Are the Turtles improperly designed?

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

But, doing nitpicking, that Photo isn't very Ninja accurate either. real Ninja did not dress up in black karate gi suits, modern Martial Arts grading belts, and waved around fake fantasy swords that didn't exist until the 1960's. The hood and mask is an everyday use for farmers working in the fields, same goes for "ninja hand covers", regular people used those for protection from the weather and the sun, the hand covers are still used today. The Jika-Tabi the photo ninja is wearing is also a modern invention. normal Tabi is socks meant for wearing with sandals.

Although, that karate gi wearing hooded shadow warrior IS the look that is associated with pop-culture Ninjas.

The ninja Turtles don't really fill a lot of the criteria given from the esthetics of the Pop-Culture Ninjas, they do have knotted belts, sometimes. Or the belts are buckled or connected by clasps (maybe?). Their main Ninjas feature besides their "Ninja" weapons, is probably their feet, as it (save Nick cartoon) resembles the Tabi sock by sporting two toe digits.

Quoted again, as always and forever, of perfect accuracy.

I love when you school them.

[ssjup81]

Originally Posted by Commenter 42

Quoted again, as always and forever, of perfect accuracy.

I love when you school them.

I couldn't explain, not as slow as my connection is, but even I pointed out the black ninja clothes thing as being a myth. It's all a gimmick.

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Except you know... Lui Kang and Daniel don't poke holes into the headbands and wear them around around their faces, which is what Zorro does. That's why they're compared to him.

The turtles don't have very big foreheads. I thought it was obvious that's why they don't use them as headbands, instead masks. Aside from making them look "cool".

[Netkeeper]

I thought the masks were just an excuse for PL and KE to draw their eyes like Batman's, because they wanted their characters' eyes to "glow" without being, well, glowing eyes.

Or some such ********.

[PizzaPower1985]

This thread is very interesting. Resurrecting in hopes that we can (further) compare the TMNT concept to actual ninja.

Regarding the masks, even if TMNT is less based on real ninja conceits and based more on the Hong Kong movie variety of ninja, the masks being 4 bright colors (particularly Donnie and Mikey) doesn't really work as a convention of ninja fantasy and has become more of a statement about the era that the (cartoon) turtles came out of.

A friend and I had a conversation once about Hong Kong movies and western entertainment concepts of what a ninja is. He said that Playmates toys or David Wise (and the cartoon show producers and writers) should have used a color scheme of red blue, white and black because Hong Kong and ninja movies showed ninjas (usually a western hero/white man) wearing headbands, bandannas of red and blue but also more often black or white than anything... Never purple or orange.

When I was kicking around fan-fiction ideas for a dark/serious TMNT reboot I had Raph wear red, Leo wear blue, Mikey wear white (because of his lighter, more positive personality in various TMNT media) and Donnie wear a black headband because his skin tone is often depicted as a darker green.

Ultimately though, my fan-fic went a far more traditional route.

Anyway, headbands and body pads have far less to do with actual ninja but are awesome "costume" concepts for anthropomorphic superhero animal characters. As far as characterizations of the turtles, Leo fits probably closest to the western idea of bushido/ninja/samurai of the 4 of them. Raph's personality would not be conducive to the structured, disciplined life of a ninja, Mikey's neither and Donatello's use of technology (it's far more overstated outside of Mirage) isn't very ninja-esque either.