The Last Ninja (Until The Next One)

Everyone has a favorite ninja story. Here’s mine: So this ninja’s trying to get through a tunnel that’s blocked by an industrial fan. He stops a few feet away and studies the speed of the blades so he can, you know, time his jump. And what do you know? He makes it through without a scratch.

And that's just one of many examples of bad ass ninja behavior I witnessed in the 1980s. In movies I'm pretty sure were documentaries that were on cable a lot. So I was pretty bummed to find out ninjas are about to be gone from the face of the Earth. Forever. That is, if a certain recycled news story can believed…

Truth be told, I had no idea actual ninjas still existed. But finding out they do exist, and are about to not exist, makes me sad.

Then again, I have to wonder: Ninjas are known for espionage, deception, and surprise attacks. What the hell could be more deceptive and surprising than being attacked by something everyone's sure doesn't exist?  You get attacked by a ninja after NBC Nightly News reports they're all dead or retired, who’s gonna believe you?  Probably just me. Because I can see this is all a set-up.

The news story that keeps getting put out there comes from a single guy: self-proclaimed last ninja, and 9-to-5 engineer, Jinichi Kawakami.

You can check out Kawakami here in this extended interview. He seems pretty legit, even though he does say problematic stuff. Like how real ninjas didn't actually throw throwing stars because iron was too expensive in the olden times, especially for your typical working-class farmer/ninja. But since that makes total sense, we may have to consider that he at may kinda know what he's talking about.

But should we really believe he's the last ninja? Lets first examine two previous times this term was used.

In 1987, you had “The Last Ninja” C64 computer game,. Did you check it out? Pretty compelling stuff. And back in ‘83, there was TV movie, “The Last Ninja”, about a not-so-working-class art dealer/ninja. The main guy from The Warriors plays a character named Kenjiro Sakura. [1] It reeks of authenticity.

So yeah, we've heard all this “last ninja” crap before. And now Jinichi Kawakami gets to declare he's the last ninja? I get that he’s not training a successor and all, but being a ninja’s a skill-set, not a bloodline. What’s stopping future ninjas from studying up and carrying on? Jinichi ain't Jah.

And so what if Kawakami’s line does end? You telling me we can reboot Baywatch but we can’t reboot ninjas? Bullshit. Keep working hard and you can have anything you want. Aaliyah said that. If at first you don't succed, dust yourself off and try again. Aaliyah said that too. She also said the idea of a last ninja is really more of a recurring marketing concept than a reflection of reality. Ok actually she sang that. Point is, “last ninjas” come and go all the time but there's always another. Do what you want, but I'm gonna stay up with my training and watch my damn back.

[1] Around the same time, Michael Beck was also 2nd male lead a movie called Megaforce. It had all the ingredients: the director of Smokey and the Bandit, a theme song from Journey, and Barry Bostwick in an action role. After watching this clip, I have no idea why it wasn’t huge.