Ninjutsu
忍術Modern Japanese organizations (Bujinkan, Genbukan, Jinenkan) tied to the shinobi of Iga and Koga: kata, weapons, no competitions, lineage cannot be independently verified.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Comparisons
Catalogs & Databases for Ninjutsu
About Ninjutsu
Ninjutsu today means modern Japanese organizations claiming the legacy of the shinobi of the Iga and Koga regions: the Bujinkan, which Masaaki Hatsumi founded between 1967 and 1972 (sources differ), Shoto Tanemura's Genbukan (1984 according to its own website) and Fumio Manaka's Jinenkan (1996 according to English Wikipedia). The history of the shinobi is documented by 17th-century writings such as the Bansenshukai and the Shoninki. The word ninja spread only in the mid-20th century. The lineages they claim cannot be independently verified. The legend of Togakure-ryu places the origin of the school in 1161–1162, the dictionary Bugei Ryuha Daijiten calls its genealogy embellished, and the historian Stephen Turnbull writes of a tradition that Iga and Koka created for themselves. The Bujinkan brings together nine ryuha, three based on ninja tactics and six on samurai tactics. It teaches unarmed combat (taijutsu) and work with weapons such as swords, staffs and spears. According to its own website, the Genbukan teaches the ninpo sanjurokkei curriculum of 36 areas. Training rests on kata with the roles of tori and uke, henka variations and controlled randori, and no competitions are held. The Bujinkan has kyu and dan grades up to 15th dan, with a fixed sakki test before 5th dan. Since 2017 the history of the ninja has been studied by the research centre of Mie University in Iga.
History
Historical ninjutsu is linked with the shinobi of the Iga and Koga (Koka) regions. Samurai families there formed self-sufficient communities, and specialized training in covert warfare developed from the mid-15th century. Oda Nobunaga subdued Koga in 1574 and Iga in 1581. The writings Ninpiden (1655), Bansenshukai (1676) and Shoninki (1681) date from the 17th century. A shogunate law of 1649 allowed only daimyo with an income above 10 000 koku to keep shinobi. The word ninja spread only in the mid-20th century, and earlier shinobi, rappa or kusa were used.
Read more
The historian Stephen Turnbull (2015) states that only one reliable account of covert warfare exists from before 1581 and that Iga and Koka created a tradition that today bears all the hallmarks of a cult. Today's ninjutsu is formed by modern organizations. The Bujinkan was founded by Masaaki Hatsumi, according to sources between 1967 and 1972, the Genbukan by Shoto Tanemura in 1984 according to its own website and the Jinenkan by Fumio Manaka in 1996 according to English Wikipedia. Hatsumi trained for fifteen years under Toshitsugu Takamatsu (born 1887 or 1889), having earlier studied judo, Shito-ryu karate, aikido and Okinawan kobudo. The legend of Togakure-ryu places the origin of the school in 1161–1162, and this early history cannot be verified. The dictionary Bugei Ryuha Daijiten calls the Togakure-ryu genealogy embellished, and Hatsumi's 1958 certificate of the title of 34th grandmaster is not supported by documents on previous holders.
Technique
The Bujinkan brings together nine ryuha: Togakure-ryu, Gyokushin-ryu and Kumogakure-ryu (ninpo), Koto-ryu and Gikan-ryu (koppojutsu), Gyokko-ryu (kosshijutsu), Kukishin-ryu (happo bikenjutsu), Shinden Fudo-ryu (dakentaijutsu) and Takagi Yoshin-ryu (jutaijutsu). Three of them are based on ninja tactics, six on samurai tactics. According to its own website, the Genbukan teaches the ninpo sanjurokkei curriculum of 36 areas, made up of 18 areas of bugei juhappan and 18 areas of ninja juhakei. Historical manuals describe different skills than today's teaching: hiding in nature (tanuki-gakure, ukigusa-gakure, uzura-gakure), diverting attention with fire, the five-colour rice codes goshiki-mai, climbing aids and folding boats. The kunai was used mainly for drilling holes in walls, not as a weapon. In 2019 NHK television reconstructed from surviving manuals some of the 230 recorded uses of kayakujutsu, the art of gunpowder, for example the toribikata flamethrower.
Training
Teaching in the Bujinkan proceeds from kata with fixed roles of tori (the attacker) and uke (the receiver) through henka variations to controlled free work, randori, in which the defender intervenes, locks, chokes or throws. We were not able to document a list of named forms. The teaching has no official set of rules, and the Bujinkan does not hold competitions or bouts. The claim that the Bujinkan does not test against a fully resisting opponent is called a mistake in the organization’s descriptions, but the level of resistance depends on the instructor. The risk of permanent injury is stated as small, and we did not find a study with figures.
