Were Ninjas Real? 忍者 (Ninja), the History of the Shinobi and the Myths

Were ninjas real? 忍者 (ninja) and 忍び (shinobi)

Yes, ninja were real. They were spies, scouts and saboteurs in Japan, recorded from the fourteenth century to the end of the Edo period, but they were not the black-clad superheroes of film. The word 忍者 (にんじゃ, ninja, “ninja”) means "person of stealth", and in their own time these people were called 忍び (しのび, shinobi, “stealth”) (shinobi).

The best-documented ones came from the Iga and Kōka regions, and many came from local warrior families and farming villages. Their most important job was to gather information and come back alive. Sabotage, night raids and, according to the dictionary, assassination were part of the craft, but the lone killer who vanishes in smoke is fiction.

The word is written with two kanji: 忍 (to endure, to conceal) and 者 (person). The gap between the real shinobi and the ninja of films, games and anime is what this guide is about. It covers what the kanji say, what historians know, which famous details are myths, how pop culture built the modern ninja, and whether any ninja are left today.

This guide is about the Japanese history.

What 忍者 means: the kanji

Take the two kanji in turn.

忍 has two meanings that pull in opposite directions. It means "to endure": the dictionary gives 忍 (にん, nin) as an old word for patience and self-restraint. It also means "to conceal oneself", as in the verb 忍ぶ (しのぶ, shinobu, “to conceal oneself”). Its kun reading is しの (shino), which is where shinobi comes from. Kanji dictionaries list its parts as a blade and a heart (心). A popular way to remember it is "a blade over the heart": you hold your feelings in, and you hold your movements in too. That is a memory aid, not a claim about where the character came from.

者 means "person". Put it after 忍 and you get a person of 忍.

忍者 or 忍び?

Both are in the dictionary. 忍者 is the standard word today. 忍び is the older term, and the dictionary also gives 忍びの者 (しのびのもの, shinobinomono, “ninja”) as another word for a ninja. It was popularised after the war by novelists, as the pop culture section below explains.

Japanese Wikipedia says 忍者 spread as a term from the 1950s onward through novels and other fiction, and that people in the period of the so-called ninja said 忍び. Other names turn up in records of the warring-states period. The dictionary lists 乱波 (らっぱ, rappa) and 透波 (すっぱ, suppa) as old words for spies, and one old meaning of 草 (くさ, kusa) is "ninja". A later word, 隠密 (おんみつ, onmitsu), was used for spies who worked for a lord or the shogun.

Was a ninja an assassin?

Sometimes, but that was not the definition. The dictionary defines 忍術 (にんじゅつ, ninjutsu, “ninjutsu”) as "combat and stealth techniques used by ninja for espionage, sabotage, assassination, etc." Japanese Wikipedia also lists assassination among the shinobi's tasks. But the sources that survive stress information first. Mie University's research centre says the most important job was to tell the lord what the enemy was doing, so a shinobi avoided fighting as far as possible and had to survive and return.

What historians know about real ninja

Shinobi appear in written records from the fourteenth century onward. The first mention that historians usually point to is in the war chronicle 太平記 (たいへいき, Taiheiki), which says that Kō no Moronao used shinobi when Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine was burned. Mie University's International Ninja Research Center, which studies the subject at its home in Iga, dates documented ninja activity from the fourteenth century, in the Nanbokuchō period, to the end of the Edo period in the late nineteenth century. A Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism page on the Iga museum puts the decline earlier, saying their skills were no longer needed by the end of the eighteenth century.

Where they came from

The Mie University centre traces the roots of ninja to the 悪党 (あくとう, akutō) of the late Kamakura period. The word is a plain "villain" in the modern dictionary, but in that period it referred to armed groups outside the authority of the established order. The centre also explains why Iga in particular developed its techniques: the local lords were weak, so Iga governed itself, and ninja techniques grew up as a way of defending the region.

Some stories push the origin much further back. One says Prince Shōtoku used a man called Ōtomo no Hosohito as a "shinobi" in the seventh century. Treat it as a legend: Japanese Wikipedia notes that the Nihon Shoki, the old chronicle, has no such entry.

What they actually did

Beyond information, shinobi did infiltration and sabotage, such as setting fires. A shinobi who died without reporting was a failed shinobi. That's the opposite of the movie version, where the ninja always attacks.

