98 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.

In parts of Europe, the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon swapped 'Ninja' in its title for which word?

Hero stood in for Ninja because censors abroad were wary of ninja and their weapons on children's television. Scenes of Michelangelo using his nunchaku were cut from the episodes too.

Tyler Blevins, the streamer known as Ninja, broke a Twitch viewer record in 2018 playing which game with Drake?

Fortnite made Blevins famous within months of his taking it up in late 2017. Later in 2018 he became the first professional esports player on the cover of ESPN The Magazine.

Which toy maker's ninja theme, launched in 2011, set a record for single-year sales among its original product lines?

Lego planned Ninjago as a limited three-year run, but the theme's launch year outsold every original line the company had ever made, and it was kept going.

The legendary prince Yamato Takeru, sometimes labelled a ninja in hindsight, killed two Kumaso chiefs disguised as what?

A young maiden is the disguise the prince wears in the Kojiki chronicle. The tale is set so early in Japanese history that it is unlikely to be connected to the real shinobi of later centuries.

Films dress ninja in black, but in peacetime they typically wore indigo work clothes like those of which workers?

Farmers' work clothes, dyed dark indigo, were everyday wear for a ninja. Night gear was probably dark brown rather than black, because brown blends better into the darkness.

Japanese manuals of ninja craft written in the 17th and 18th centuries often quoted which ancient Chinese classic?

The Art of War by Sun Tzu grounded the shinobi manuals in Chinese military strategy. They were set down just as the ninja themselves were fading into obscurity.

Which author wrote Night of the Ninjas, in which a Magic Tree House whisks Jack and Annie to ancient Japan?

Mary Pope Osborne wrote the whole Magic Tree House series and reads the audiobook of this adventure herself. Her husband and her sister help write the nonfiction companion books.

Which noodle dish is the favourite food of Naruto Uzumaki, the boy ninja hero of a best-selling manga?

Ramen is Naruto's favourite because the manga's creator likes eating it himself, the reason he gave when asked why he had not chosen kitsune udon.

Which frog-like Pokémon of the Froakie line can form shuriken out of water that are sharp enough to slice metal?

Greninja compresses water into throwing stars, as its Pokédex entry puts it. Frogadier, the form before it, is said to be able to climb a 610-metre building in a minute.

In Night of the Ninjas, Jack and Annie seek the ninja's secrets to help which friend from Arthurian legend?

Morgan le Fay sends the pair on their tree house missions through the first 28 books of the series. Merlin takes over the quest-giving from book 29, Christmas in Camelot.

In Night of the Ninjas, Jack and Annie are taken to meet a ninja master in which hideout?

A cave is where the children meet the ninja master, and the story turns on whether they can learn his secrets before enemy warriors catch them.

Jack and Annie, the heroes of Night of the Ninjas, live in the fictional town of Frog Creek in which US state?

Pennsylvania is also where the series was born: the author hit on a time-travelling tree house when she and her husband saw one on a walk in a forest there.

Which future shogun, fleeing home across Iga in June 1582, was by tradition guided to safety by ninja?

Tokugawa Ieyasu later kept Iga men, Hattori Hanzo among them, as his bodyguards. One modern theory holds that local warrior militias rather than ninja saw him home.

The peasant-warriors of Iga and Koka became mercenaries for hire during the unrest of which period of Japanese history?

Sengoku, the age of warring states, kept rival lords hiring Iga's fighters between 1485 and 1581. The ninja faded into obscurity once a new shogunate was established in the 17th century.

In 1558, ninja entered Sawayama Castle unchallenged by carrying copies of which stolen object bearing the enemy crest?

A lantern marked with the enemy's family crest was stolen and copied. The trick, dubbed the ghost technique, got a force of 48 ninja through the gates without a fight.

A ninja manual found in a shrine warehouse and unveiled in 2022 says to throw charred turtle and which bird to hide?

Owl and turtle, charred and powdered, were to be thrown when trying to hide. The same manual of 48 techniques advises padding straw sandals with cotton to muffle footsteps.

Lords who feared ninja assassins kept weapons hidden under a removable floorboard or in which room of the house?

The lavatory was one recorded hiding place for a weapon kept ready against assassins. Buildings were also rigged with traps and trip wires attached to alarm bells.

