Did you like the video? Check out Antony Cummins’ book: Ninja Skills: amzn.to/2Kboova (Note: This is not a history book, but a how-to based on old ninjutsu manuals) He also has a RU-vid channel: ru-vid.com Insta: instagram.com/historicalninja/
Has anyone seen "Kagemusha (1980)?" I think it shows the best portrayal of Shinobi in any Japanese film. They look and act like common peddlers and travelling merchants. So that explains why they're on the road and why they travelling from city to city, castle to castle. I guess modern day Shinobi would be driving UPS vans.
Incidentally NINJA exists. You can become NINJA, too. However, it's, NINJA of the secret language of financial institutions. No Income, No Job, no Asset. Abbreviated N.I.N.J.A.
Interesting way to apply the language to history. There is no doubt there were people who excelled at combat and stealth who engaged in spy/espionage type operations during those periods. Nonetheless, I'm still in the camp that ninjitsu is of a more modern concept. Mind you, all of my wisdom is from three days of binging these videos.
Funny how I'm halfway through this thing and the Kunoichi has yet to be mentioned, when she's also the easiest to explain & reveal the tactics of. I mean Leonardo DiCaprio tells you all about them in Gangs of New York. "It takes a lot of sand to be a Turtle Dove."
I still think these early Edo period sources are questionable. Maybe more credible than later Edo sources but still. Tokugawa Ieyasu had an incentive to put out propaganda. Hyping up secret warfare as this romanticized thing made sense. Your guest does use a definition for Ninja that could credibly be said to exist, but it's definitely not the standard popular definition you used in the other videos. I just don't find the claims about "Shinobi families" and "way of the Ninja" to be credible. I do want to know more about these Samurai and how extensive their "training" in secret warfare was.
It was not propaganda, it was written by a guy who actually lived through the war not written by him, it's not particularly a ninja manual really just a military manual with sections that focus on Espionage/ stealth work, it would not even be publish until long after his death. We do have sources talking about ninja Pre edo period like with Hattori Hanzo just not Pacific manuals, well there was no such thing as Shinobi family just Samurai families with being Shinobi skills as it was a job title, I'm not the biggest fan of guy but he does go out of his way to mention that at least.
I know for a fact that ninjas really did attack people in the dark with knives and shuriken, and they really did wear the same black costumes as stagehands at kabuki shows. My evidence is that it's so much cooler than if they were just spies, sleeper agents, and saboteurs like the historical documents say. There's no way someone would misrepresent that stuff just to sell books.
Modern Ninja images are made in the USA. That is an Americanized ninja. It first appeared in 007 films in the 1970s, and was known in the West under American influence. Japanese ninjas are different and there are few materials. At the time, there were Shinobi movies in Japan, but they are completely different from American ninjas and are a kind of fantasy image. A great success in the United States, the American Ninja was re-exported to Japan, and often appeared in games and movies.
Although Antony is very communicative, I'm still unconvinced. What we seem to have here is "sappers and miners" plus spies. Not secret societies of highly trained mercenary commandos sworn to secrecy who transmit their secret know-how to insiders of the family group developing different schools of stealth in time. Just run-out-the-mill stuff that every self-respecting warring state of Europe has had since the Middle Ages. Don't misunderstand me, I do love ninja literature and anime, but I still think that those who wrote about them in the XVII century were writing loosely-based-on-reality fiction. Since the times of Genji Monogatari the Japanese have shown their love for idealised narratives.
Maybe for your next colab it would be interesting if you and your guest will discuss the topic with each other? I can imagine the logistics might be tricky, but as someone earlier suggested both having an avatar on screen might do the trick.
I already know who Antony is, and I've spoken to him a few times before in the past when his Historical Ninjutsu Research Team was starting up. I have my own disagreements with him, but I will definitely suggest anyone watching this video to buy his books. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, Linfamy!
Reminds me more of that ceazy bolton dude that skinned people, no offense of course but if were going game of thrones yeah Ramsey Bolton...pretty sure thats his name.
It's kind of a nuanced point, and it depends on how you define Ninja. I wrote a few paragraphs about it in the description box of the Did Ninjas Exist? video, if you want to read it.
@@gustavoquintella3127 There have been quite a lot of people who have called out Mr Cummins for propagating inaccurate information: www.way-of-the-samurai.com/Antony-Cummins.html what worries me most is he is teaching sword techniques though he has no formal training. which is dangerous.
Basically, a ninja is a specialist scout and/or a spy and/or a SF soldier that every advanced culture have in their army. The Chinese obviously have such specialist, the Art of War devoted a few chapters on them. Other armies and advanced nation states have them as well. Nothing special really.
No wonder why ghost of tsushima is coming out soon this year! Not only the Mongol Invasion was expanding but it was noted from the 13th century Japan had shogun in power and somehow they have samurai x ninja game in open world of tsushima!
