Huynh Ninjas In My Mind

So this week we watched Ninja Scroll in relation to our class discussions about Japan and their culture. Shinto was brought up a lot this week as it has a lot of influence in Japanese anime past and present. The way Shinto is integrated into Japanese culture is quite interesting. Many people know of the symbolism regarding Shinto, but they don't admit to "practicing" it regularly. That statement is very contradictory to what they do though. They attend the festivals which still have the original feeling as intended hundreds of years ago. They also wear small charms and do the small practices everyday like the superstition regarding certain acts and such. Even with all of these examples, it's still very hard to understand and explain how one practices Shintoism.

Ninja Scroll personified the Shinto influences that were in the movie. The oni was very obvious and there was a good bit of symbolism in this film. The morals of Jubei were that of a Samurai to his lord. The only thing is, that Jubei is a rōnin, so he worked for reasonable amount of pay to whoever hired him. The only task we know about that he was paid for was when he had to get a sacred sword back for a small village. The village was small and he knew that, so he only charged them 10 gold pieces, which may seem like little, but Jubei understands that to the village that's a good amount to ask. He is extremely moral when it comes to the female ninja Kagero. She held the cure for his poisoned body, but the only way for him to be cured was to either kiss or have sex with her. He had feelings with her and she likewise, but he still couldn't do it even when forced upon. Mrs. McCay said that he would feel it was rape if he had sex with her. I totally agree with this because even if they both wanted to, he needed to have sex not for love, but for his own personal gain which in this case was life.

Jubei taken from Concrete Badger

The last point I want to make is about the old man, Dakuan. He was introduced as the good guy, but his actions make me believe that he's a demon himself. Either the government is harboring demons to keep the power to themselves, or the old man was lying and had an ulterior motive to taking down the Shogun of the Dark. His methods seemed to be part of the mentality that "the ends justifies the means". In the end, I truly believe he's a demon because of his power and of course his advice to Jubei, "to defeat the demon you have to become a demon."