When the central Japanese towns Nabari and Iga were strapped for cash as their economies tanked, they turned to their most valuable commodity: their ninja heritage.
The first known ninja was trained in the two mountainous towns during the 15th century, and from the region emerged many feared warriors renowned for their deadly skills. Most of them belonged to either the Iga or the Koga clan.
Today, the towns are turning the heroic soil of their ancestors into a playground for tourists who want to experience the thrill of throwing a ninja star or the sheer awesomeness of donning the attire of the hallowed fighters.
All photos by EPA/Everett Kennedy Brown.
A frightened man in purple ninja garb desperately tries to cross a river without falling. He grips ropes in a makeshift pulley system, balancing on floating tires. He is wearing “ninja shoes,” but he’s hardly a ninja, because, you know, ninjas don’t get scared. This is his first, and likely only, day of training. He is a visitor to Nabari, and he has paid 1,500 yen (roughly $15) for a one-and-a-half-hour ninja training tour.
Today, tourists visiting the towns can get lessons on how to throw the deadly ninja darts called shuriken, scale 20-foot walls and play out their ninja fantasies for a couple of hours, under supervision of course.
As part of the ninja training tour in Nabari, tourists can hike an ancient mountain trail that serves as their mysterious training grounds. Nabari is known as the home of Japanese ninja, which, in feudal Japan, did not mean a tourist in a costume, but rather a mercenary who specialized in espionage, sabotage, infiltration and assassination.
Tourists are encouraged to pray under a waterfall during the tour. Ninjutsu was a spiritual practice, and in ancient times ninjas believed in the way of the Kami, a deity, and the Tengu, a half-man and half-eagle creature, said to inhabit forests in Japan.
In an un-ninja-like manner, the tourists use tents to change into dry clothes after praying.
Tourists receive graduation certificates after they complete the ninja training tour as tokens of their pretend ninja mastery.
Many local residents of Iga can trace their family roots back 15 generations to the original ninja. At a ninja tour in Iga, shop owner and ninja descendant Genpo Murai shows photos of his ancestor, who performed as a ninja entertainer to a group of tourists.
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