Do you think the popular image of a ninja will ever change inside and outside Japan? Most movies I see even the black/white ones had ninjas clad in black and such.
Ninjas loved fire, m'man. Especially the ninja in Iga, because castle sieging was a favorite tactic used by all the samurai and foot soldiers of Iga. It's probably because of this is how they got good at ninjutsu.
The most famous is Ieyasu's escape through Iga, allowing the future Shogun to get home. If this did not happen, then all of Japanese history may have changed. but, it does not say ninja! It says people from Iga helped him. So it assumes they are ninja. But they were samurai families famous for ninja.
I didn't get the differences between the local thieves,ashigaru and samurai? Does he mean the samurai had more shinobi knowledge than ashigaru?Was a samurai allowed to do openly a shinobi job and tell people his family trained in the art of ninja? Or was it only undercover?
What I think is fascinating is how ninja have been embraced by the world. There were other super secretive militia groups through out history but people rarely talk about them. Nearly all English speaking people have a shared mental picture of the mythical ninja. Ninja movies are popular even very old ones. Ninja even sneak into books and movies that have nothing to do with Japan at all. It makes me wonder why people have latched onto ninja so much. I doubt the interest is going to go away any time soon.
Lori yeah, the world has certainly latched on to the ninja. The boom seems to have started in the 60s. It helped that there was a ton of books and movies about ninjas back in the day. I do admit there's a coolness factor to it, with all the unique weapons and the body suit.
Good marketing, maybe. I was stunned to listen to Western men glorify "geishas" as sacred women or spiritual muses that engage in platonic relationships with their men clients.
@@AntonyCummins , I can see the commonality. James Bond always looks cool, is mysterious and is always sneaking into places. He's a modern British ninja. lol
well you can just look at what happened in the last century or so with spec ops soldier. in first world war we start to get snipers and on second SAS units, paratroopers, marine raiders, jungle warriors and other kind of specialized troops, then they develop even further in the cold war, espionage and counter espionage is added to their skills list, anti terrorism is formed, then we have the new era when pop culture carves out concepts such as Tier one operatives, bad ass bearded super skilled warriors who ride the mountains and deserts of middle east on small helicopters or high above in the stratosphere, swoop down on their enemies in the dead of the night, kill them all in absolute silence and vanish into the deserts wind... so what does that make of them, don't they exist, they all did, they are just mythed up... because propaganda works that way, same happened to ninja. when you take a big ass army out there to fight you better be damn sure you're gonna win fairly solid, or even a Pyrrhic victory will cost you, that prepared winning part is done by rather unorthodox ways. so you can considered common practice for a winning Daimio to have this special operation section running as a constant part of his retinue... when you have an organization you will have attrition in it so you will need to constantly recruit new promising candidates, and so you need standardized recruitment and training processes, then you will eventually win, but then you can win a throne by a bayonet but you won't be sitting on top of one made of them. to consolidate your power you will need soft power, propaganda, then you will start to boast your capabilities to the level that many will find it hard to achieve or outright impossible to contest... and then you will have it, a ninja, or a Tier one operative, they are all the same answer to the same needs...
NINJA/ SHINOBI In my opinion, all parties involved at the time these secret operatives had their Golden Age, had the same interest in maintaining the 'Ninja/ Shinobi' myth alive. Someone killed a high ranking official within your clan/court? Must be an enemy Ninja because who else could it be? Using dirty tricks to achieve the upper hand in a campaign, single battle of siege? Those were the Ninjas, we Samurai don't do such dishonourable things. And fact that Tokugawa himself gave his approval to the original book, tells me he wanted everybody else to know that he himself certainly didn't use those tricks. So the entire Ninja/ Shinobi thing may be just a disinfo campaign patronized by Tokugawa, wishing to have himself viewed in a positive light.
nice change but still think it mainly enriched lore, a good spy isn't seen so I think it"s like the CIA giving a masterclass to terrorists, oh wait so it was true after all :-)
Almost nothing this guest says is correct. They were an almost completely mundane group, with zero martial skill related to that particular job.They were hired because of their skills or experience - there was no martial tradition specific to the ninja. This guest speaker is an incompetent, prejudiced source who knows more about ninja turtles than historic ninja. Luckily, there are a few solid sources today in english. Check out Metatrons' Ninja vids for more details and english language research materials.
Antony, we all know now that ninjutsu isn't a martial art, nor did the shinobi have a special hand-to-hand fighting style. My question is: Is it possible that the fighting style Mr Hatsumi is teaching is actually an old hand-to-hand style from feudal japan? And the person who made it was a ninja, but made up his own martial art too, and that is what survived into the bujinkan? And do you know what scrolls Hatsumi possesses? Thank you for your work! I own the Bansenshukai and will probably soon get the Shinobi Hiden too! Have a nice day!
