Panda_Kahn_fan
05-09-2015, 10:50 AM
I know I’m going to get a lot of hate for this, but this is just my opinion, you can totally disagree and that’s not a problem. This was born out of a post I made in another thread of this forum.
Okay, I was thinking again about the whole Yoshi/Saki back story, as it exists across most versions of TMNT, and I began to think about how such a ting could work in a modern setting, in a way that doesn‘t feel like an orientalist take on the shinobi/the warped western perception on what Japanese ‘honor‘ actually is/was. Just some ideas I was thinking about;
-firstly, let’s toss out the idea of the foot as some ‘super-duper secret mystical ninja clan’ that somehow survived the peace Tokugowa brought about at the beginning of the Edo, and then somehow survived an age entirely devoid of Ninja work, THEN somehow survived unchanged through the Meji restoration, THEN made it overseas in the East Asian immigrant community to New York, surviving competition from the tong and the triads, only to resurface in modern day New York.
Yeah, if a pack of sixteenth century stereotyped anachronisms go running atop the rooftops of NYC dressed in bunraku performer uniforms, they’re going to get shot down. The criminal underworld is not going to hire a group of weirdoes in Halloween costumes to assassinate anyone. The concept is beyond ‘suspension of disbelief’ into the outright laughable. And no, I don’t take other comic book ninja clans seriously, ethier (except for the ashrikage, and even they are pushing it to the point of disbelief).
Even IDW went against this goofy trend, by having the foot be in Feudal Japan, then become a yakuza based crime organization in the modern world, before Karai took charge and guided them back on the path of the shin obi.
-No, lets look towards where you would actually find modern Ninja- reeinactors, reconstructions who studied Shinobi from books and from the few remaining practitioners, and seek to keep the ancient art alive. These modern teachers are where you would find people learning the art of ninjitsu, carrying on the idealized trappings of the ninja and their art- no clan honor B.S., no running around trying to do the work of a modern mercenary with Sengoku-era tools. Here, you would find a modern Hamato Yoshi and Ororku Saki, training under one of these modern masters as enthusiasts for this nearly vanished martial art, instead of being actual assassins.
-Where do the foot come from, you ask? Simple… Saki is from a powerful yakuza family, and in his enthusiasm for the martial art, models the crime family on a sengoku-era ninja clan. He combines modern weapons and tools with the weapons and techquines of the past. A Kevlar-armored mercenary, armed with a katana and a sawed-off uzi, is going to be taken VERY seriously!
-Hamato Yoshi is a modern Japanese Ninja Practitioner, one of these guys who practices the ancient martial art to keep it alive. Having immigrated from Japan to New York teach ninjitsu to people in stunt work and the television and film industry, he is a good and honorable man with a good sense of ethics. After the death of his wife, Tang Shen, Yoshi decided to avert his loneliness by going to the pet store to buy a pet. While looking around at the various pets, Yoshi gets bit by a rat in a cAge that manages to pierce his skin. Finally, he decides to buy four turtles, and leaves the shop with them in a glass bowl.
But as he was leaving the pet store, a TCRI truck, careening out of control, lost a canister that was sent flying, and smashed all over Yoshi, and the four turtles in the open bowl he was carrying. Yoshi stumbled into an alleyway, dropping the bowl, as a startling metamorphosis took place. Finding himself with a new-found adopted family, Yoshi- now splinter- quietly cleans out his old apartment, and moves himself and his new family into an abandoned subway terminal that connects to the sewers.
Over the next fifteen years, Splinter teaches his adopted children (filling the void left by his dead wife in his heart) teaches his four sons the art of ninjitsu- not only to defend themselves from a world that would never accept them, but also to defend the world above from monstrous threats. (And don’t even start on the ‘ninjas are assassins’ thing, are those modern practitioners shady martial arts assassins? Yet we still call them ‘ninja!)
-The ‘vengeance’ angle? Saki and Yoshi were students together, learning ninjitsu together under the same Recreationist master. Both fell in love with the same woman, Tang Shen- a Chinese worker living in Japan on a temporary visa. Both tried to court her, but Yoshi won her heart. Shortly after they married, Ski snuck into their apartment and killed her, and a grief-stricken Yoshi decides to move to America. It isn’t until years later that yoshi learns the truth. It’s a simple revenge tale over the death of a loved one- you don’t need the feudal ninja clan to do that.
-You don’t need to have Yoshi or Saki be members of an anachronistic clan, running off of a code of honor few in Japan even follow any more. The story of vengeance, jealousy, and rivalry transcends those trappings. If you’re going to SET the story in the sengoku, then by all means, use those elements! But I’d personally like to see something a little less stereotypical, and all little less Hollywood ninja. Again, you’re all free to disagree with me, just please do so politely, thank you!
