Tell me about ninjas. Did they actually exist? What did the

They very definitely existed and played a verifiable role in real events. They were spies and assassins and were generally pretty good at it.

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>>3036346
>ask a ninja was 11 years ago

holy shit

They're not as fanciful as you'd think.
Ninjas were practically just hired thugs who went around setting buildings on fire and stabbing people while they slept.
They were pretty good at what they did, but no one should pretend that they were anything more than just state-sponsored terrorists for the japanese leadership.

There aren't that many sources on ninjas because, well, you know...they're ninjas.

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>>3036621
This is actually true.
You're talking about secretive networks of assassins and spies.
It also doesn't help that most ninjas came from poor and lower-class backgrounds, which nobody liked writing about.

This does mean though that much of what we think about ninjas are legends and myths and other imaginary stuff to make them alot more badass than they really were.

>>3036346
>ask a ninja

holy fuck, I haven't seen this in like 10 years

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>>3036346
They were just spies and assassins. Actually even samurai could sometimes act as ninja. They didn't dress in that stupid get up but more in normal clothes you know, to blend in. Maybe they would wear black or dark colors when sneaking around at night but definitely not in the day. They also participated in sabotaging the enemy. So in someways if you wanted to fuck with an enemy, you could use "20 good men(ninja)" to destroy their supplies and stuff.
>Tfw I hope someone gets that reference

>>3036346

Back when "ninja" were most active (i.e the Sengoku period) the line between samurai and "ninja" was really blurry, just like the line between samurai and commoners could get during the same period, prior to the more solid social structures enforced by Toyotomi and Tokugawa. Just like Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose from a humble peasant footsoldier to become the most powerful man in all of Japan (an extreme example I know), so could a "ninja" like Hattori Hanzō rise to become a fairly high-ranking retainer of the Tokugawa clan.

Any samurai could basically put on some enemy colors, or maybe disguise himself as a wandering monk or ronin, and attempt to spy and/or sabotage the enemy, or do other "ninja" stuff, and then there were of course the regions where the local warriors would specialize in this kind of thing due to various geographical and geopolitical causes, like the famous Iga and Koga "ninja".

tl;dr: ninja were more or less samurai, back when ninja were actually a thing.

>>3036346
Ninja is basically a modern term which incompatibles any practitioner of covert or unconventional warfare.

in historical times there were a variety of terms for these things, depending on role and region. So while you can say ninja were real in that sense, saying this or that person was a ninja can be more misleading than helpful.

>>3037900
which includes, sorry

>>3036346
Ninja were assassins with superhuman abilities such as invisibility, super strength, and super speed.
We know they were behind many world-changing events, although it is difficult to say which ones, because they're so good at what they do. Legend has it that they're still active in global affairs, in fact.

>>3038422
dont forget about their jutsu, dangerous stuff.

If you see one in an orange tracksuit, run for your fucking life

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>>3036346
The classic ninja costume is derived from Japanese theater stagehands, who dress in all black and are meant to be ignored as part of the suspension of disbelief. When a script called for a character to be attacked by a ninja, the actor portraying the ninja would wear a stagehand costume to create the effect that the attack came seemingly out of nowhere, since the stagehands "don't exist" within the context of the play. In real life the ninja would likely wear whatever they needed to blend in with everybody else on the street and be inconspicuous.

>>3036346
watch anthony cummins on yt he is a expert on "ninjas" myths about them koryu and jap. martial arts in general

speaks japanese wrote a few books knows all the schools and their masters pretty chill guy as well

>>3038901
That's pretty fascinating.
More info like this pls

>>3038912
"Expert" is being pretty generous. His thoughts on koryu are stupid, and I dont know many historians who specialize on the stuff that take him seriously.

As for his thoughts on koryu "myths" look at what he promotes as an alternative to these arts with proven lineages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH0i9anqFC8

If you want to know about ninja look into real historians and hopologists like Karl Friday and David Hall

>>3036346
They exist but I think their peak was the sengoku period. It was all out war in Japan and the ninja provided an advantage because they would do things deemed "dishonorable" that regular people wouldn't do.