Hanzo Hattori hope u don't mind me answering ur question at least till Antony Cummins answers himself or confirms my answer. There is simply no evidence regarding Mr Hatsumi's style goes back to a shinobi. The ninjutsu part of Bujinkan is Togakure ryu, as u likely know. Some of its techniques, like using metsubushi, are ninjutsu regardless wether or not they are direct techniques from a historical shinobi style, but yes they are ninjutsu in terms of the concept. However, the shuriken part to be used as a ninja weapon is not evident. It is most likely a modern-day invention. The doton, mokuton, yoko aruki, etc., are probably based on chinese classical spying, as i've understood from Antony and i hope that i'm not mistaken. For the hand to hand combat, shinobi didn't have specific form of combat, they simply have used what was available in their time, such as Kumiuchi, Yawara, Jujutsu, although the term Jujutsu is likely invented later in the edo period. The ninpo taijutsu has never been recorded in historical manuals be them ninja or samurai manuals. The kicks and punches in the Bujinkan schools are likely from karate which is Okinawan and came to Japan later. Not to mention that traditional japanese Taijutsu has an extremely small number of punches and kicks since the techniques are meant to be in a battle field while wearing an armor. Hopefully that answers ur question. Best regards bro
I'm no expert, but shouldn't 忍術 be said ninjutsu and 忍ノ術 be said shinobi no jutsu? first time 忍ノ術 appears I think he said ninjutsu... now that that's out the way, I really enjoyed the video and I really liked the collaboration. as for questions, what about the くノ一 (kunoichi), what rank did those women have? were there female samurai in disguise? were they noble woman of were they just peasent women with abilities in being sneaky?
Yep, you're right, 忍ノ術 = shinobi no jutsu As for kunoichi... it's fascinating. The Bansenshukai mentions "kunoichi jutsu," meaning "technique using a female." An example of kunoichi jutsu would be putting a female maid in the service of a lord to spy on him. So kunoichi meant "female," it did not mean "female ninja" at all. The "female ninja" definition seems to be a modern invention. In the 50s, an author redefined kunoichi to mean "female ninja" and it stuck =)
@@Linfamy Oh, I see, there goes another misconception XD and well it makes sense くノ一 make up 女 not 忍女/忍ノ女 afterall (I just realized 忍女 would be pronounced ninjo using onyomi XD)
All phonetic markers (furigana) from pre 1868 no mater if the particle "no" is there or not show it said as shinobi no.... something. Shinobi no jutsu, shinobi no mono, shinobi no tsuemono etc. There is not a single one found yet that has it as ninja, or ninjutsu. this seems to have come about in the 1910s.
@@AntonyCummins Yes, but I put them in anyway to differentiate between the readings (that's probably why it's in katakana rather then the usual hiragana for particles)1
Yes, he actually translated the 3 ninjutsu manuals... Bansenshukai: amzn.to/2r5mxQ0 Shoninki: amzn.to/2OZun7b Shinobi Hiden: amzn.to/2P1FtZg Chikamatsu scrolls: amzn.to/2KtTj6l I must note that the ninjutsu texts should be read with a grain of salt because they were written in the Edo Period, and their authors may have been influenced by the biases and popular culture of their time.
Great research from Antony Cummins and Linfamy....I still would like to hear more history of Daisk Nishina (Togakure) and Hattori Hanzos exploits for the Shogun. 👍🤔
I'm really tired... so I'll just write what I was thinking when I watched it: First min or so I thought: "...This is sounding a bit like Billy Mays... Never mind, pleasantly surprised...!" At 0:54 - 2:14 I thought: "...I've seen worse... The Transcripion+Age problem can be applied to most things that happened before WW2, and practically everything that happened before the Napoleonic Wars, which is why some tin-pots use it to claim that the Roman Empire didn't exist..." At 4:08 - 4:40 I thought: "On one hand, 1676 was well after Sekigahara (1600), and the Siege of Osaka (1615) on the other hand, my bus driver in high school retired in about 2011, well after having driven a tank in WW2..." At 5:00 - 5:30 I thought: "... He looks weary of this... His actions also sounds like a tired old soldier, who took years to write down what he knew in small sections, due to the unpleasant nature of his job..." At 6:27 - 6:51 I thought: "...Foot-Soldiers... this calls for more DLC for the Oda Clan in Shogun 2...! :) ..." At 8:12 - 9:23 I thought: "... This sounds a bit like Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean..." At 8:12 - 12:27 I thought: "...Interesting... practical as well... I wonder how many "front" stores kept going post-war... and what became of them...?" At 12:27 - end I thought: "...Suddenly Billy Mays again... Yes I enjoyed that... and I agree a fair bit as well...! :)"
And being recruited as shinobi is different from being a Samurai (it's not necessarily hereditary, as its skills take time to learn it might very well be).