Ninja Weapons: Chain and Shuriken

by Charles V. Gruzanski

This informative martial arts book, Ninja Weapons introduces the exciting and deadly secrets of ninjutsu--the chain and the shuriken .

The Masaki school of chain fighting was developed in the feudal society of the early eighteenth century by a swordsman-sentry in Edo (Tokyo) Castle. Feeling that the shedding of blood in such a hallowed place would be disgraceful, he devised the combat use of the weighted chain. Even the name he gave to the art proves the trust he placed in its effectiveness-- manrikigusari (chain with the power of ten thousand).

The equally devastating art of shuriken , the throwing of metal stars and spikes, evolved shortly after manrikigusari . The easily concealed shuriken soon became known as an extremely effective weapon for both shinobi and samurai warriors. Included are "The Samurai Creed," various techniques, the history of the arts and over 100 black and white photos and illustrations.

Genres: Martial Arts

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

Reviews

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first item to get out of the way is that this book doesn't have a particularly apt title. The book was originally released with the more accurate (but less sexy) title, “Spike and Chain,” and then this edition came out in early 90's when fascination with all things ninja was high. An accurate title would be "Masaki-ryu Chain Fighting Basics with Information on Throwing Blades on the Side." But, of course, that would be a horrible, wordy, and tremendously unsexy title. Still, the bulk of the book is a description of the postures and fundamental techniques of fighting with a short weighted chain (called manriki-gusari [10-power chain] in Masaki-ryu or by the more literal kusari-fundo [chain (w/) weight,] elsewhere) and then there is a section on shuriken (throwing spikes and stars) to pad the book out into a three-digit page count needed to be a proper book back in the day.

I should point out that I don't mean this all as a criticism. I am much more pleased with a book on Masaki-ryu weighted-chain technique than I would be with one that rambled on speculating about the vast number of weapons associated with the ninja. But it's important to know what the book is about because if you are looking for a guide to the weapons used by ninja, you would probably find this weak sauce. First, there's little to no mention of ninja in the text. Second, the story given for the development of the manriki-gusari is that of a gate guarding samurai, Dannoshin Toshimitsu Masaki, who didn't want to have to sully the Imperial grounds with blood and so took up the chain as an alternative to sword fighting. Finally, while shuriken were said to be used by ninja, they were not exclusively so and the history in this book also cites Edo period samurai with developing the art.

If you are interested in Japanese weighted chain weaponry, and specifically Masaki-ryu, this is an excellent book for you. If you're interested in throwing blades, you might be a little disappointed with how thin that part is, but it does discuss a lot of the fundamentals in a concise and practical way. If you are looking for a book on all the weapons used by ninja, this is not the one for you.