Okay, I was thinking again about the whole Yoshi/Saki back story, as it exists across most versions of TMNT, and I began to think about how such a ting could work in a modern setting, in a way that doesn‘t feel like an orientalist take on the shinobi/the warped western perception on what Japanese ‘honor‘ actually is/was. Just some ideas I was thinking about;
-firstly, let’s toss out the idea of the foot as some ‘super-duper secret mystical ninja clan’ that somehow survived the peace Tokugowa brought about at the beginning of the Edo, and then somehow survived an age entirely devoid of Ninja work, THEN somehow survived unchanged through the Meji restoration, THEN made it overseas in the East Asian immigrant community to New York, surviving competition from the tong and the triads, only to resurface in modern day New York.
Yeah, if a pack of sixteenth century stereotyped anachronisms go running atop the rooftops of NYC dressed in bunraku performer uniforms, they’re going to get shot down. The criminal underworld is not going to hire a group of weirdoes in Halloween costumes to assassinate anyone. The concept is beyond ‘suspension of disbelief’ into the outright laughable. And no, I don’t take other comic book ninja clans seriously, ethier (except for the ashrikage, and even they are pushing it to the point of disbelief).
Even IDW went against this goofy trend, by having the foot be in Feudal Japan, then become a yakuza based crime organization in the modern world, before Karai took charge and guided them back on the path of the shin obi.
-No, lets look towards where you would actually find modern Ninja- reeinactors, reconstructions who studied Shinobi from books and from the few remaining practitioners, and seek to keep the ancient art alive. These modern teachers are where you would find people learning the art of ninjitsu, carrying on the idealized trappings of the ninja and their art- no clan honor B.S., no running around trying to do the work of a modern mercenary with Sengoku-era tools. Here, you would find a modern Hamato Yoshi and Ororku Saki, training under one of these modern masters as enthusiasts for this nearly vanished martial art, instead of being actual assassins.
-Where do the foot come from, you ask? Simple… Saki is from a powerful yakuza family, and in his enthusiasm for the martial art, models the crime family on a sengoku-era ninja clan. He combines modern weapons and tools with the weapons and techquines of the past. A Kevlar-armored mercenary, armed with a katana and a sawed-off uzi, is going to be taken VERY seriously!
-Hamato Yoshi is a modern Japanese Ninja Practitioner, one of these guys who practices the ancient martial art to keep it alive. Having immigrated from Japan to New York teach ninjitsu to people in stunt work and the television and film industry, he is a good and honorable man with a good sense of ethics. After the death of his wife, Tang Shen, Yoshi decided to avert his loneliness by going to the pet store to buy a pet. While looking around at the various pets, Yoshi gets bit by a rat in a cAge that manages to pierce his skin. Finally, he decides to buy four turtles, and leaves the shop with them in a glass bowl.
But as he was leaving the pet store, a TCRI truck, careening out of control, lost a canister that was sent flying, and smashed all over Yoshi, and the four turtles in the open bowl he was carrying. Yoshi stumbled into an alleyway, dropping the bowl, as a startling metamorphosis took place. Finding himself with a new-found adopted family, Yoshi- now splinter- quietly cleans out his old apartment, and moves himself and his new family into an abandoned subway terminal that connects to the sewers.
Over the next fifteen years, Splinter teaches his adopted children (filling the void left by his dead wife in his heart) teaches his four sons the art of ninjitsu- not only to defend themselves from a world that would never accept them, but also to defend the world above from monstrous threats. (And don’t even start on the ‘ninjas are assassins’ thing, are those modern practitioners shady martial arts assassins? Yet we still call them ‘ninja!)
-The ‘vengeance’ angle? Saki and Yoshi were students together, learning ninjitsu together under the same Recreationist master. Both fell in love with the same woman, Tang Shen- a Chinese worker living in Japan on a temporary visa. Both tried to court her, but Yoshi won her heart. Shortly after they married, Ski snuck into their apartment and killed her, and a grief-stricken Yoshi decides to move to America. It isn’t until years later that yoshi learns the truth. It’s a simple revenge tale over the death of a loved one- you don’t need the feudal ninja clan to do that.
-You don’t need to have Yoshi or Saki be members of an anachronistic clan, running off of a code of honor few in Japan even follow any more. The story of vengeance, jealousy, and rivalry transcends those trappings. If you’re going to SET the story in the sengoku, then by all means, use those elements! But I’d personally like to see something a little less stereotypical, and all little less Hollywood ninja. Again, you’re all free to disagree with me, just please do so politely, thank you!