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
3″ sticker featuring a generic (albeit derivative) illo of two playful ninja. This came from a box of Botan Rice Candy my uncle gave me in the mid-80’s, but I’m thinking the art could have been done well before the … Continued
…or Hirofumi Sugimoto, a Japanese illustrator whose influences include futurist Syd Mead (designer of my beloved Blade Runner!) and Klimt – both of which are (somehow) apparent in these ninja pieces: Official website here and prints for sale on Deviant … Continued
Takao Saito, best known as creator of Golgo 13, was also responsible for two ninja manga: Kage Gari in the 70’s (the Shadow Hunters, which also spawned two films), and Zanpei Kumotori in the 80’s. The latter featured a Connery-esque … Continued
If you haven’t seen them, don’t dismiss low-brow Thai/HK exploitation flicks like Challenge of the Lady Ninja (aka Chinese Super Ninjas II) or Deadly Life of a Ninja as mere crap. They are BRILLIANT CRAP – utterly BAT-SHIT, full of … Continued
Part of an anonymous package painting for the video game Shinobi.
While the Sonny Chiba / Japan Action Club TV series is more widely known, it was the really strange 1979/80 film Kage no Gundan: Hattori Hanzo by Eiichi Kudo that started the Shadow Warriors ball rolling. Yeah… strange… a real head … Continued
Via The Scandy Factory: great scan of the VHS clamshell packaging from Ninja Kids – which was an edited-down single film version of the three-part Hong Kong ninja-sploitation epic otherwise known as Ninja Death and most recently Venom of the … Continued
In celebration of Halloween, all posts this month feature SCARY SHINOBI, DEMON-MASKED ASSASSINS and NINJA VS. MONSTERS!!! Three to five times a week we’ll be assaulting you with images of swordsmen riding giant toads, shinobi superheroes battling sponge-suit creatures and … Continued