Ninjas

Ninjas

-Ninja(shinobi in Japanese) was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan capable of working in unorthodox methods and arts of war. They were masters of espionage, sabotage, infiltration, assassination, and also open combat situations.
-They used covert methods of waging war, they clashed basically with the samurai, who had strict rules about honor and combat, where as ninjas don't care.
-By the time of the Meiji Restoration(1868), the time of the shinobi had become a topic of popular culture, and mystery and imagination. Some of the abilities included walking on water, invisibility, control over the natural elements.

History
-Pronounced shinobi, meaning "to steal away"
-Also can apply to kunoichi(female ninja), which became more known in the post WWII world
-Ninjas made their debut in the 15th century, as spies, raiders, arsonists, and even terrorists
-Among the samurai, a sense of ritual was established.
-There was a ranking system for ninjas. Spy was called kancho, scout was called teisatsu, surprise attacker was called kishu, agitator was called konran. Jonin was referred to as upper man, with chunin as middle man and genin as lower man, who were the ones to carry out the dirty work

Roles

Espionage
-Chief role of the ninja
-With the help of disguises, the ninja could gather info on enemies, obtain passwords, and communiques.

Sabotage
-Arson was the primary form of sabotage practiced by ninjas. They often targeted camps and castles

Assassination
-Most well known cases of assassination involves famous historical figures.

Countermeasures
-There were various measures to prevent ninjas. Such as weapons in lavatory, or under moveable floorboard, buildings made with traps and trip wires attached to alarm bells
-Japanese castles were made to be hard to navigate, with winding routes to the inner compound. Blind spots and holes in walls provided constant surveillance of these labyrinth paths. Such examples are seen in Himeji Castle, Nijo Castle in Kyoto. They are made with "nightingale floors", which rested on metal hinges specifically designed to squeak loudly if walked over. Grounds with gravel over it also gave early notice of intruders

Tactics

Hitsuke: practice of distracting guards by starting fire  away from ninja's planned point of entry
Tanuki-gakure: practice of climbing a tree and camouflaging themselves
Ukigusa-gakure: practice of throwing duckweed over water to conceal underwater movement
Uzura-gakure: practice of curling into a ball to remain motionless to look like a rock

Disguises
-Could disguise themselves as anything, such as fortune tellers, priests, entertainers, merchants, monks

Clothing
-Black was a common color to show invisibility
-Similar to the samurai, but loose clothing
-Lightweight armor for protection

Tools
-Ropes and grappling hooks for climbing
-Chisels, drills, picks, hammers
-Kunai(Japanese masonry trowel, which it looks like)

Weapons
-Katana(aka Samurai sword)
-Darts, spikes, knives, shuriken(throwing stars)
-Bows and arrows
-Kusarigama(chain and sickle)
-Soft cased bombs with shrapnel, glass, poison gas, smoke inside

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Samurai

Samurai

-Term for nobility of pre-industrial Japan.
-They followed a set of rules that came to be known as bushido.
-While they made up less than 10% of Japan's population, samurai teachings can be found today in both everyday life and in modern Japanese martial arts

History
-In the early Heian period, basically the late 8th and 9th centuries, Emperor Kammu decided to expand his rule in northern Honshu. He introduced the title of Seiitaishgoun or shogun, and began to rely on these powerful soldiers to remove any of the Emishi people.
-These soliders, skilled in mounted combat and archery(kyudo), these warriors became the emperor's preferred tool for removing rebellious people.
-The title of shogun was not used until the 13th century.
-These clans formed alliances to protect themselves from other clans, and by the time of the Heian period, they adopted characteristic Japanese armor and weapons, and that is how they laid the foundation for Bushido, their code of honor
-In the 14th century, a blacksmith named Masamune created a two-layer material for soft and hard steel for swords. This gave the item a much more improved cutting power and endurance. This led to the creation of Japanese swords(katana) being used.

Culture
-Samurai developed their own cultures that influenced Japanese culture as well. This culture associated with the samurai included tea ceremony, monochrome ink painting, rock gardens, and poetry. These were adapted from the Chinese arts. Zen monks introduced them to Japan and they were allowed to decline due to interest of powerful warriors.

Education
-In general, samurai warriors were aristocrats, and priests who had a very high literacy rate in Kanji.

Names
-How samurai got their names is they combined one kanji from his father or grandfather, and one new kanji.

Marriage
-How samurai got married is it was arranged by someone with the same or higher rank
-Marriage was a necessity for those in upper ranks, and for lower ranked samurai, it was a formality.
-Most of them married a woman from a samurai family, but for lower ranking members, marriage to commoners was okay.
-If a samurai wanted a mistress, her background was given a very strong looking over by a higher ranked samurai.
-A samurai could divorce his wife for various reasons, with approval from a superior, but it was nonexistent. A reason for divorce could be that the wife could not produce a valuable son, but the adoption was the answer for divorce. And even if he simply did not like his wife, he could divorce her. If the wife were cast off because of dishonor, she could commit jigai(a female's seppuku)

Weapons
Japanese swords
-I.e. Katana(long sword), wakizashi(side inserted sword)

The Yumi(longbow)
-Major weapon of the Japanese military
-Made from bamboo, wood, rattan, leather
-Had a range of 50 meters

Pole weapons
-Yari(spear)

Staff weapons
-Bo(bamboo staff)

Chain weapons
Kusarigama(chain sickle)



Armor
-Early armor made from leather or iron
-Later armor was made from iron
-Had a helmet, called a kabuto, to protect the samurai's face from weapons

Pop Culture
-There have been films made over the years to feature these warriors.
-The Seven Samurai(Akira Kurosawa) was made in the 1950s and is entirely in Japanese language with English subtitles. This one rocks!!

