Ninja

11 Responses

1. Ok, the nasal cycle thing is pretty damn freaky. Been checking it all day and sure enough, it seems to change every few hours. Especially noticeable today as I have a bit of a cold. Felt fine an hour ago, now it’s like my nose is on the verge of exploding again. A slight amount of pressure on each nostril in turn tells me which one is the dominant right then.

2. Another great episode! Couple of thoughts … dark blue is actually better at night than black to remain stealthy. Also, would like your thoughts on the Moshuh Nanren – mact or fifth?

3. The back pajama discussion reminded me of this recent video:

4. Hi guys. Antony Cummins here. The author of those books. Someone sent me the link for this, so thank you, drop me an email if you need any help etc.

5. Awesome topic, guys! I have an excellent pop culture reference, but I’ll wait to see if you cover it in part 2 (I’ll just note that ninjas are m***als).

   It was great to hear a bit of the history in there too. In high school I studied Japanese history for a bit and covered Nobunaga, Ieyasu, and the Tokagawa Shogunate. If you know of any accessible books on the period, even vaguely accurate historical fiction, I’d love to hear about them.

   Can’t wait for Monday. 🙂

6. I’m hoping you guys mention Ninja Scroll in the second part. It has a ninja who uses wasps as weapons and another ninja with a poison vagina. It’s very caustic and awesome.

   Mr. Turnbull’s books have been mentioned in this part, I got one for christmas as a kid and it was the best thing ever. Lots of ninja stuff, but also ninja porn! There are authentic Japanese pornographic drawings showing ninja peeping on couples having sex, or raping ladies after killing their husbands. You know, for kids!

   My favourite ninja technique (for which they had a special name of course, as they do. If Naruto taught me anything, it’s that all ninja techniques have lengthy names you have to say before you perform them) is when a ninja stays behind a retreating army with an arquebus, hiding in tall grass. He’d wait for the pursuing army to approach and attempt to shoot a commander. Usually this led to the ninja’s death, I think.

7. Being just a few years too young to have caught the Ninja Turtles comics and a few years too old to have cared about the cartoon, I still really enjoy Scientifically Accurate Ninja Turtles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqW5upASa-8), featuring callbacks to at least two earlier episodes of the show.

   I also have really fond memories of the Way of the Tiger gamebooks from back in the day when Fighting Fantasy was the coolest thing going (mostly by virtue of being something that a ten-year-old could afford, which D&D manuals generally weren’t). It added a weird quasi-religious aspect to being a ninja — you were the product of some order of warrior-monks, though you had personally specialized in being a sneaky mofo who actually got to pour poison down a waxed thread and into the mouth of a sleeping bad guy at one point — and managed to develop the setting and characters in a way that most gamebooks didn’t. The fact that the stories varied a lot from one end of the series to the other was nice, too: yeah, there was some sneaking around and kicking people to death, but you also got to deal with political maneuvering, defending a besieged city, and sneaking into the underworld to pull off some save-the-world business, too. Good times! (Some French company is apparently in the process of turning it into a full-fledged RPG right now, too, just in case the world doesn’t have enough of those.)

   Hope the web site recovers from whatever’s ailing it right now!

8. Nobody mentioned Norwegian Ninja? I can only assume nobody has seen it.

   If the trailer doesn’t sell you on this movie, I don’t know what to say.

   1. MUST… SEE…. Can’t process…. too awesome…. Think I might be having…. stroke…..

9. Pingback: Episode 39 - Discussion On Martial Hand Forms - Hiyaa Martial Arts Podcast

10. Very disappointed that Kevin didn’t respond that “ninja-toes are the things at the end of ninja feet.” We don’t listen to hear Kevin be sort of accurate with his answers.