Who they were

A Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism page on the Ninja Museum of Iga says Iga ninja were local samurai, hired by powerful figures as spies and saboteurs. English Wikipedia describes the Iga forces as made up of peasants and local samurai, with the samurai in charge. Japanese Wikipedia adds that in the middle ages villages kept their own armed men and sometimes lent them out like mercenaries.

Later, in the Edo period, Mie University's centre says many Iga men became low-ranking samurai of the shogunate or a domain, farmers with samurai status, or ordinary farmers. So the famous contrast between "samurai" and "ninja" is not a contrast of two separate classes. A ninja was often a warrior of the countryside, with a different job from a general's.

The rise and fall of Iga

In the late sixteenth century, Iga was a land of local warrior families who ran their own affairs. The Oda family invaded twice, in a conflict called the Tenshō Iga War. Japanese Wikipedia dates the first phase to 1578 and 1579, and says Iga won. The second came in 1581 and ended in an Oda victory, with the loss of tens of thousands of lives, including people who were not fighters. Survivors left for other provinces.

Kōka, next door in what is now Shiga Prefecture, took a different path. English Wikipedia says the Kōka district surrendered to Oda Nobunaga in 1574 and fought with the Oda in 1581. Japanese Wikipedia says that in 1585 Toyotomi Hideyoshi dismissed the Kōka samurai from their holdings. The name 甲賀 is read Kōka for the district and is also read Kōga, as in the name of Kawakami Jinichi's school (see below).

Iga, Kōka and the Tokugawa: ninja in the Edo period

The best-known connection between shinobi and a ruler is the Tokugawa one, and part of it is legend. The well-known account says that when Oda Nobunaga was killed at Honnō-ji, Hattori Hanzō, a Tokugawa retainer from Iga, arranged for Iga and Kōka men to guard Tokugawa Ieyasu on his flight through Iga, a journey known as the Iga crossing (伊賀越え). Some modern historians doubt the part about Hanzō's ninja, because the story does not appear in records until the eighteenth century.

What is firmer is the outcome. Iga men were hired by the Tokugawa to guard Edo Castle, and one of the castle's gates was named after Hanzō. It survives as the Tokyo place name Hanzōmon.

When the Tokugawa shogunate (幕府 (ばくふ, bakufu)) brought peace, the work changed. The Edo-period duties included taking opinion surveys in the castle town, guarding the Ōoku (the inner palace of Edo Castle, 大奥 (おおおく, ōoku, “inner palace (in Edo Castle)”)), looking after empty residences, and keeping order in the town as 同心 (どうしん, dōshin, “policeman”).

One last piece of fieldwork came in the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637 and 1638. A request from old Kōka retainers to join the campaign was refused as a group, and only ten were allowed to go along with the commander.

The end

By the end of the Edo period, the old methods had little left to offer. During the Meiji Restoration (明治維新 (めいじいしん, Meiji ishin)) the Kōka retainers formed a unit and joined the Boshin War, but the techniques found in ninjutsu books turned out to be of no use in real battle. As an organised craft, shinobi work ended with the samurai age.

Ninjutsu: how shinobi really worked

The techniques are known mostly from a few manuals written well after the warring-states period.

The three great manuals

• Bansenshūkai (万川集海). Dated to 1676. It has 22 volumes and gathers the methods of 49 schools of Iga and Kōka. The author is given as Fujibayashi Yasutake, with some doubt.
• Shōninki (正忍記). Written in 1681 by Natori Masazumi, a military scholar of the Kii domain. It was taught as part of his school of military science, not as an independent ninja school.
• Ninpiden (忍秘伝). The third of the three great texts. It claims to come from the family of Hattori Hanzō and the 1560s, but scholars think it was written in the early 1700s.

These books are a mixture. They cover how to move, how to gather information and how to use tools. They are also, in places, a record of what writers in a peaceful age thought the old arts had been. Scholars treat them as sources to be read with care.

Disguise was the main weapon

To infiltrate a place you wear what fits the place, which means disguise (変装 (へんそう, hensō, “disguise”)). Seven standard disguises are known as the shichihōde: a wandering monk of the Fuke sect (虚無僧 (こむそう, komusō)), a priest, a mountain ascetic (山伏 (やまぶし, yamabushi, “yamabushi”)), a merchant (商人 (しょうにん, shōnin)), a street performer, a theatre performer and an ordinary traveller. The National Diet Library says the Shōninki recommends the same kind of cover: komusō, priests, merchants and street entertainers.

