TOKYO (AP) – Japan is turning to those hooded samurai-era acrobatic spies known as ninja to woo tourism.
The Japan Ninja Council, a government-backed organization of scholars, tourism groups and businesses, said Wednesday that it’s starting a Ninja Academy to train people in the art of ninja, and building a new museum in Tokyo devoted to ninja, set to open in 2018.
“The art of ninja is made up of various elements, such as combat, survival techniques and astronomy,” Jinichi Kawakami, known as “the last ninja” and a master of the Koga ninja school, told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “We hope this will appeal to people all over the world.”
The council, set up in 2015, has created an official logo for certified products and movies to nurture what it called the “ninja business,” and it hopes to educate “ninja ambassadors” to promote the culture globally.
The first certified product is an origami, or folding paper, for messages shaped like a shuriken, the star-shaped daggers that ninja throw as weapons.