Ranks and progression
The Bujinkan has kyu ranks from 10th (mukyu, white belt) to 1st kyu, with a green belt for men and a red one for women, then dan from 1st to 10th and menkyo kaiden from 11th to 15th dan. Before 5th dan the practitioner takes the sakki test before the soke: he or she has to prove that they sense danger and avoid it. From 5th dan one bears the title of shidoshi, may open a dojo and examine up to 4th dan. Apart from the sakki test there are no fixed criteria, and individual dojo determine progress. The ranks are an internal scale of the Bujinkan, and the Genbukan and Jinenkan are separate organizations.
Who it suits
According to Britannica, the ninja were military spies of feudal Japan. According to History.com, from the 14th century feudal lords hired them mainly for intelligence and counterintelligence work. Training covered disguise, escape, concealment, geography, meteorology, medicine, explosives and combat. The text Shoninki was written in 1681 by the military scholar Natori Masazumi in the service of Tokugawa Yorinobu, lord of the Kishu domain. According to tradition, Hattori Hanzo of Iga helped Tokugawa Ieyasu return home safely after the incident at the Honno-ji temple in 1582. According to the Japan Ninja Council, Ishikawa Goemon is a legendary figure, and according to an academic lecture at Arizona State University his alleged attempt to poison Oda Nobunaga almost certainly never happened. According to Britannica, people today practise ninjutsu mainly for fitness and self-defence. In 2020, according to the AFP agency, Genichi Mitsuhashi became the first in Japan to complete a master's degree on ninja at Mie University.
Competition
Ninjutsu has no competitions or competitive federation. Britannica describes it today as study for fitness and self-defence, mentions no tournaments, and we found no other reliable source on competitions. According to its teaching description, Bujinkan holds no matches either.
Gear
In the Bujinkan people train in black ninjutsugi clothing with a green or red belt. In most dojo tabi are worn, soft footwear for the dojo, and outdoors jika-tabi. Weapons teaching includes swords, staffs, spears (yari) and naginata, and each year has a different theme. Black clothing is today’s training uniform. There is no hard evidence for the black clothing of historical ninja, it may have been an artistic convention, possibly borrowed from the puppeteers of the bunraku theater.
Philosophy
The intellectual basis of ninjutsu comes from 17th-century manuals. Bansenshukai (1676), written by Fujibayashi Yasutake, repeatedly cites Sun Tzu's The Art of War and introduces seishin, justice of the heart. Shoninki by Natori Masazumi (1681) has three volumes: techniques, dealing with people and the secrets of the ninja's mind. Its principles are practical tactics, not an ethical code: risk your life for the goal, shift blame onto others, lull the opponent's vigilance with drink, women or gambling, and never lose yourself in the pleasure. The author deemed belief in the magic of talismans ignorance, yet saw no reason not to use them. According to the National Library of Japan, the ninja had no chance to use their techniques in the peaceful Edo period, so they wrote them down to keep them from being lost. Professor Yuji Yamada of Mie University sums up that the ninja's strength lay in outwitting others.
Styles and schools
Historical ninjutsu is associated with two regions, Iga in today's Mie Prefecture and Koga (Koka) in Shiga Prefecture. According to the National Library of Japan, at the time Bansenshukai was written they were seen as one land with an unclear border, and Fujibayashi Yasutake himself claimed to be from Koga, although his ancestors' pagodas stand in Iga. Bansenshukai summarizes the secret techniques of the Iga and Koga schools and others and is the largest of the three surviving manuals beside Shoninki and Ninpiden. Ninpiden of 1655 attributes the transmission of the doctrine to Hattori Yasunaga and Masanaga and highlights the style of Hattori Hanzo, but the library considers this unverified. The authorship of Bansenshukai is uncertain too. Today's organizations Bujinkan, Genbukan and Jinenkan derive their teaching from old schools, for example Togakure-ryu, whose founding tradition places in 1162. We could not find an independent source that would confirm these lineages.
Today
Mie University founded the International Ninja Research Center in Iga in 2017 and has offered a graduate master's programme since 2018. The entrance examination includes history and the reading of historical ninja documents, and about three students are admitted each year. Professor Yuji Yamada says that the programme teaches about ninja but does not train ninja. Around his 88th birthday in December 2019, Masaaki Hatsumi announced the successors of the nine Bujinkan schools, and Takumi Tsutsui took over Togakure-ryu. Jinichi Kawakami calls himself the 21st head of the Ban family, and Smithsonian magazine called him probably the last ninja in 2012, but his claim rests on his own statement. We have not found a study of injuries, fitness or health effects of ninjutsu in a peer-reviewed journal.