None of those is a mask or a ninja suit. A shinobi who looked like a merchant could walk through a castle town, listen and leave.

Tools

Japanese Wikipedia's list of ninja tools includes a grappling rope (鉤縄 (かぎなわ, kaginawa, “ninja rope with grappling hook”)), caltrops (撒菱 (まきびし, makibishi, “caltrop (spiked device scattered to maim infantry and horses)”)), which the National Diet Library says the Ninpiden describes, and the kunai (苦無 (クナイ, kunai), which the dictionary lists as a medieval farming tool for digging and prying). Many of the tools are ordinary things from farm and village life, which fits the people who used them.

Then there is the 水蜘蛛 (みずぐも, mizugumo, “ninja water-walking shoes”). It was worn on the feet to walk on water, but it was hard to use and often sank, so it is no proof that ninja walked on water.

Ninja myths: black suits, shuriken, swords and hand seals

Most of what people believe about ninja comes from stage, fiction and film. Here is the short version.

Myth 1: ninja wore black

The black suit (黒装束 (くろしょうぞく, kuroshōzoku, “black clothes”)) probably comes from the theatre. In kabuki, stagehands dressed in black, called 黒衣 (くろご, kurogo, “stage assistant dressed in black”), are meant to be invisible to the audience. Japanese Wikipedia says one theory is that the black outfit, used on stage to show "an unseen presence", was later mistaken for what ninja really wore. The National Diet Library puts it another way: black on stage was a quick signal that a character was a ninja.

What the sources say real shinobi wore: dark blue (紺色 (こんいろ, kon-iro)) or a ripe-persimmon colour (柿色 (かきいろ, kakiiro)). Japanese Wikipedia gives a reason: black shows up against the night sky. The Shōninki, quoted by the National Diet Library, lists brown, persimmon, black and dark blue, and the same page says the true skill of a ninja is not being noticed.

The kabuki origin is a well-supported explanation, but historians describe it as a theory, so treat it as likely rather than certain.

Myth 2: ninja threw shuriken

A 手裏剣 (しゅりけん, shuriken, “shuriken”) is a small throwing blade, and Japanese Wikipedia describes it as a general weapon of the samurai. The National Diet Library says no description of shuriken has been found in the ninjutsu books, and that shuriken-throwing was taught in schools such as Iga-ryū and Yagyū-ryū. It adds that the possibility that ninja also used them cannot be denied, but that shuriken were probably not standard ninja equipment.

Shapes varied. The rod type is a small iron rod sharpened at one or both ends. Japanese Wikipedia says that before the war the common shuriken was a rod. The flat star of films spread through Fujita Seiko's 1942 book and then through postwar fiction. The swastika-shaped one was invented as a prop for a 1960s television period drama, says Japanese Wikipedia. It also says shuriken were heavy and bulky, so a person usually carried between one and three. In Edo-period plays, ninja throwing shuriken already appeared.

Myth 3: ninja carried a special sword

The dictionary has 忍者刀 (にんじゃとう, ninjatō, “ninja sword”), and in fiction it's a straight blade worn on the back. Japanese Wikipedia says swords called ninja swords do exist, but that some scholars doubt shinobi really carried that shape, and that the truth is still not settled. So the most careful answer is: a sword with this name exists, but nobody can show that it was a standard ninja weapon.

Myth 4: female ninja, the kunoichi

くノ一 (くのいち, kunoichi, “female ninja”) has a neat explanation. Japanese Wikipedia says it's because the character 女 (woman), taken stroke by stroke, breaks down into く, ノ and 一. The dictionary also notes that it can mean "woman" in slang.

The National Diet Library says the word was popularised as a name for female ninja only after the Second World War, and quotes the Bansenshūkai as describing a "kunoichi no jutsu", a way of using women for infiltration when male agents struggled. Its conclusion is direct: no record has been found of the actual existence of female ninja as we imagine them. Japanese Wikipedia gives 1964, in a novel by Yamada Fūtarō, as an early example of the word meaning a female ninja.

Women did gather information, for example as maids and servants in a household, and the wandering shrine maidens who served Takeda Shingen are well known. But the black-suited female fighter is a postwar invention.

