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Ninja are awesome.

Mysterious shadow figures appearing in a split second, neutralizing a megalomaniacal feudal lord with some exotic contraption, and vanishing into the darkness immediately after.

Great movie material, no doubt.

But what sounds good doesn't have to be true.

Ninja are known all around the world, but most of what we believe to know about them is misrepresented, made up, or simply a lie.

That starts with the name.

Two characters: "endure" or "hide", and "person", which can be read in two different ways.

"Ninja", by far the dominant one, likely for Western audience pronunciation reasons,

or "shinobi no mono", in short, "shinobi", which had been, until the 1950s, the clear standard reading.

Doesn't mean that ninja is wrong⏤both readings are legitimate⏤but that ninja, in the time they actually existed, were barely ever called ninja.

I, by the way, say ninja with no "-s" in the plural form because in Japanese, singular and plural, usually identical.

In other languages, one can certainly use an "-s"; I just don't.

So much for the name, now we should maybe learn what it stands for.

Turns out, not so easy.

Because official ninja, who, after passing their ninja exam, would receive a ninja ID from their local ninja office, never existed.

The maybe most sensible definition of ninja would be:

"A person who, in the Japan of the Sengoku and the Edo era, used special skills for convert intelligence gathering and combat."

Simplified: "historical, Japanese secret special operatives".

Activities include: Espionage, infiltration, arson, sabotage, general adversary confusion, assassinations, and, very simply, eavesdropping and telling.

The reason the list's so long is that the term ninja is used for very different groups, from underclass mercenary to shougun guard, from provincial resistance fighter to regime informer.

Only similarities being the execution of covert operations and the ninja myth resulting from all of these groups.

One part of that myth is the typical black uniform from head to toe, with only the eyes left uncovered.

On first glance, pretty useful.

Covert operation is usually at night, so black uniform for staying unseen.

But ninja also operated during they day, where that kind of camouflage quickly sticks out.

I can see you, mate.

Like hell you do!

In reality, only one instance of such a black uniform is documented, which puts it just above nonexistent.

Real, typical ninja clothes would be simple dark peasant or monk outfits.

That way, you're hard to spot at night and blend in during the day.

Like the uniform, the most famous ninja weapon, the throwing star⏤"shuriken" in Japanese, is more story than history.

Shuriken means all kinds of throwing objects that can distract or harm an enemy in a fight.

Generally, those came in various shapes, but longer, pointy ones were more effective than star-shaped ones.

And in the few cases they'd actually come into use, they were carried by openly fighting samurai, not ninja.

When your main objective is to stay hidden, you don't start hurling christmas decorations at enemies.

And since we're⏤

And since we're already talking about fighting,

ninjutsu⏤the "nin" of ninja plus "jutsu", technique⏤is, in contrast to all claims, not a martial art, but simply an umbrella term for skills helpful in covert operations.

These are documented for posterity in a handful of manuals, which feature, aside from disguises, infiltration techniques, and more or less helpful equipment,

also lots of esoteric nonsense that has nothing at all to do with what ninja did.

In the seventh lunar month, the lucky days are the Horse and the Hare.

Dude.

There are two types of ninja in this world.

The historical ninja, without a single, unbroken tradition, made up of all kinds of different groups that, in secret, infiltrated, scouted out, and burned down castles,

and, thanks to 400 years of romantization, commercialization, and artistic distortion, the pop-culture ninja, flying above the rooftops in his black uniform, pelting enemies with throwing stars.

Every ninja has a right to exist.

Can you get out of the shot, please?

Thanks a bunch.

As long as you don't forget that the ninja on the silver screen doesn't share much more with the ninja in history books than the name.