In culture
The figure of the ninja sorcerer was born in the literature and theatre of the Edo period. The serialized novel Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari from late Edo and early Meiji tells of the outlaw Jiraiya, who draws magic from the spirit of a toad and fights Orochimaru. Jiraiya was popular in kabuki, and so he often appears in woodblock prints of actors. In 1852 Utagawa Kunisada created a triptych with a scene from this play, kept by the Keio University library, and in 1866 Tsukioka Yoshitoshi created the print Jiraiya on a Frog, owned by the LACMA museum. The manga Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto returns to this tradition: its hero uses toad ninjutsu, and Orochimaru and Tsunade also appear in it. It was published from 1999 to 2014 in Weekly Shonen Jump, has 700 chapters and, according to Britannica Kids, has sold over 250 million copies in more than 40 countries. According to History.com, a scene from the Bond film You Only Live Twice from 1967 introduced the ninja to Western culture. Sega's Shinobi game series began in 1987, and a new instalment, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, came out in 2025. According to Tokyo Weekender, the image of the ninja as a black-clad assassin is largely a creation of pop culture.
Did you know
According to History.com, the word ninja does not appear in historical texts before the 19th century, and earlier sources use shinobi. A Jesuit dictionary of Japanese from 1603 defines shinobi as a spy who, in wartime, enters a castle by night or in secret. The word ninjutsu entered English in 1950. Bansenshukai describes 11 masters of ninjutsu, for example Shimotsugeno Kozaru, who was said to have entered a castle through a water pipe and set it on fire. Shoninki lists six essential tools, among them a wide straw hat, a hook and medicine, and seven methods of disguise called shichihode. The original of Shoninki has not survived, and the National Library of Japan keeps one of several copies. The samurai of Koga handed a copy of Bansenshukai to the shogunate in 1854, when they complained about their situation. According to historian Stephen Turnbull, ninja often disguised themselves as wandering komuso monks with a basket hat and a shakuhachi flute. The Iga-ryu Ninja Museum exhibits over 400 ninja tools and a house with traps, false corridors and hiding places.
Styles & Branches
Japanese organization founded by Hatsumi Masaaki in Noda, Chiba Prefecture. It brings together nine ryuha inherited from his teacher Takamatsu Toshitsugu.
Ninpo organisation and curriculum founded, according to its website, by Tanemura Shoto on 28 November 1984 in Matsubushi. It draws on Takamatsu Toshitsugu's lines.
A ninjutsu school now carried by Bujinkan. Tradition traces it to Togakure Daisuke of the 12th century, and we have not found evidence of an old lineage in independent sources.
One of the nine schools of the Bujinkan. Green (2001) calls it the oldest of them and describes it as a mostly striking art with hard joint dislocations.
Koppojutsu school, one of the nine Bujinkan traditions, also taught by the Genbukan and Jinenkan. Wikipedia credits Sakagami Taro Kunishige as its founder.
Weapons and taijutsu school taught in Bujinkan and Genbukan. Wikipedia and Genbukan give its origin differently. We have not found independent evidence.
Dakentaijutsu of Shinden Fudo-ryu, one of the nine traditions of the Bujinkan. According to Wikipedia it has no prescribed stance and techniques begin from a natural stance.
Frequently asked questions
Who was a ninja?
According to Britannica, ninja were military spies of feudal Japan. From the 14th century feudal lords hired them mainly for intelligence work, and the best known came from the mountainous regions of Iga and Koka southeast of Kyoto. Training included disguise, concealment, geography, medicine, explosives and combat.
What does the word ninja mean?
The word ninja consists of characters meaning to hide or to move secretly and person. The older and more common term was shinobi, and the word ninja spread only in the mid-20th century.
Do ninja still exist?
Historical ninja belong to feudal Japan. According to Smithsonian magazine, Jinichi Kawakami, who calls himself the 21st head of the Ban family, was probably the last ninja in 2012, but he accepts no new students. Mie University teaches about ninja, but Professor Yuji Yamada stresses that he does not train ninja.
What is ninjutsu?
According to Britannica, ninjutsu is the art of stealth, sometimes called the art of invisibility, which arose in ancient Japan. Historically it included espionage, disguise, escape and combat, and today it is practiced mainly for fitness and self-defense.
Is ninjutsu a real martial art?
Historical ninja techniques are documented in the manuals Ninpiden from 1655, Bansenshukai from 1676 and Shoninki from 1681, preserved by the National Library of Japan and the museum in Iga. Today's ninjutsu organizations teach a combat system for fitness and self-defense, but we have not managed to document their direct continuity with the historical ninja through an independent source.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.