Myth 5: hand seals, magic and smoke

The finger-weaving signs of anime (the dictionary calls this 印を結ぶ (いんをむすぶ, inwomusubu, “to make symbolic signs (gestures) with the fingers”)) barely appear in real ninjutsu documents, says the National Diet Library. The Bansenshūkai mentions chanting while forming a hand seal, and the practice comes from Shingon Buddhism, not from ninjutsu.

The vanishing-in-smoke trick comes from early cinema: Japanese Wikipedia says a film copied the special-effects technique of the 1902 film 月世界旅行, and calls it not historical. Real ninjutsu does include smoke and fire made with ordinary materials, such as a 煙幕 (えんまく, enmaku, “smokescreen”), and the same article says an egg-shaped device was used to blow pepper, ash and chemicals into an enemy's face. But it calls the fire-breathing and water-spouting jutsu of fiction a wrong image of ninja.

Myth 6: jōnin, chūnin and genin

Some people believe ninja were divided into three ranks. Japanese Wikipedia says the real Bansenshūkai uses 上忍 (じょうにん, jōnin, “Ninja clan master”) for a person who is skilled without anyone knowing it. The neat three-rank system belongs to fiction.

Ninja words in Japanese

Here are the words in one place.

For the script behind these words, see What is Kanji?.

How pop culture invented the modern ninja

The ninja we know is mostly a twentieth-century image, built on a thin layer of history and on Edo stage tradition. Japanese Wikipedia traces the steps.

1. The Edo period. Reading books made ninja popular heroes, including Jiraiya and Ishikawa Goemon, and kabuki gave them their look.
2. Late Meiji period. Writers of the Tachikawa Bunko pocket books made up stories of ninja such as Sarutobi Sasuke and Kirigakure Saizō. These two are fictional characters, not historical people.
3. After the war. Authors including Murayama Tomoyoshi, Shirato Sanpei and Shiba Ryōtarō helped make the terms 忍者 and 忍びの者 common.
4. From the late 1950s. Ninja became a regular subject of novels, period dramas and comic-book drama.
5. The 1960s. The kunoichi appears in print, as above.

The ninja in the West

Most English speakers met the ninja through Western media. According to Japanese Wikipedia, a 1964 Newsweek article on the history of ninja and Japan's ninja boom started the Western craze. The first overseas work with a ninja in it was the 1967 film of You Only Live Twice (007は二度死ぬ), which shaped the first overseas image of the modern ninja. In the 1980s, hit American ninja films set off a ninja boom in the United States.

Naruto and today

Naruto took the ninja to a new generation. According to English Wikipedia, Kishimoto Masashi's manga ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 21 September 1999 to 10 November 2014, filled 72 volumes, and has more than 250 million copies in circulation, with over half in Japan. It builds a fantasy world of ninja villages, and has little to do with the Iga and Kōka of history.

Do ninjas still exist today?

There are no ninja in the sense of working spies. There are, however, people who study and teach ninja history and techniques.

The "last ninja"

The best-known name is Kawakami Jinichi, born in 1949. Japanese Wikipedia calls him the head of the twenty-first generation of the Kōga school Bantō (伴党), and says he's a specially appointed professor at Mie University's Social Collaboration Research Center. English Wikipedia says he learned from a medicine seller named Masado Ishida. It says that in 2012 he told BBC News he would not name a successor, because with guns, the internet and much better medicines, ninjutsu has no place in the modern age.

News articles often call him "the last ninja". Wikipedia flags that claim as needing better sources, so read it as a description of his position, not a fact about all of Japan.

Studying ninja

Mie University is in Iga, the old home of the Iga shinobi, and runs an International Ninja Research Center. Its stated aim is to research the history and culture of ninja and to share what it finds. Arab News reported that Mitsuhashi Genichi, then 45, finished a master's course in ninja studies in 2020. The course combined historical reading with practical training. In the words of the professor, Yamada Yūji, it's "a course to learn about the ninja, not to become one".

Visiting the places

The Iga-ryū Ninja Museum opened in 1964 in the grounds of Iga Ueno Castle, Mie Prefecture. Japanese Wikipedia says it has a ninja house (忍者屋敷 (にんじゃやしき, ninjayashiki, “ninja house”)) where staff show how its hidden devices work, an exhibition of tools and documents, and live ninjutsu demonstrations. The same article names two other places that offer ninja experiences such as shuriken throwing: a ninja house in Kōka, Shiga Prefecture, and a museum in Nagano.