-In Japanese comics(manga) or animation(anime), the Samurai are very popular topics. They mostly feature a good guy who is a samurai or a former samurai who possesses martial arts skills. Even American comic books have adapted the Samurai into their comics.

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Ninja Assassin

Ninja Assassin

-2009 American martial arts film directed by James McTeigue
-Story was written by Matthew Sand
-Stars Korean pop musician Rain as a disillusioned assassin looking for payback against his former mentor, played by ninja film legend Sho Kosugi.
-Explores the topics of political corruption, child endangerment, impact of violence.

Did You Know?
-After Raizo(Rain) is first captured and chained to a wall, his captors look at him and say "He should be in a boy band". In fact, Rain started his career in a boy band called Fanclub
-Korean pop singer Rain had no martial arts experience whatsoever for this movie. He trained nonstop for 6 months to prepare

Why does it seem like alot of Asian guys are cute?

Plot
-Raizo(Rain) is raised by the Ozunu Clan to become the most lethal, most dangerous ninja assassin in the world. As a child, Raizo(being an orphan) was taken by Lord Ozuno(Sho Kosugi) and is enrolled in severe brtual training to become his next successor. The only generosity he ever gets is from a kunoichi(female ninja) named Kiriko(Kylie Goldstein) with whom he begins to fall in love with. As time goes on, Kiriko becomes less happy with the Ozunu's routine of kill, kill, kill and wants to leave it all behind for freedom. One rainy night, Kiriko decides to escape and encourages Raizo to go with her. He stays. Branded as a traitor, Kiriko was caught and later killed in front of Raizo by her elder ninja brother Takeshi(Rick Yune). As a result of her death, Raizo begins to harbor hate towards the Ozunu. However, this is the past and it switches to modern day where a disguised female assassin(Linh Dan Pham) attempts to kill Raizo at a laundromat. He fends her attacks off and kills her, leaving her remains in the washing machine

-It switches back to the past where Raizo is seated in a car and told by Lord Ozunu to complete his first assassination mission. Afterwards, Raizo meets the rest of the clan atop a city skyscraper in Berlin. There he is told by Lord Ozunu to kill another kunoichi traitor like Kiriko. He rebels against Lord Ozunu by cutting his face with a kyoketsu-shoge(double edged blade) and engages in fight against his former ninja kin. Barely surviving, he falls over the edge and into a nearby pool. Raizo recovers and begins to intervene and foil Ozunu kill attempts. Elsewhere, Europol agent Mike Coretti(Naomie Harris) has been investigating money linked political murders and finds that they are possibly connected to the Ozunu. She defies her boss, Ryan Maslow(Ben Miles) and retreives secret files to find out more

-Mika and Raizo meet and she convinces him to go to Maslow for protection as well as provide evidence against the Ozunu. Raizo is arrested by Maslow and abducted by agents from Europol for interrogation. Feeling betrayed, Mika is assured by Maslow that he is still on her side and gives her a tracking device for emergencies. The Ozunu ninja infiltrate the Europol safehouse where Raizo is being held in an attempt to kill him and everyone else inside. Mike frees Raizo and they escape, but Raizo sustains near mortal wounds. She takes him to a nearby motel to hide. Resting in the motel, Mike implants the tracking device into Raizo, as the ninjas continue their pursuit. Unable to fight off the encroaching ninjas, she hides outside the motel until Special Forces arrive to help her. By the time they arrive, the ninjas have kidnapped Raizo, bringing him before Lord Ozunu for prosecution. During transport back to the Ozunu, Raizo uses his ninja techniques to heal his own wounds

-Europol special forces and tactical teams by Maslow storm the secluded Ozunu retreat(in the mountains) using the tracking device on Raizo. Raizo kills Takeshi and confronts Lord Ozunu in a sword fight. Mike interferes, but is stabbed by Lord Ozunu. Angered, Raizo uses a 'shadow blending' technique for the first time to distract and kill Lord Ozunu. Mika, fatally wounded, is saved by a strange thing; her heart is actually on the opposite side of her chest. After Europol leaves, Raizo stays behind to tend to the ruins of the Ozunu retreat. He later climbs the same wall Kiriko did while trying to escape and looks at the surrounding countryside. He then recognizes his freedom for the first time.

Cast
-Sung Kang: Hollywood
-Randall Duk Kim: Tattoo Master
-Ben Miles: Maslow
-Naomie Harris: Mika
-Rain: Raizo
-Sho Kosugi: Ozunu

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Awwwww, Domo!!!!

Ain't he cute???

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