Ninjas!

[Lucas]

my votes for die antwoord too!!

im trying to find a photographer...this year i want my shots to be of me scaling this old fort wall up on this volcano...something legit that could get my bones broken if i mess up!

[GeneChing]

A Ninja "Trick or Treat"

[GeneChing]

Ninjas vs Kittens at London Comic Con
By David Bentley on Oct 12, 11 11:33 AM


THE MYSTERIOUS assassins of the Far East take on the tiny teeth and claws of some ferocious furry foes in their latest battle.

Geek chic gurus at Genki Gear have unveiled a Ninjas vs Kittens design as the official T-shirt of next month's MCM Expo London Comic Con.

Created exclusively for the event, the limited edition garment will only be available on pre-order until October 20 at GenkiGear.com.

Available on both men's and women's T-shirts, the design can be collected either direct from the Genki Gear stall at the show itself or posted on to you following the October 28 official launch date.

MCM Expo London Comic Con is at Excel London, Royal Victoria Dock, from October 28 to 30. Tickets from the online store.

With all the potential graphics that could be used for Comic Con, ninjas vs. kittens? WTF? Oh well, it allows me to ttt our ninja thread here for NINJASTAR.

[GeneChing]

Read The Chinese Origin of the Ninja - Just Where Did the Ninja Come From? by Antony Cummins.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Read The Chinese Origin of the Ninja - Just Where Did the Ninja Come From? by Antony Cummins.

Interesting article but I would add two things:
On a serious note, the oldest recorded formalized "shinobi-n-jutsu" teachings belong to the Tenshin Shoden katori shinto ryu, one of the oldest bujutsu schools in Japan.
On a non-serious note:
Everyone knows that the ninja came from the Tanjian !!

[GeneChing]

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11
Secret Invisible Ninjas Vandalize Playground Slide

Police said gang graffiti was found scrawled on a slide at Covington Elementary School at 9130 S. 52nd Ave. around 8:50 a.m. The report said someone used black marker to write “3N3 Club” and “Secret Ninja Club Members are Secret and Invisible.” A five-point crown with the initials “LK” and a picture of a Playboy Bunny head were also found. A custodian cleaned off the slide.

"Secret Ninja Club Members are Secret and Invisible"?? Seriously???

NINJASTAR 2011

[GeneChing]

If they submitted this and could prove they were in Tiger Claw ninja gear, they'd totally get my vote for NINJASTAR 2011.

Ninja standing in front of sign that says ''Fight Me'' leads to unexpected situation
11:37 AM, Oct 24, 2011


(CBS) - If a ninja is standing in front of a sign that says "Fight Me" and holding up a sword for you to take, you might want to take a moment and think it over before grabbing said sword. I'm sure some of these people wished they had.

The amusing video entitled "DARE TO FIGHT!?" was posted by YouTube user ImprovInToronto and, luckily for those who took the challenge, the ninja hoard that burst out to attack didn't appear to be deadly... this time.

DARE TO FIGHT!?

[Lucas]

more cool than cool!!

[Punch.HeadButt]

This tickled me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t71cexWzvM

I don't have sound, but I enjoyed the beginning.

[Punch.HeadButt]

I'm too slow. That is not ninja-like.

I must train.

[GeneChing]

Mon, Oct 24 - 3:48 pm ET
prev Previous Post | Next Post next
Halloween Costume Guaranteed To Get You Laid: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle



Do you know what’s absolutely universally beloved? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Do you know what’s a good plan for Halloween? Taking something universally beloved and sexifying it. No. Really. We’re letting you keep your integrity here! Sure, you’re out to get laid, but you’re also Michelangelo, the most creative and interesting of all of the turtles. Or, if you prefer, you can get a group of friends and stick them with the lame turtle costumes. But I think we all know that everyone will want to sleep with Michelangelo.

All available for $50!

You can reach this post's author, Jennifer Wright, on twitter or via e-mail at jennifer@thegloss.com.

Just add some Tiger Claw gear and she's good to go for NinjaStar 2011.

[GeneChing]

Wow. The Iga Ninja Festival. Maybe NINJASTAR should be run in April...

Small-fry super spies
October 30, 2011

Armed and curious ... children in their costumes. Photo: Reuters

Although his fellow enthusiasts are half his size, Stephen Phelan finds his inner warrior at the Iga Ninja Festival.

TO ARRIVE in Iga Ueno on the first Sunday in April is to feel like a stranger in ninjatown. This small city in the mountains, about two hours by train from Osaka, is supposedly the ancestral home of those fearsome feudal super-sneaks and master killers, whose name and reputation have spread across the world through movies, comic books and video games.

Here in Japan, ninjas are now something of a national myth, a slightly cartoonish composite of old folk tales and modern pop culture.
Advertisement: Story continues below
A boy and dog dressed as ninjas pose at a ninja festival in Iga,


Canine dress-ups. Photo: Reuters

This morning in Iga Ueno, however, it would be discourteous to dispute their existence. It's the opening day of the annual ninja festival and travel on public transport is free to anyone in costume. Connecting to the local loop line, I step on to a train brightly painted with ninja murals (designed by the famous Japanese manga artist Leiji Matsumoto) and find my carriage filled with muffled, hooded figures, all armed with swords and throwing stars.

