A few days ago, the BBC featured a sad, disenchanting but informative little article covering yet another position made redundant by modern times: the ninja.
The grand masters of the two surviving clans have decided that while students may still learn ninja skills, neither will appoint a successor and will both be the last of a long legacy of agents for espionage, sabotage and field apothecaries retained in the service of samurais and shoguns. These feudal warlords have been outmoded, too, and I think no one morns that loss, though it is a little distressing to see such bailiwicks and traditions pass on. Though I suspect I am mistaken, I’d like to think maybe that the publicized disappearance of the ninja is not their coup de grรขce but rather their cover story to allow the true ninjas to recede further into the shadows, indulging everything that one has seen in the movies.
