Alright you, and you all know who you are…
Make me a promise right now that you won’t hurt yourself Christmas morning on any new sharp-pointy things Shinobi Clause brought you. (Like I did in, what was it, 1983, 84, 85, 86 and/or , well, you get the picture…)
Here’s a mid-80s haul I got after Santa evidently stopped off at Asian World of Martial Arts before coming down our chimney:
Oddly, the shinai is alive and well today, but the zinc-alloy katana with the hollow plastic handle they used to pawn off on the unknowing is long gone. The sais and shoge survived several moves cross country as well, and after coming out of more than a decade of storage were refinished and re-detailed for a photo shoot a few years back.
Enduring Christmas memories of the 80s craze. I hope kids today are getting some sort of shinobi swag that has the same lasting impact…
