My geeky son's recent favorite shows are "Mythbusters" on Discovery Channel, and "Ask a Ninja" podcast. Recently, "Mythbusters" aired an episode about ninja myths, with Ask a Ninja Ninja appearing briefly, so he was totally electrified with it.

Ninjas and geeks have lots of things in common - or rather say, the only major difference between them is that geeks don't assassin people. They both are highly-trained professionals, their main mission is to collect and manage information (including "hacking"), they work behind-the-scenes most of the time, they form closely knit communities, and they are mysterious and powerful. Ninjas used various proprietary technology, such as engineering special weapons or whipping up secret poison or medicine.

Unlike the public image in the U.S., ninjas usually don't fight - their techniques, known as "ninjutsu", are oriented towards running away. Occasionally, they may get a mission to assassin someone or to guard VIPs, but most of the time, they just collect information. According to Japanese Wikipedia, ninjas even worked to take people's opinion polls in the peacetime.

So, are you a ninja-wannabe geek? Well, there are two major ninja clan's hometowns in Japan, Koga and Iga, both located deep in the mountains between Nagoya and Kyoto. They have the real ninja houses, one-day ninja training courses, ninja museums and all kinds of other ninja attractions. In Koga, they will hold "All Japan Ninja Championship" in October, incluing events like shuriken throwing, walking on the water with mizugumo, jumping over the fence and others.

Oh, and by the way, in Mythbusters, "walking on the water with mizugumo" was busted (meaning "it is a myth - not a fact"), but they use a long supporting stick in this competition and you are actually supposed to do it. So, Adam-san and Jamie-san, would you like to try it again?

Koga Ninpou no Sato
Koga Ninja Championship
Iga Ninja no Sato