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Many famous people in Japanese history have been associated or identified as ninja, but their status as ninja is difficult to prove and may be the product of later imagination. Rumors surrounding famous warriors, such as Kusunoki Masashige or Minamoto no Yoshitsune sometimes describe them as ninja, but there is little evidence for these claims.
Jiraiya battles a snake with the help of a toad; woodblock print on paper by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, circa 1843. Ninjas first entered popular culture in the Edo period.In modern Japan, ninja are a national myth that stems from folk tales and continues through modern day popular culture. [1]
The ninja of the Iga-ryū was also divided into different "classes" and ranks, based solely on the ninja's skill level. This hierarchy was simplified in the writings of the mid-20th-century author Heishichiro Okuse, who labeled them into three general categories: "jonin (upper ninja)", "chūnin (middle ninja)", and "genin (lower ninja)".
The old clans mentioned in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki lost their political power before the Heian period, during which new aristocracies and families, kuge, emerged in their place. After the Heian period, the samurai warrior clans gradually increased in importance and power until they came to dominate the country after the founding of the first ...
In 15th and 16th century Japan, Iga Province contained some 300-500 small estates and 700 castles and nearby Kōka, in Ōmi Province, had some 53 clans. [12] [13] Both regions were in anarchy, their estates and families constantly engaged in low-level, small-scale feuds and squabbles within and between each region.
Hattori Hanzō (服部 半蔵, c. 1542 [1] – January 2, 1597) or Second Hanzō, nicknamed Oni no Hanzō (鬼の半蔵, Demon Hanzō), [2] was a famous samurai of the Sengoku era, who served the Tokugawa clan as a general, credited with saving the life of Tokugawa Ieyasu and then helping him to become the ruler of united Japan.
The beginnings of the Kōga-ryū may be traced to near the end of the Muromachi period.While the district of Kōga, in Ōmi Province, was under the jurisdiction of the Rokkaku clan, it was a kind of autonomous municipality, composed of localized unions called sō (惣).
The eighth volume of the ninja handbook Bansenshukai written in 1676 describes Kunoichi-no-jutsu (くノ一の術, the ninjutsu of a woman), which can be interpreted as "a technique to utilize a woman". [1] The Bansenshukai compiles the knowledge of the ninja clans in the regions of Iga and Kōka.