Admittedly, their weapons appear to be made of soft foam or folded paper, and their outfits come in a range of colours - not just classic ninja black but purple, red, canary yellow, baby blue and a distinctly unthreatening shade of pink.

Also, very few of these mysterious commuters stand much over 120 centimetres tall. Apparently, only children take this occasion seriously enough to dress for it. The centre of town is overrun with excitable little death merchants, mostly around the 16th-century castle, where the moat and stone walls provide an ideal backdrop for springing mock assassinations on their parents.

As it happens, this sunny weekend also marks the beginning of cherry blossom season and the castle grounds are shaded by sakura trees, with families picnicking under the petals. Some have brought their dogs and these, too, are kitted out with hoods and swords.

Other festival activities include combat demonstrations at the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum (iganinja.jp/en). And life-size ninja mannequins have been positioned around town, staring blankly from the rooftops, peeking from behind telephone poles and lying under benches, more like modern drunks than mediaeval spies.

I spent much of my own childhood dreaming of this and resenting my parents for their failure to train me from birth in the lethal arts of the shadow warrior.

They permitted me to rent such silly yet illicit videos as Pray for Death and Revenge of the Ninja but drew the line at buying me the wicked-looking tools of the trade. "A ninja wouldn't whine like that," my father told me, twisting the knife. "The ninja is always adaptable."

Eventually, I accepted I would never be much more physically adroit than Winnie the Pooh but

I have never forgotten my early masters and have travelled the length and breadth of Japan to honour them.

Near Nagano, in the wooded alpine village of Togakushi, there is the Shinobi Karakuri Fushigi Yashiki (tinyurl.com/6hzamcf), or "ninja gimmickry wonder house". A maze of false floors, secret chambers and hidden passageways, it seemed kitsch and juvenile to me until

I got frantically lost inside for more than two hours and had to be rescued by an elderly attendant.

To the north, in Kanazawa, there is the so-called Ninjadera, a house and shrine that once belonged to the powerful local Maeda clan, who were not actually ninjas at all but devised such crafty and deadly defences that their home was recently renamed. Just adding the word "ninja" has proved a sure-fire way to bring in the tourists.

The word is, I am told by scholars, relatively new, "a product of the modern age and the entertainment industry". A guide at the museum in Iga Ueno, Kanako Murata, says the original clandestine operatives went by many different names and performed any number of functions. "Their chief role was to gather information," Murata says.

"Never to assassinate. In movies they are always killing people and viewers have come to believe these violent images. Our mission here is to tell them the truth."

This is the busiest time of the year at the museum, with long lines of visitors filing past their displays of old scrolls and rusty artefacts. The bulk of this material dates from the "warring states" period between the 15th and 17th centuries, when the rough terrain around Iga was rife with bandits, dissidents, ascetic mystics and rogue samurai, who all made their own contributions to ninja legend.

The exhibits make the case that the real shadow warriors were highly trained intelligence agents in the employ of rival warlords, rather than kung fu wizards who could vanish into mirrors and run across moonbeams on their tippy-toes.

If anyone is disappointed to hear this, they are soon distracted by the hourly combat show, by a troupe called the Ashuka. I have already suffered a fit of the giggles from reading this group's promotional poster, which proclaims in unfortunate English that their ninja forebears developed these skills while "living hidden on the backside of history". The show itself is a combination of martial arts, acrobatics, special effects and slapstick, with audience members invited to try their hand with a shuriken, or throwing star.

My first attempt goes into the dust, my second into netting at the back of the stage. My third strikes the edge of the target - not a killing blow, perhaps, but nasty enough to delight my childhood self and satisfy my inner ninja.

The streets of Iga Ueno are literally paved with ninjas, recast as friendly faced mascots and imprinted on manhole covers, bridges, buses and even fire engines. And local businesses are fairly upfront about the true purpose of the festival, having capitalised on this event since it started in 1964.

The Aikan-Tei noodle restaurant offers "ninja" udon and soba, and a ninja costume rental service on the side. The Miyazaki pickle shop sells "ninja" preserves.

I have no great hopes for the authenticity of the Murai Banko-en ninja cafe but owner Motoharu Murai claims a bona fide bloodline.

His grandfather was a ninja, he says, serving me brown tea and black sesame ice-cream in his courtyard garden. Then he disappears into a back room and bursts back out wearing a wig and firing a cap gun.

My shriek of fright is certainly un-ninja-like, and Muraimoto-san smiles to show he has taught me a valuable lesson. Further surprises follow, as he emerges in different disguises with more antique weapons from his arsenal - a pistol, a pike and a heavy iron rifle with ornate carvings on the barrel.

At last, out comes his grandfather's old katana.

"Dangerous," he warns, letting me heft the sword and telling me it has killed three people. As with most ninja stories, this is probably not true. But the blade feels very real.

The Iga Ninja Festival runs for five weeks from the first weekend in April, with events centred on the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in Ueno Park, iganinja.jp/en. Jetstar flies to Osaka from Sydney, jetstar.com. Trains to Iga Ueno leave from Osaka Kansai airport.

