the TV miniseries Shogun aired and featured a scene of a raid by NINJA. That was what started it all. I went to my local drive in movie theater and saw “The Octagon” in which Chuck Norris fought a clan of NINJA. Boy was there one badass NINJA in that one. Then there was “Enter the NINJA” a Cannon film starring Sho Kosugi.  With the success of that film, came “Revenge of the NINJA” and “NINJA III: The Domination” soon followed.  “American NINJA” came next and proved to be the most successful ninja film for the Cannon film group. By the mid eighties, the media was saturated with NINJA movies, magazines and anything NINJA related.  It seemed almost every month one of the monthly martial arts magazines would feature a NINJA on its cover or NINJA related articles. There were even a series of these magazines which were simply titled (of course) "NINJA". 

The NINJA appeared in other mediums as well. On TV there was a pilot movie called “The

Last NINJA” and a Tv series which starred Sho Kosugi and Lee Van Clief called “The Master” whose main character Mcalister was….yep you guessed it, a NINJA. A Popular children’s cartoon G.I. Joe went as far as redesigning a major character to cash in on the sudden NINJA craze. That character was Snake eyes. The best selling figures of the Hasbro G.I. Joe line of toys and action figures were Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow which were both, of course, NINJA. The sheer volume of kids that dressed up as Ninja during Halloween was crazy. It seemed like every kid wanted to be a NINJA.  Kawasaki launched it's best selling motorcycle. Can You guess which one it was? The NINJA. Are you getting the jist of the prevalent presence that the NINJA had in the eighties yet? Serving to only fuel the flames of the NINJA craze, arcades everywhere were assaulted with one NINJA game after another. In 1986, “NINJA” was one of the first video games to feature the shadowy assassins. A year later, “The Last NINJA” and “Shinobi” would hit arcades everywhere with “NINJA Gaiden” and “NINJA Warriors” following the year after that.

By the end of the eighties Teenage Mutant NINJA Turtles had swept the nation and had become a phenomenon, selling a plethora of VHS tapes, action figures, t-shirts, and video games. NINJA movies were released straight to VHS video.  Sho Kosugi’s quintessential NINJA would continue to kick ass in “Pray for Death” and “9 Deaths of the NINJA” and sequels to American NINJA were a force to be reckoned with in the video rental chain franchises and stores.

The NINJA cut into the 90s with the same intensity. There were 3 big screen Teenage Mutant NINJA Turtles movies  and other movies such as “3 NINJAS” and “Beverly Hills NINJA”.  By this time we had seen every conceivable manifestation of the NINJA in cartoon, movies, comics, in action novels, in the media, in music, the news and pop culture. There were NINJAS dressed in black, red, blue, yellow, green and don’t forget the NINJAS dressed in camouflage. Even Batman, who had been fighting evildoers since 1939, got a little schooling in the way of the NINJA during the 80’s and 90’s.

Like getting hit with a shuriken between the eyes, you just couldn’t get away from the NINJA, it was NINJA this and NINJA that, the ninja were everywhere, it was pure full tilt NINJA Mania in the 80s and 90s. Music Television’s MTV had interviewed a real American NINJA in a segment entitled “So you want to be a NINJA”. The rock band Blue Oyster Cult released an album called “Club NINJA” which featured the song “Shadow Warrior”. Why even rapper Vanilla Ice came out with “NINJA Rap”. The NINJA were so prevalent on toys, t shirts, lunch boxes, in martial arts, in the media, movies, TV and pop culture that even a fake NINJA got exposed in The Los Angeles Times.

The release of “Enter the Ninja” set off the ninja explosion of the 80's which is still with us to this day as evidenced by the upcoming Snake Eyes solo movie.  Despite what some internet ass hole, know it all wannabe claims on YouTube it seems that the retro image of the Ninja from the 80's is indeed alive and well. In recent years block buster movies such as Batman Begins have pushed the black clad ninja image into the forefront.  Sword wielding assassins with demonic fighting abilities are laying waste to such youtube and internet braggadocio and “know it all”.  The list of movies range from "Batman Begins and its sequels", "Ninja Assassin", “Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear” which starred Scott Adkins "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films to the “G.I. Joe” films that featured the ninja character Snake Eyes. And if there is any doubt that Ninja aren't still going strong in pop culture The G.I. Joe character Snake Eyes has his own upcoming solo movie.

The retro image of the black clad assassin/anti hero is what initially brought droves of students, myself included, to the art of ninjutsu…….and what kid in the 80's didn't want to be a ninja. Now, it was always known that the image may not be entirely accurate and more Hollywood driven. This image however has taken such a strong hold in society and pop culture that there are now ninja museums and themed parks in Japan who are all capitalizing on this image of the black clad shadow warrior of motion pictures and TV . Even Documentaries on the ancient ninja of Japan depict more often than not, an intimidating vision of a black clad ancient elite special forces operative capable of  demonic like stealth who possess almost super human combat abilities and as master assassins. The ninja are back and are more lethal than ever.

The name Ninja has been associated with an ultimate warrior capable of explosive skills, intellect, a wide range of infiltration skill and diverse fighting ability. The Ninja were for all intensive purposes were the forefathers of the special forces operatives and espionage agents used by military forces around the world today. These elite units combine combat skills, stealth, and technology to infiltrate enemy strongholds, gather secret information, and spread disinformation and operate in small units very much like the ninja of feudal Japan.

To this day, the iconic image of the ninja stretched far beyond that of the martial arts into pop culture. In fact, the influence of the image of the ninja on pop culture and martial arts was and still is massive!  The retro image of the ninja not only determined how most school kids and pretty much everyone here in the west imagined ninja to be but it also motivated students to train harder to become better at their perspective martial art it didn't matter if it was ninjutsu or karate. The image of the ninja was adopted whole heartedly in the 80's and has since become almost inseparable from mainstream American heroism. Never has there been such a greater force than the blade wielding black clad anti hero.

So what’s wrong with the retro image of the ninja or ninjutsu?  Answer: AS FAR AS I AM CONCERENED, NOT ONE GOD DAMN THING!!!!