Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Ninja trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The real shinobi were spies, scouts and arsonists for hire from two mountain districts of central Japan, and almost nothing about the black-clad assassin of the movies survives contact with the records. The black costume comes from kabuki stagehands, the straight "ninja sword" cannot be traced before 1956, and the best-known ninja of all, Hattori Hanzo, was a samurai general famous for his spear. These 50 questions cover the history (Iga and Koga, the Sengoku mercenaries, Oda Nobunaga's 1581 invasion, the Shimabara Rebellion, the Edo-period manuals), the kit (shuriken, makibishi, nightingale floors built to defeat them), the famous names (Hanzo, Fuma Kotaro, Ishikawa Goemon boiled alive in Kyoto), and the pop culture that followed: Enter the Ninja, Ninja Gaiden, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Naruto and the Sasuke obstacle course that became Ninja Warrior. Easy questions cover the words and the weapons; harder ones ask about clan politics, manuscripts and Mie University's ninja research centre. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a history round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Nokizaru, one old regional nickname for a ninja, literally means what?
Macaque on the roof
Other colloquialisms included monomi ("one who sees"), rappa ("ruffian") and kusa ("grass"); "ninja" itself was rarely used.
Q 02What does the character shinobi (忍) literally mean?
To steal away; to hide
By extension it also means "to forbear", which is how the word came to stand for stealth and invisibility.
Q 03What were the self-defence leagues formed by the peasant-fighters of Iga and Koka called?
Ikki
The jizamurai who formed them sold their services as mercenaries and spies across the nearby regions.
Q 04The Koga ninja district, now the city of Koka, lies in which modern prefecture?
Shiga
Neighbouring Iga, the other ninja heartland, is in Mie Prefecture.
Q 05Which warlord invaded Iga in 1581 and wiped out its organised ninja clans?
Oda Nobunaga
His son had tried two years earlier with 8,000 men and was ambushed at Nagano Pass.
Q 06In 1579, whose first attempt to conquer Iga ended in a humiliating ambush?
Oda Nobukatsu
The Iga defenders used the terrain and guerrilla tactics; the chronicle Iranki puts his losses in the thousands.
Q 07The ninja's social position was organised into ranks; which was the highest?
Jonin
The "upper person" represented the group and hired out its mercenaries; the lowest rank did the actual missions.
Q 08Which rank described the field agents who actually carried out missions?
Genin
They were drawn from the lower classes; the chunin above them acted as assistants to the leaders.
Q 09What was the ninja's chief role, according to the historical record?
Espionage
Despite popular belief, there is little evidence that they worked as assassins.
Q 10What was the ninja's primary form of sabotage?
Arson
In 1541 men of Iga slipped into Kasagi castle and set fire to the priests' quarters, according to an abbot's diary.
Q 11In the 1558 attack on Sawayama Castle, ninja got inside by copying what?
Enemy lanterns
They stole a lantern bearing the defenders' family crest, made replicas and walked in without a fight.
Q 12The last detailed record of ninja in open warfare comes from which conflict?
The Shimabara Rebellion
Koga men scouted Hara Castle's moat and walls, stole provisions and captured a banner bearing the Christian cross.
Q 13Which Tokugawa shogun sent the Koga ninja against the Christian rebels at Hara Castle?
Iemitsu
After the castle fell, Christianity in Japan was forced underground and the ninja vanished from war records.
Q 21Shuriken were sometimes left lying in plain sight for a victim to pick up, coated in what?
Poison
They could also be wrapped in a fuse and thrown to start fires, or embedded in the ground to injure anyone who stepped on them.
Q 22Makibishi, scattered to slow pursuers, are the Japanese version of which weapon?
Caltrops
Clay versions dating to a 1590 siege have been dug up and identified as ninja kit.
Q 23There is no evidence for the straight-bladed "ninja sword" before which century?
20th
The first known photograph of one appears in a 1956 Japanese booklet; the design resembles the swords of common infantrymen.
Q 14After 1560, Tokugawa Ieyasu hired eighty Koga ninja to raid an outpost of which clan?
Imagawa
Led by Tomo Sukesada, they set fire to the towers and killed the castellan with two hundred of the garrison.
Q 15The famous 1676 ninja manual compiled from Iga and Koga knowledge is called what?
Bansenshukai
Its title means "Ten Thousand Rivers Flowing Together to Form an Ocean".
Q 16A 1748 copy of Kanrinseiyo, the lost source of the famous 1676 manual, turned up in 2022 where?
A shrine warehouse
It describes 48 techniques, including cotton-padded sandals for silent movement and charred owl powder for hiding.
Q 17The black ninja costume of fiction is thought to imitate which figures from Edo theatre?
Kuroko stagehands
Stagehands dressed in black were meant to be ignored by the audience, which made the outfit a visual shorthand for invisibility.
Q 18Real ninja night clothing was most likely which colour, rather than black?
Dark brown
Brown blended better into darkness; in peacetime they wore indigo-dyed farm clothes.
Q 19Which Kyoto castle has "nightingale floors" built to squeak and betray intruders?
Nijo
The boards rest on metal hinges called uguisu-bari; gravel grounds and trip-wire alarm bells were other countermeasures.
Q 20What does the word shuriken literally mean?
Hand-hidden blade
They were used by samurai as well as ninja, often to distract rather than to kill.
Q 24In 2025, which country banned the possession and sale of so-called "ninja swords"?
United Kingdom
The law targeted blades of 14 to 24 inches with one straight cutting edge and a tanto-style point.
Q 25Despite his ninja reputation, what was Hattori Hanzo's actual station in life?
A samurai general
He is counted among the Tokugawa's 16 divine generals and credited with saving Ieyasu's life.
Q 26What nickname did Hattori Hanzo earn for his ferocity in the early 1570s?
Demon
A fellow commander, Watanabe Moritsuna, picked up a rival nickname after the same campaign.
Q 27What is named Hanzomon after Hattori Hanzo in modern Tokyo?
A palace gate and subway line
His house once stood outside the gate of the shogun's palace, now the Imperial Palace.
Q 28Which weapon of Hattori Hanzo is still kept at Sainen-ji temple in Tokyo?
His spear
Originally over four metres long, it lost its tip in the 1855 earthquake and was damaged again in the 1945 bombing.
Q 29Roughly how many people have carried the name Hattori Hanzo through history?
At least five
It was a hereditary title passed down the leaders of the Hattori family, including the famous general's father and son.
Q 30Fuma Kotaro, leader of the Fuma ninja clan, served which warlord family?
The Later Hojo
His 200 "rappa" were split into brigands, pirates, burglars and thieves, and wrecked a rival camp by night in 1580.