A Few Books About Ninjas From My Childhood
In my previous video I explored a concept I call ludo anthropomorphic dissonance, which aims to explain the tension between the realism video game players want from their enemy characters and the lack of realism players need from their enemy characters. I used an example from the Playstation 1 game Tenchu Stealth Assassins. Enemy guards in this game are inept. They can be lured from their post by a ball of rice that appears out of nowhere. But more importantly, they don’t question the rice ball’s origin. Real people, when seeing a strange object fly through the sky would question the object’s origin, not its destination.
But if the guards did question the origin–if the guards were more real–the game would be much harder and arguably much less fun. This is ludo anthropomorphic dissonance: the tension between the reality video game players want from their enemy characters and the lack of realism players need from their enemy characters.
During the creation of that video, I started thinking more about ninjas specifically and how our modern conception of the ninja had been mythologized by cartoons, movies, and of course, video games. Ninjas, as conceptualized by popular media, are practically superhuman, capable of conjuring a protective ring of lightning, and infiltrating any enemy stronghold using just smoke screen, poisoned rice balls, and an unrealistically grabby grappling hook.
But of course ninjas couldn’t actually do any of these things, nor do most people think they could. Video games, movies, and cartoons are meant to be fun exaggerations. Ninjas, afterall, are more aligned with modern-day magicians than modern-day superheroes.
For this video, I’d like to explore another medium that propagated the ninja mythos, but not to the extreme that the aforementioned mediums have. Instructional and educational books.
Over the years I’ve acquired a series of books written by modern day ninjutsu practitioners. Some are informative. Some are practical. But most have trouble balancing the desire to demystify with the need to sell books. To highlight that last point, I’ll start with a book called Ninja Mind Control by Ashida Kim. That’s one hell of a book-selling title. I can’t wait to learn about how ninjas could control the minds of their enemies to accomplish their secret missions. Now, let me open up to page 1… “Those who have purchased this volume with the idea of employing mind control to further their own selfish motives will be sadly disappointed…what we shall teach is far more valuable: You shall learn how to control your own mind.” NEXT.
This book, How to Become a Ninja: Secrets from Ashida Kim’s Training Camp, purports to be written by someone who infiltrated the Ashida Kim Ninjutsu training camp. However, it’s worth stating that Ashida Kim is actually a guy named Radford W. Davis, and is considered a fraud by everyone. Though I do like the framing of this book. It tells the story of a guy hired by a rival ninja clan to document the secrets of Kim’s camp, but actually becomes enamored with Kim enough to reveal his plot and become a Kim devotee. That story sounds interesting. But the book isn’t. NEXT.
The Mystic Arts of the Ninja: Hypnotism, Invisibility, and Weaponry by Stephen K. Hayes. Unlike Kim, Hayes is a well-respected ninjutsu instructor. And this book therefore spends its intro pages attempting to distance the pragmatic reality of ninjutsu from the illusory fantasy of ninjutsu. But, because this is a book written for a 1980s audience with one of its goals being to make money, the educational intro quickly transitions to the typical series of sequential photos of stealth techniques that depict incredibly dumb and or obvious ways of navigating the world. (pg 107). Ohhh, so that’s how a ladder works. (pg 76) ohhh, so that’s the simply step-by-step way to take down an enemy if you have a staff and the enemy grabs your collar.
This highlights an inherent problem with the book format and martial arts instruction. Martial arts training in real life preaches perfection. But a series of still frame images showing combat how tos doesn’t allow for perfection. The required nuance is lost. These types of books masquerade as tutorials, but they fail in that regard. But if Stephen K. Hayes interests you, watch his TEDxBloomington talk on YouTube. It’s good.
Next up, Ninja: 1,000 years of the Shadow Warriors by John Man. I wanted to love this book. It’s the sort of accessible memoir mixed with history that I want in a book about ninjas, but this book is, simply put, really boring. NEXT!
Improvised Ninja Smoke Devices. Granted the effect of smoke concealment in modern times may alert more people than it confuses–which is in most cases probably not desirable–I could see smoke devices being situationally effective. But the point of this glorious book isn’t to defend the use of smoke concealment. It’s simply to tell you how to do it. And it does that. Very well. This is a literal cookbook with recipes including measurements and mixing methods. Full transparency: I’ve never followed any of the recipes from this book. Making the devices doesn’t interest me. The chemistry and methodology interests me. So, proceed at your own risk. If you end of blowing yourself up, don’t blame me. But if you end up concealing yourself enough to rob several banks, give me a cut.
Lastly, and most appropriately for this video game channel, the August 1990 Ninja Gaiden II Strategy Guide issue of Nintendo Power. This issue comes with a fold out poster, the reverse side of which contains a series of interesting, but perhaps not entirely practical, ninja techniques. This Strategy Guide taught me how to tell the time of day by looking at a cat’s eyes. This is apparently what ninjas did in the time before watches. The cat’s pupils narrow as the noon hour approaches. Why? Because of the high sun. But rather that catching a feral cat to check its eyes, a clever ninja could simply look up at the sun.
Mentioned
Stephen K. Hayes TEDxBloomington
Music Credits
8bit Dungeon Level Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