In many folktales a lord tests a ninja by daring him to steal his weapon or which other item while he sleeps?

His pillow, taken as he slept, is the classic proof of skill in ninja folktales, which usually attach themselves to real historical figures.

Splinter, the Ninja Turtles' teacher, began in the comics as the pet of ninja Hamato Yoshi and was which animal?

A rat, and an unusually intelligent one, Splinter was Hamato Yoshi's pet in the comics and the live-action films. The 1987 cartoon instead made Splinter and Yoshi the same person.

Which Ninja Turtle, who fights with a pair of sai, is the only one to have kept his original mask colour?

Raphael still wears the red mask of the characters' original version, while his three brothers later adopted colours of their own.

Which film franchise's creators have cited the 1993 ninja anime Ninja Scroll as an influence on their work?

The Matrix owes enough to Ninja Scroll that the anime's director, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, went on to contribute two segments to the spin-off anthology The Animatrix.

Which Mortal Kombat fighter of the Lin Kuei clan did co-creator John Tobias first sketch as a character called 'Ninja'?

Sub-Zero was inspired by a book arguing that China's Lin Kuei shaped the Japanese ninja. Two characters have carried the name, both able to control ice.

Which hero of the Ninja Gaiden games, wielder of the Dragon Sword, also appears in every main Dead or Alive game?

Ryu Hayabusa joined Dead or Alive after its lead developer had first planned to include a brand-new male ninja called Kamui.

Which cyborg ninja of the game Overwatch is the younger brother of the archer Hanzo, who was once ordered to kill him?

Genji was the youngest son of the Shimada ninja clan's master, and his brother was believed to have carried out the elders' order.

Which young ninja of Final Fantasy VII, daughter of the leader of Wutai, obsessively steals and collects Materia?

Yuffie steals Materia hoping to grow strong enough to restore Wutai, a nation she feels has lost its former glory and become nothing more than a resort town.

Power Rangers Ninja Storm, the 2003 season, was the first in the franchise to be filmed in which country?

New Zealand hosted the shoot in a season of firsts: Ninja Storm was also the first not produced by MMPR Productions and the first to air entirely on ABC Kids.

In the 1992 family film 3 Ninjas, brothers Rocky, Colt and Tum-Tum learn martial arts each summer from which relative?

Their grandfather, Mori Tanaka, also hands out the ninja names: Samuel becomes Rocky, Jeffrey becomes Colt and the youngest, aged six, becomes Tum-Tum.

What was the day job of Makoto Nagano, only the second person ever to complete Japan's Sasuke obstacle course?

Fisherman and boat captain Makoto Nagano was nicknamed the World's Strongest Fisherman. His win in the 17th tournament prompted a widespread re-imagining of the course.

The ninja lanternshark, a black shark of the eastern Pacific, has a scientific name honouring the author of which novel?

Jaws is the 1974 bestseller whose author is honoured in the name Etmopterus benchleyi. The 'ninja' part came from the researcher's young cousin, who pointed out at a family gathering that ninjas are awesome.

Which martial arts film star voices Master Wu in the 2017 Ninjago movie and also appears in its live-action scenes?

Jackie Chan plays the wisecracking kung-fu master, who in the film is the villain Garmadon's brother and the uncle of the Green Ninja, Lloyd.

Which Marvel assassin created by Frank Miller trained under the ninja order the Hand and fights with sai?

Elektra was modelled on Electra of Greek tragedy. She was killed off at the end of her first story arc in 1982, then resurrected to headline three ongoing series of her own.

Which ninja leader, a retainer of the Hojo clan beheaded in 1603, gave his name to fiction's giant folding shuriken?

Fuma Kotaro led a band that specialised in guerrilla warfare on horseback. Its finest hour was a night attack in 1580 that left a Takeda camp attacking its own men in the confusion.

In legend the ninja Kato Danzo, nicknamed 'Flying Kato', amazed a crowd by seeming to swallow which animal?

A bull, swallowed in front of more than 20 onlookers, is the best-known feat credited to Danzo. The warlord Uesugi Kenshin is said to have tested him by ordering the theft of a prized naginata.

