In the 80’s, embroidered ninja patches were common in the pages martial arts supply catalogs, but who knew many are still available. Each of these can be ordered online from myriad sources, and your local dojo supplier or karate school … Continued
This 4″ pewter shinobi statuette is pretty neat. I tend to like anything with a kama… You can find these all over eBay and online shops like this.
…on my short list of X-Ma$ desireables is this Manyu Senbou 1/7 scale PVC figure. Anyone out there feeling generous? Those are some ludicrous breasts, but otherwise I love this kunoichi statuette. It has that mix of modern and ancient … Continued
Thought a good follow-up to my anti-Ninja Assassin / pro-Shinobi-no-Mono rant last week would be a look at some rather strange S-n-M related merch – colorized menko cards. Released contemporary with the 60’s series, these ‘cigarette cards’ used stills from … Continued
NINJA ASSASSIN… It goes wrong in the very title. “Assassin.” Can we get past this notion of the ninja cult of hired assassins? Some historians question if there ever was a documented assassination in Japan reliably credited to a shinobi … Continued
Last post was all about centuries-old woodcut print masters, y’know, all high-artsy and stuff, so for the sake of balance we’ll take it down a notch or two and bring things screaming into the 80’s. As, according to some people, … Continued
Found these antique woodcut images on, of all places, the Library of Congress image archive website! See, the government is good for something… I like to think of these as Socialized Shinobi. Details of the above follow: According to the … Continued
It takes 100 ninja to properly celebrate the 100th post on Vintage Ninja! Since going live in June, enthusiastic response from readers and thousands of visits from every continent on the globe have given me a real sense of connecting … Continued
I absolutely adore 60’s animated movie credits, and these somewhat DePatie-esque panels from the opening of the 1965 ninja comedy Furai Ninpocho are just great. The rest of the movie, despite a good cast (including Mie Hama of You Only Live … Continued
PVC figurine and cheap toy purveyors SOMA had all sorts of lines in what I call “Smurf-scale” – cartoon characters, animals, pro wrestlers, whatever… Here’s three of what I think were an assortment of 8 or 9 ninja in various … Continued