You are sitting in a classroom. There are no windows, no professor, just an empty whiteboard and a clock endlessly ticking away towards the apocalypse. You look down at your desk but instead of your notebook find a large frog. He whispers to you the secrets of the universe; “he is coming.” After those words you hear a quiet whistle. It grows and grows soon becoming an all mighty roar – the sound Odin the All-father would make if he stepped on a Lego. The wall suddenly collapses as a harrier jet crashes through, parking itself between you and the teacher’s desk. The canopy opens and a man climbs out. School is now in session, boys and girls.

Ninjas.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to talk to you about ninjas.

Ninjas are awesome. There are actually twelve ninjas hidden in this very article (do not try to look for them, threeheadedboy cannot be held responsible for the consequences of such an act). Deadly masters of long lost arts, they are the stealthiest and deadliest things in the known universe (next to another ninja). That is, in fact, their job: to act as the ultimate, top-tier predator for when things get too crowded on this (or any other) plain of existence.

Now, ninjas in popular media are another matter entirely. It is important to separate these everyday black-pajama ninjas from true cosmic ninjas.

Black-pajamas

While ninjas in popular media can have a wide array of skills and powers, they suffer from two major weaknesses – mortality (an annoyance which true ninjas don’t have to deal with) and the Inverse Ninja Law (which we’ll talk about in a moment).

The golden age for ninja popularity would certainly be the late ’80s through the ’90s. Back in those days, ninjas were practically EVERYWHERE (as opposed to literally everywhere, which is now the status quo for ninj-kind) in movies, comics, music, television, video-games, etc. In fact, this over-abundance of ninjaness is what would lead to their eventual disappearance from the public scene.

“How could this be,” you ask? Well I’ll explain, using quack pseudo-science and what is known academically as The Inverse Ninja Law.

Basically it works like this: Only so much ninjaness can exist in any given space-time location regardless of dimensional drift or quantum entanglement. When more than one ninja is present, that ninjaness must be shared equally between all present, in keeping with the theory of Quantum Conservation of Badassery. Essentially, many ninjas are not as dangerous as a single ninja. Or, in a layman’s example, one ninja is an unstoppable god-slaying badass, but a bunch of ninjas is an army of easily-slaughtered mooks.

Ninjas became so widespread that each individual ninja gradually became little more than a well trained peasant willing to go to any length to accomplish their mission. Ironically, this is roughly the same power level that ninjas began at, centuries ago, before “Dark-Punch the Fisty” fought time itself on the fifth existential plain and made true ninjas eternally cool.

So remember:

Anytime you watch a ninja do something cool, there will be a true ninja – where you can’t see them – doing something even more awesome.

And now for the hype!

DUDE, DID YOU SEE THAT NINJA JUST DO A QUINTUPLE BACKFLIP WHILE THROWING SHURIKEN INTO THAT GUY’S THROAT? SO COOL!

Some of Tristan’s favorite ninjas:

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Awesome Gaiden
Ask a Ninja