The first notable versions of the ninja appeared in the 1957 with the two Ninjitsu and future Japanese films playing them straight and realistic the Ninjitsu films starred Toshiro Mifune who had just come off of the popular Samurai trilogy. All of this has been exaggerated and embellished like a myth or fairy tale to create a group that was almost superhuman. They had knowledge of the martial arts and various tactics, used camouflage, explosives, and various weapons. You can’t really blame the Japanese society not liking them, “no one had any respect for someone whose job it was to sneak into a person’s house to spy on them, slit a throat, steal, or poison the food”. īecause of this code the ninjas weren’t liked and didn’t even like themselves, never admitting to anyone that they were a ninja. One of the main needs for this was the samurai ideal or code, warlords didn’t want to damage their samurai’s reputations and most samurai would refuse this type of job.
Ninja first started to appear in Japan around the 15th century out of necessity because people needed someone to perform clandestine activities, assassinations, intelligence gathering, and they needed outside mercenaries. The ninja or shinobi are a group that are universally known and yet still shrouded in mystery, due to the myth building that has surrounded them much like that of Robin Hood and his band of thieves.