[GeneChing]

There's been a dearth of ninja news this year. I think they're all busy doing occupy protests.

01.11.2011
‘Ninja’ returns to court to appeal
By: WERNER MENGES

Paulus Shimweefeleni
THE man known as ‘Ninja’ was back in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday – more than twelve and a half years after he left the same court to start serving a life term of imprisonment.

He has become a changed man over the years that he has spent in prison, life termer Paulus Shimweefeleni told Judge Alfred Siboleka during his latest court appearance.
“I know and I regret what I’ve done, because I know what I’ve done was wrong,” he said. This is something he has come to learn over the years that he has been in prison, he added.
Under the name ‘Ninja’, Shimweefeleni was a notorious and feared armed robber in the mid to late 1990s. That was until his criminal career was brought to an end on February 23 1999, when he was sentenced in the High Court to life imprisonment for murder and a 22-year jail term for robbery with aggravating circumstances and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Yesterday, Shimweefeleni was back in the court where he was sentenced all those years ago. He now wants to appeal against the term of life imprisonment which he received from the then Judge President Johan Strydom.
Shimweefeleni, then 25 years old, and two co-accused were sentenced for robbing and murdering a young taxi driver in Windhoek in June 1997.
In November 1998, Shimweefeleni had also been sentenced to an effective 17 years’ imprisonment on other armed robbery charges.
“After being in prison I now understand,” Shimweefeleni told Judge Siboleka.
He said he was not asking the court to feel sorry for him, but a life term of imprisonment was just too long.
“Where I am now it’s just dark,” Shimweefeleni said. “I don’t know when I will be released, when I’ll get pardon from the president.”
He also told the judge: “For me to be in prison with a life sentence is like a death penalty.”
Shimweefeleni said he has been seriously ill since his sentencing, but is now receiving mediation which is treating his illness.
He added that it was also because of his state of health that he has taken so long to launch an appeal against his sentence.
Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef told the court that the mere fact that someone is ill would not entitle the person to escape imprisonment. Shimweefeleni has not pointed out any irregularity that was committed when he was sentenced, or why the sentence should be considered inappropriate, she remarked.
Shimweefeleni’s complaint that he does not know when a term of life imprisonment would come to an end is something about which he should approach the Ombudsman for assistance, she advised. Life imprisonment is an administrative matter which the prison authorities have to deal with, she said.
Verhoef argued that Shimweefeleni does not have reasonable prospects of success with an appeal against his sentence.
Judge Siboleka reserved his judgement on the matter, after he had told Shimweefeleni that if he wants to apply to the court to condone the late filing of his appeal he should properly motivate such an application and might want to apply for legal aid first.

[Taixuquan99]

There's been a dearth of ninja news this year. I think they're all busy doing occupy protests.

I think it may be that the last of the Michael Dudikoff wearing white ninja outfits in a grassy field ninjas must be retired by now, so it's mostly goth black wearing ninjas hanging out in dark places now. Much harder to spot. The eighties ninja was all about volume.

[GeneChing]

White ninja suits rocked. Those were the days.

DEADLINE for entry in NINJASTAR 2011 is WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 9th, 2011, 6PM PST. That's next week.

Meanwhile in today's newsfeed...

Woman on edge after a man dressed as a ninja breaks into her home
Ninja sneaked into home
By Jaclyn Kelley - jkelley@abc57.com
Story Created: Nov 2, 2011 at 10:44 PM EDT
Story Updated: Nov 3, 2011 at 12:49 PM EDT

WALKERTON, Ind. – The Marshall County Police Department wants to find a man who broke into a woman's house wearing a ninja costume Tuesday morning.

The woman was at her home in the 1900 block of 4B Rd. in Walkerton, Ind.

The victim, who did not want to be identified, said it was so quiet at the time. She could hear the corn blowing in the wind, but that would soon change.

"I heard a loud noise on my metal roof and I thought it was just kids playing a prank or firecrackers,” said the victim.

The 57-year-old woman said what she heard next made her pick up the phone and call 9-1-1.

"I just heard the noise of glass breaking," said the victim.

A man somehow broke into the woman's closed porch. Then he broke a window leading into her dining room. He reached through the window, opened the latch and climbed in.

When she heard the burglar she quickly grabbed her phone and locked herself in her room, but that didn’t stop this thief. The woman told police the burglar actually picked the lock and barged through her bedroom door.

"I was screaming when he opened the door and I saw this man. A black ninja. He didn't say anything to me. He just stared. That was the longest stare I have ever had to encounter,” said the victim.

Seconds later she heard the dispatcher in her ear saying police were there. She says she yelled, "police are here!" Then she says that is when the ninja turned around and ran out of the house.

Now she is left wondering what could have happened if police had not arrived when they did.

"I had no idea what his intentions were. Was he there to scare me, kill me, steal stuff...what," said the victim.

The woman says she hopes her story will urge other women to be more careful when they are home alone. In the meantime, the woman says she is taking extra steps to keep her home from ninjas and anyone else who comes inside uninvited. The woman says she plans on installing an alarm system, getting a guard dog and getting a permit to carry a gun.