Every time I find myself standing in a Hot Topic reading their wall of T-shirts printed with profound statements such as “Are You a Ninja or a Pirate?,” I think to myself that I just don’t get it. I could just never understand the fascination behind pirates, or these seemingly mythical martial arts warriors known as “ninjas.” But quite honestly, I never understood what a ninja truly was until I read the young adult novel In Darkness, Death by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler.
Recently Nominated for the 2008 Nutmeg Award, this mystery begins with the murder of the Samurai Lord Inaba after him and his guests fall into a deep sleep from a powder that is slipped into their drinks at the Lord’s homecoming party. The famous samurai Judge Ooka and his adopted son Seikei are called upon by the shogun (or chief military commander) to the ancient Japanese city of Edo to investigate the crime. Seikei, the 14 year-old samurai in training, is noble to a fault yet naïve of the world; a characteristic which often lands him in trouble, especially with Tokugawa, a ninja who Judge Ooka assigns him to travel with when he departs on his own investigation.
During these chapters the difference between a samurai and a ninja is revealed. Samurais are warriors similar to knights, as well as the highest ranking in society before the Lord and the shogun. According to Tokugawa, ninjas used to live in the mountains and be “close to the kami [Shinto deities or spirits] of nature,” but samurai chased them out of their terrain because the shoguns and emperors did not like them living beyond their rule. Having a connection with the kami allows ninjas to have supernatural powers such as the ability to become invisible, thus making them the most skillful killers in Japan. All of Lord Inaba’s servants and subjects believe he was killed by a ninja because no one saw the murder and as Tokugawa explains to Seikei, because “whenever the shogun and the daimyos [feudal lords]—and anyone else—wanted a killer, they knew that they should hire a ninja.” Furthermore, their one piece of evidence from the scene of the crime is a red origami butterfly speckled with black dots on its wings. Tatsuno says that “the person who left the butterfly did so to drive off the evil kami he had released by killing” the Lord.
Ok, so I get it now: ninjas are badass because can acquire superpowers from nature. They aren’t just black belts in karate who became a little too obsessed with the whole martial arts thing after they graduated. If you like ninjas, samurais, and reading about foreign cultures, then you will enjoy Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler’s Nutmeg Award Nominee In Darkness, Death.
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