Holy cats… this is POST #300 on Vintage Ninja!
I seem to celebrate every milestone with a return to one of the photos that got me so jazzed on old ninja movies, I just had to start some sort of publishing project on them:
Akai Kageboshi remains one of my favorite ninja films, and this shot of a plucky noblewoman turning to mush in the arms of a swashbuckling ninja hero is the best image EVER.
Since this first posting on June 7th of 2009, VN has subjected the world to 299 additional doses of our hyper-geeky, often over-zealous, sometimes under-researched, shinobi pop-media fandom. The writing chores are mine, and I try my best not to come across as the all-too-familiar internet know-it-all. More often than not, I’ve found something that with my lack of Japanese language skills and depth of historical research fills me with a sense of wonder and curiosity, and posting it is a call for help to others in the know.
And helped we’ve been! By a host of genre media fans, martial artists and Japanese historians over the months, along with some other great bloggers and web publishers of equally obsessive traits. Complaints have come in here and there, some snarky ‘constructive criticisms’ have been taken in stride, but as of yet no outright death threats or surprise nocturnal visitors, so we must be doing something right.
So at 300, we just want to thank everyone who has contributed, and most of all everyone who checks us out on a regular basis, especially those who expose us to others via their own sites or Facebook, Twitter, etc. The notion of sharing things in our collections and that have come under our observations with folks we’d hope would be of a like mind is the driving force here, and knowing it has paid off is fulfilling beyond words.
We forge this site in the tradition of our ancestors.
You are a fan base of extraordinary magnitude.
You have our… gratitude!
