Ninja fascination in the West before 1900

Inspired by watchin the HUMAN WEAPON episode on Ninjutsu last night- is tehre any way that the massive Occidental interest in Ninjutsu could've taken place much earlier, before 1900 ? Could there have been wacky Western military, intel or law enforcements officers who, after studying Ninjutsu, became so enamoured of the art of inivisbility that they proposed forming their own national espionage networks training operatives in Ninjutsu ? What impact could such secret Ninja groups in Western countries have had ?
 
well, it used to be there, mate- back in the 80s & 90s with the like of TMNT, MORTAL KOMBAT et al- though in a much more fictionalised & caricatured way compared to what the REAL Ninja/Shinobi were all about...
 

wormyguy

Banned
Apparently Tsar Nicholas had emergency exits installed in all the bathrooms of one of his palaces during the Russo-Japanese war because he was terrified of ninjas.
 
We have ninja fascination now?

Just look around the internet. Ninja fascination abounds. It's even become part of the name of many tropes in fiction, i.e. the Inverse Ninja Law.
It was there even before the public internet; probably starting in the 70's. Got big thanks to the spam of martial arts action movies in the 80's.
 
I'd think a samurai fascination could be done- painting them as good, chivalrous knights who just happen to live in a strange and alien land.
But ninjas is really pushing it....
 
well, it used to be there, mate- back in the 80s & 90s with the like of TMNT, MORTAL KOMBAT et al- though in a much more fictionalised & caricatured way compared to what the REAL Ninja/Shinobi were all about...
Quite, as always the image of the ninja so iconic within the mass media bears only a passing resemblance to what actual ninjas were like. Actual ninjas aren't that much different from most other assassin societies, and would probably find the romanticized pop culture image of them immensely amusing.
 
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