Practise: test what you know about Japan

A short quiz is a good way to sort fact from legend.

If you're curious about names like Hattori, see our guide to Japanese Last Names: The 50 Most Common, With Kanji and Meanings. When you're ready to plan your study, How to Learn Japanese: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners is the place to go.

Questions about ninja

Were ninjas real?

Yes, ninja were real, but they were spies and scouts, not the superheroes of fiction. Records of shinobi go back to the fourteenth century, and the Iga and Kōka regions were the best-known centres. The dictionary calls a ninja a "person trained in ninjutsu and employed for covert purposes in feudal Japan".

Did samurai ever fight ninja?

Yes: in the Tenshō Iga War of 1578 to 1579 and 1581, the armies of the Oda family fought the warrior communities of Iga, home of the best-known shinobi. Iga won the first round and the Oda won the second. Outside war, shinobi and samurai were not rival classes: shinobi were hired by samurai lords, and many were local warriors themselves.

Who is stronger, ninjas or samurai?

There's no honest way to rank them, because they did different jobs. A samurai was a warrior and a shinobi was meant to gather information, avoid combat and return alive. The Mie University centre says that reporting the enemy's condition was the job that mattered most. If you must compare, a samurai in battle was the soldier and a ninja was the scout.

Who is the last ninja alive?

Kawakami Jinichi, born in 1949, is the person most often called Japan's last ninja. He's described as the head of the Kōga school Bantō and a specially appointed professor at Mie University. The label comes from news articles and describes his role as a keeper of the tradition. In 2012 he said he would not name a successor.

Why do ninjas no longer exist?

Ninja disappeared because the age of warring states and spies ended: after the Edo period brought peace, shinobi became guards and officials, and the samurai class itself ended in the Meiji period. Japanese Wikipedia adds that when Kōka retainers fought in the Boshin War, the techniques in the old manuals were of no use in real battle. Separately, Kawakami Jinichi says modern life leaves no place for training in ninjutsu: guns, the internet and better medicines.

Do any ninjas still exist?

Not as spies, but people still study and teach ninja history and skills. Mie University has a research centre and a master's course in ninja studies. The Iga-ryū Ninja Museum shows tools and holds demonstrations. A few people, such as Kawakami Jinichi, say they carry on the knowledge of old schools.

Can a human become a ninja?

You can study ninja history and training, but there is no job or rank called ninja today. Mie University's master's course teaches the history and some practical skills. Its professor says it's "a course to learn about the ninja, not to become one". Several places in Japan also offer ninja experiences, such as shuriken throwing.

Sources

• Readings and meanings: JMdict (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), including its notes on 忍者, 忍び, 忍術, くノ一, 苦無 and 手裏剣.
• What ninja were, the Mie University view: International Ninja Research Center, Mie University, What is Ninja Study and the centre's home page.
• Black suits, shuriken, hand seals, caltrops and kunoichi: National Diet Library, Kaleidoscope of Books, NINJA: In Fiction and in Reality, 3rd Scroll.
• History, names, disguises, Edo-period duties, women, tools, the Western boom and the kabuki theory: Japanese Wikipedia, 忍者.
• The manuals: Japanese Wikipedia, 万川集海 and 正忍記; English Wikipedia, Ninpiden.
• The Tenshō Iga War and the Iga crossing: Japanese Wikipedia, 天正伊賀の乱; English Wikipedia, Iga ikki.
• Kunoichi, shuriken, the ninja sword and kuroko: Japanese Wikipedia, くノ一, 手裏剣, 忍者刀 and 黒衣.
• Overview of ninja: English Wikipedia, Ninja.
• The kanji 忍: Jisho, 忍 (kanji).
• Iga ninja as local samurai and the museum: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Iga Ninja: the Ninja Museum; Japanese Wikipedia, 伊賀流忍者博物館.
• Kawakami Jinichi: Japanese Wikipedia, 川上仁一; English Wikipedia, Jinichi Kawakami.
• The master's course in ninja studies: Arab News, Japan university awards first-ever ninja studies degree.
• Naruto: English Wikipedia, Naruto.
• Reviewed independently; the points about the kabuki explanation, the ninja sword, the Kōka and Iga details, the Iga crossing, the "last ninja" label and the first use of kunoichi are waiting for a native speaker's check.