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Ninjas
A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance, espionage, infiltration, deception, ambush, bodyguarding and their fighting skills in martial arts, including ninjutsu.Kawakami, pp. 21–22 Their covert methods of waging irregular warfare were deemed dishonorable and beneath the honor of the samurai. Though ''shinobi'' proper, as specially trained spies and mercenaries, appeared in the 15th century during the Sengoku period, antecedents may have existed as early as the 12th century. In the unrest of the Sengoku period, mercenaries and spies for hire became active in Iga Province and the adjacent area around the village of Kōga. It is from these areas that much of the knowledge regarding the ninja is drawn. Following the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate in the 17th century, the ninja faded into obscurity. A number of ''shinobi'' manuals, often based on Chinese military philosophy, were written in the 17t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ninjas In Popular Culture
In the history of Japan, ninja (also known as shinobi) operated as espionage, spies, assassins, or thieves; they formed their own caste outside the usual Economics of feudal Japan, feudal social categories such as lords, samurai, and serfdom, serfs. Ninja often appear as stock characters in Japanese popular culture and in global popular culture. History The ninja first entered popular culture in the Edo period. In modern Japan, ninja are a national myth that stems from Folklore, folk tales and continues through modern day popular culture. Though many Japanese warriors performed amazing feats, there is no evidence that any of them were supernatural. Some of the folk tales are based on historical figures, such as a ''daimyō'' (lord) challenging a ninja to prove his worth by stealing his pillow or weapon while he slept. Legendary abilities Superhuman or supernatural powers were sometimes associated with the ninja. Such powers include flight, invisibility, shapeshifting, the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ninjutsu
, sometimes used interchangeably with the modern term , is the martial art strategy and tactics of unconventional warfare, guerrilla warfare and espionage purportedly practised by the ninja. ''Ninjutsu'' was a separate discipline in some traditional Japanese schools, which integrated study of more conventional martial arts (''taijutsu'') along with ''shurikenjutsu'', ''kenjutsu'', ''sōjutsu'', '' bōjutsu'' and others. While there is an international martial arts organization representing several modern styles of ''ninjutsu'', the historical lineage of these styles is disputed. Some schools claim to be the only legitimate heir of the art, but ''ninjutsu'' is not centralized like modernized martial arts such as judo or karate. Togakure-ryū claims to be the oldest recorded form of ninjutsu, and claims to have survived past the 16th century. History Spying in Japan dates as far back as Prince Shōtoku (572–622). According to Shōninki, the first open usage of ''ninjutsu'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kōka, Shiga
280px, Kōka "ninja house" 280px, Shigaraki ware ceramics is a city in southern Shiga Prefecture, Japan. (The word 'Kōka' is often rendered as 'Koga' in English, especially when referring to the "Koga Ninja".) , the city had an estimated population of 89,619 in 36708 households and a population density of 190 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Kōka occupies the entire southern end of Shiga Prefecture, and is thus long east-to-west. At the eastern end of Kōka, the southern ridge of the Suzuka Mountains with one elevation of 1000 meters runs from northeast to southwest, forming the boundary with Mie Prefecture. The highest altitude point in Kōka is Mount Amagoi in this range. Neighboring municipalities Shiga Prefecture *Ōtsu * Rittō * Konan *Higashiōmi *Ryūō * Hino Kyoto Prefecture *Wazuka * Minamiyamashiro *Ujitawara Mie Prefecture *Yokkaichi * Suzuka * Kameyama * Iga *Komono Climate Kōka has a Humid subtropical climate (Köppen ''Cfa'') ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bansenshūkai
''Bansenshūkai'' (, ''Ten Thousand Rivers Flowing Together to form an Ocean'') is a Japanese book containing a collection of knowledge from the clans in the Iga and Kōga regions that had been devoted to the training of ninja."The Book of Ninja: ''The first complete translation of the Bansenshukai''", 2013, Antony Cummins & Yoshie Minami ''Bansenshūkai'' summarizes the main points of the three volumes of the original Ninjutsu book ''Kanrinseiyō'' (間林清陽), and was written by selecting only those that fit the times. In the beginning of ''Bansenshūkai'', the existence of the original text ''Kanrinseiyō'' was mentioned, but its existence had not been confirmed for a long time. However, in June 2022, a manuscript of the second volume of ''Kanrinseiyō'' copied in 1748 was found. It was compiled by Fujibayashi Yasutake in 1676, in the early years of the Tokugawa shogunate, to preserve the knowledge that had been developed during the near-constant military conflict from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man'yōgana
is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this type of kana is not clear, but it was in use since at least the mid-7th century. The name "man'yōgana" derives from the '' Man'yōshū'', a Japanese poetry anthology from the Nara period written with ''man'yōgana.'' Texts using the system also often use Chinese characters for their meaning, but ''man'yōgana'' refers to such characters only when used to represent a phonetic value. The values were derived from the contemporary Chinese pronunciation, but native Japanese readings of the character were also sometimes used. For example, (whose character means 'tree') could represent either (based on Middle Chinese ) or or (meaning 'tree' in Old Japanese). Simplified versions of ''man'yōgana'' eventually gave rise to both the hiragana ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man'yōshū
The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in a series of compilers, is today widely believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi, although numerous other theories have been proposed. The chronologically last datable poem in the collection is from AD 759 ( 4516). It contains many poems from a much earlier period, with the bulk of the collection representing the period between AD 600 and 759. The precise significance of the title is not known with certainty. The contains 20 volumes and more than 4,500 poems, and is divided into three genres: , songs at banquets and trips; , songs about love between men and women; and songs to mourn the death of people. These songs were written by people of various statuses, such as the Emperor, aristocrats, junior officials, soldiers ( songs), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. The characters have Japanese pronunciation, pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After World War II, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as shinjitai, by a process similar to China's simplified Chinese characters, simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
