Do they still exist in modern day Japan?

I've seen these sites:

books that teach people how to be ninjas:

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Books-on...m/DBRQ4KGS5FN6

Some related sites:
http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Ninja
http://www.expertvillage.com/video-s...inja-basic.htm

I don't know about samurais.

If they still exist do they work as mercenaries?

well you can learn ninjitsu/ninjutsu/wateva you wanna call it... samurais use swords right? so they wont make that good of a killer now, unless they had a dagger or a smaller version of the wakizashi or however you spell it./

the samurai were made illegal at the start of the meiji era. so no, there shouldnt be any around today

ninjitsu is still taught and practiced today. its practitioners would call themselves ninja

errr.. yes.
they are hired by CEO's to stealthily abduct other CEO's from rival companies to ensure that takeovers of another company proceed smoothly..


lol. just kidding. what is the use for mercenaries in current day japan?

umm wouldnt they rather hire some crazy @$$ hacker to hack into their rivals comp systems and screw around with them? then their rivals would have loads of stress and maybe suicide. wayyy more efficient, and arent hackers cheaper aswell? lol

errm.. yes i already knew that

what i meant by that was, why on earth would japan need mercenaries now?

as opposed to say, the yakuza doin it themselves? dont they have guns?

or maybe they want to use the stealthiness of the ninja to extort people without those people even knowing they were extorted...

i believe ninjutsu exists and they call the practitioners-ninja.

as for the samurais...hmmm...when i was in my undergrad years, i have read about this female being the last member of the samurais.

i dunno waht happened after

the origin of the ninjas can be traced back in China-Tang Dynasty IF I AM not wrong

oh crap! i guess i have to review my asian civ!

i noticed your posts are mostly asian-related

hmm... i'm not sure that samurais exist.. but perhaps ninjas.. but i think that yakuza's are quite well known in japan now, but what is the different between ninjas and yakuzas?

ninjas does exist but i dont think not this 21st century cause seem all of them are like vanished away? but in past
like long long time ago back 10 century, ninjas are real!cause my grandmother told me they can fights with something i dont know lol like how u watch movies or somthing hahah...

The samurai- just debate anything about samurais, their suicides, their accomplishments everyting.
The main question is who will win, samurai viking or knights?

But any other discussion about samurai is accepted.

What?
I like their swords but ninjas are awesome.

Yes. I like ninjas too. But i personally believe that there is not enough evidence of their activities for them to be a part of japanese culture. I mean, there is no doubt that they existed. This is under the culture thread. But I will probably make a ninja forum somewhere under legends.

:bored

yeah there swords are pretty cool. i got my friend one for his birthday. but i persoanlly prefer chinese triads. triads dishonourable, dishonest, and they backstab their friends for personal gains.

Which era?

Vikings were long gone by the time Samurai in Japan reached their peak in 16~17th century.
Also Knights were different by the 17th century. European warriors have more advanced weapons than Samurai did in 16~17th century.

Samurai have Katana sword but their body armor is not that great comparing to Knights.
Again, European swords are lot heavy so, blocking European sword would be very hard for Samurai with Katana.

There was British TV documentary about comparing them in real hand -to-hand combat.
Samurai lost big time against to European warriors, or may be TV show producers didn't employed professional Samurai.

I don't endorse this guy's views, as he's obviously a Viking fanatic (claims to descend from Vikings too), but the video is sort of funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpu2NRg-HEg

Thx for the Youtube clip.
Yes, that was bit humorous.

Viking warrior have shield while Samurai don't carry shield.
So I'm guessing Viking may have one advantage for sure.

Vikings were tough warrior, it would be very hard for Samurai to kill them.

Judging from one-to-one combat situation between 12th century Viking vs 12th century Samurai.
It will be close call, but I would guarantee that Viking might just win in the end.

As I pointed out before, trying to block Viking's heavy sword is pointless because you can only block heavy sword with shield not with your samurai sword, if you do that your wrist will break.

I think they still exist now, but more as an interest than a culture. Like, people learn how to fight like a ninja, or wield a sword like a samurai, but they don't live the day to day life of one.

I think Samurai and Ninja does not exist already.Only their skill are still being taught until today and I think their skill is just the same as self defense for these era.

in movies they exist

Ninjutsu (ninjutsu) is one of the Deadliest Martial Arts in Mordern times i watch how they move

they can do whatever they want like Paralyzing,or killing there enemy

the teaching or the art still exist but not that broad or famous.

Ninja's never really existed I don't think lol. Samurai warriors you don't really get anymore though lol. But people still learn the whole combat stuff.

Samurai are just a social class. Japan's political system before the Meiji Restoration is comparable to feudalism, and the samurai were the warrior class that kept the big-shots, the daimyo, in power.

The whole Japanese "bushido" stuff is largely government propaganda in the early 1900s, exported to the West to convince other nations that Japanese culture is honorable and chivalrous.

After the Meiji Restoration, the samurai class was done away with. So no more samurai.

^ Bushido code was made during 19th century under Meiji restoration period.

It was more like an expansive lump of Confucian ideas, old "warrior codes" that they repackaged to fit the Western palate.

The propaganda effort to export "bushido", though, really began in earnest in early 1900s, when they needed support for the war against Russia.

there are people practicing ninjutsu in chinba,japan,israel,us,and other middle east