The Ninja in Modern Literature

Ninja in fiction are divisible into two large categories, those based on realistic accounts and those based largely on imaginative accounts. Purely fictional accounts of ninja are often the image many Japanese have of an assassin in a fantasy.

Ryotaro Shiba wrote two fictional works, a novel and a collection of short stories, based on ninja, Fukuro no Shiro and Saigo no Igamono. Fukuro no Shiro was made into a movie which also was a hit. Shinobi no Mono is another movie about ninja.

Eric Van Lustbader has written a series of closely ninja-related thriller books, the first one being The Ninja (1980). The series tells the story of half-Japanese, half-Caucasian Nicholas Linnear who received nearly full-scale ninjutsu training in his youth.

Ninja appears in many games and their characters are loosely based on historical facts. In a fighting game, a ninja are typically quick to strike but lacking in power or defense. Many a computer role-playing game had a ninja as its character. In the Final Fantasy series, the ninja made its initial appearance in the first Final Fantasy as an upgrade from the Thief character class, adept at equipping an array of weapons and armor and casting black magic. Typical of ninja in Final Fantasy is the ability to simultaneously equip two weapons and throw weapons at the enemy, inflicting great damage at the cost of extremely low defense. Several Wizardry series had an odd twist, because wearing an armor reduced ninja's advantage of evading an enemy attack, ninja were typically unadorned by players.

Ninja have long been a popular subject in anime and manga. The popular anime and manga series Naruto is a recent example of a ninja-based series.
In western popular culture, the ninja are often depicted as supremely well-trained martial artists who use many kinds of exotic equipment and skills to accomplish their missions. This, combined with the popular image of the ninja's legendary costume, often makes up the western take on the ninja as a popular foe of fictional spies (especially on missions in East Asia), superheroes and supervillains.

Ninja in western popular culture, though predominantly Asian, are not monolithically so—westerners have been depicted as ninja and as martial artists generally, as in Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon.

By the late 1980s, many popular culture items were spoofs (Beverly Hills Ninja) or inaccurate (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). However, "serious" depictions of the ninja continued to coexist with these exaggerations. Perhaps the most-evolved ninja parodies can be found on Real Ultimate Power, a website featuring ninja wailing on guitars and fighting pirates, and Ninja Burger, which features ninja delivering fast food. In the former, ninja have Real Ultimate Power, which means they are 1) mammals, 2) fighters who fight out ALL the time, and 3) prone to flip out and kill people. They are self-contradictions, being reckless while also careful and precise. In the latter, ninja are descendants of a long line of honorable ninja devoted to serving others, and the best way to serve in the 21st Century is to deliver fast food in 30 minutes or less.

A recent Internet theme has pirates being the hated enemies of the ninja. Not only are the two ripe for stereotyping in a humorous fashion, but their antithetical outlooks on life make them obvious opponents (even if there is no basis in reality for such opposition); pirates are loud, flashy, rude, crude extroverts who clash swords on the high seas, and ninja are quiet, reserved, polite, refined introverts who work from the shadows. In the Weebl and Bob flash cartoons however, the character Chris is both a ninja and a pirate.

Ninja is also used to describe someone who unfairly snatches loot without rolling for it in the computer game World of Warcraft. These "ninja looters" are shunned by others for their nefarious deeds.