Many flat shuriken have a centre hole because they were made from everyday items such as washers and what?

Coins with a hole through the middle were cut into throwing stars, as were washers and nail-removing tools. Shuriken served as a back-up to the sword, thrown to distract or misdirect.

The kaginawa, reportedly used by ninja for scaling in feudal Japan, is the Japanese form of which climbing tool?

A grappling hook on a rope, the kaginawa came with anything from one to four hooks. It was also used to secure a boat or to hang up armour and other gear overnight.

Which martial artist founded the Bujinkan organization as the 34th grandmaster of Togakure-ryu ninjutsu?

Masaaki Hatsumi spent fifteen years studying under Toshitsugu Takamatsu, a teacher known as the Tiger of Mongolia, who made him his successor.

Which 1998 PlayStation ninja game has players sneak through missions as Rikimaru or Ayame of the Azuma clan?

Tenchu was the first project of the studio Acquire, which set out to favour stealth over action in a fully 3D game, something uncommon at the time.

Which university in Iga's home prefecture founded the world's first ninja research centre in 2017?

Mie University followed up with a master's course in 2018, and its first graduate, Genichi Mitsuhashi, finished in 2020. Applicants must be able to read historical ninja documents.

The Ten Braves, a fictional band of ninja led by Sarutobi Sasuke, serve which warlord at the Siege of Osaka?

Sanada Yukimura's ten ninja were made famous by pocket-sized children's books published between 1911 and 1925, which set off the first of Japan's three ninja booms.

Which actor led Cannon Films' 1985 movie American Ninja despite having no martial arts experience?

Michael Dudikoff was already very athletic, and fight choreographer Mike Stone assured the producers he would pick up the moves. A sequel followed in 1987.

Myoryu-ji, a temple nicknamed Ninja-dera although it has no real link to ninja, stands in which Japanese city?

Kanazawa's Myoryu-ji earned the nickname through its deceptive defences: hidden tunnels, secret rooms, traps and a labyrinth of corridors and staircases.

The Last Ninja, a 1987 action-adventure game published by System 3, was originally made for which home computer?

Commodore 64 owners got the game only after a rescue job: a first team missed all its deadlines, so the code went back to London and John Twiddy rewrote the engine.

Which Belgian midfielder, who spent most of his career in Italy with Roma and Inter Milan, is nicknamed 'Il Ninja'?

Radja Nainggolan was born in Antwerp to a Belgian mother and an Indonesian father, and his career there also took in spells at Piacenza and Cagliari.

In the ninja craze of the early 1980s, American children were said to swap which classic costume for ninja outfits?

Cowboy outfits lost out as ninja merchandise spread across North America. It was the third ninja boom in modern popular culture, and the first to go global instead of staying in Japan.

Which animal from Borneo, Ibycus rachelae, is nicknamed 'ninja' for firing hormone-laced darts at potential mates?

A slug, it fires harpoons of calcium carbonate known as love darts to inject hormones. Its finders nearly named it after a cat, for a curled-up pose that reminded them of a sleeping one.

Which son of Naruto Uzumaki is the title character of the sequel series about the next generation of ninja?

Boruto resents his father's long absences on duty, a strained bond that the series' creator based on his own relationship with his sons.

The kusarigama, a Japanese weapon said to have been used by ninja, joins a weighted chain to which hand tool?

A sickle on a chain may descend from the jingama, a blade kept for cutting a horse's ropes free in a fire, the researcher Nawa Yumio believes.

Which US cable channel aired Japan's Sasuke as Ninja Warrior, building the cult following behind an American version?

G4, a niche gaming network, saw the imported specials become almost its most-watched broadcasts. It also showed the all-female spin-off as Women of Ninja Warrior.

In Halfbrick Studios' hit 2010 mobile game with 'Ninja' in its title, players swipe the screen to slice which targets?

Fruit is sliced in half with a swipe of the finger, while bombs thrown up among it must be left alone. Fruit Ninja reached a billion downloads in 2015.

Isaac Caldiero, a rock climber who won American Ninja Warrior's $1 million prize, once worked in which restaurant job?

Busboy turned champion, Caldiero took the $1,000,000 by finishing the final rope climb in a faster time than Geoff Britten, who had also completed every stage.