The Extinction of the Ninja????

In truth while we may think of heroic ninja like Snake Eyes of the classic G.I Joe series or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the fact is that Ninja were/are anything but heroic majority of the time. Assassins for hire that worked in the shadow may have faded in the shadowy abyss with no chance of return...

 "Ninjas just don't fit in the modern day," 

 A 63-year-old former engineer may not fit the typical image of a dark-clad assassin with deadly weapons who can disappear into a cloud of smoke. But Jinichi Kawakami is reputedly Japan's last ninja. As the 21st head of the Ban clan, a line of ninjas that can trace its history back some 500 years, Kawakami is considered by some to be the last living guardian of Japan's secret spies.

 "I think I'm called (the last ninja) as there is probably no other person who learned all the skills that were directly" handed down from ninja masters over the last five centuries, he said.

 "Ninjas proper no longer exist," he said as he demonstrated the tools and techniques used in espionage and sabotage by men fighting for their samurai lords in the feudal Japan of yesteryear. Nowadays they are confined to fiction or used to promote Iga, some 350 kilometres (220 miles) southwest of Tokyo, a mountain-shrouded city near the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto that was once home to many ninjas.

**Full Story Via Yahoo**