I want to know how the katana is attached to the back of the mask.

I got the same ninja minifigure in 4805. It has been in my display collection since I bought the set when it came out before the turn of the millennium. While I have many later ninja on display too, the original ones are hard to beat.

Ninja-GO!

Again!

The first wave of Ninjago had a polybag glider as a tribute to these sorts of sets. I love little vehicles like this, so quick to build and fun to play with!

@Bhahouighf:
Nonsense. People don't need to drive a truck the size of Kentucky, but that doesn't mean they won't. There's no _need_ to include a way to sheathe katana on the Ninjago ninja minifigs anymore. Sometimes they still do, but sometimes they don't.

@CarolinaOnMyMind said:
" @Mr__Thrawn said:
"Ninpo sounds like LEPIN’s version of NINJAGO"

Ninpo literally means the art of stealth in Japanese. It’s also the name of a form of martial arts.
Ninjago, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery. I’d like to hear the story of how LEGO came up with that name, if anyone knows it. Until then, I’m under the impression that it is simply “ninja” + “go.” Probably for no other reason than someone thought that sounded cool. "

Vanilla Ice perhaps.

If that's the Big Bat, how small the Small Bat must be?

Okay, the ones with the big plastic wings I could see gliding around, but the dragon wings here are far too small. The only gliding this guy is going to be doing is straight down!

Uh, FYI Huwbot, we were asking for NINJA-GO!

Not a bad set though

I'm not sure that this thing will actually fly. But I do appreciate this Ninja's dedication to science.

@Darth_TNT said:
"I'm not sure that this thing will actually fly. But I do appreciate this Ninja's dedication to science."

*sacrifice to science

@Snazzy101 said:
" @CarolinaOnMyMind said:
" @Mr__Thrawn said:
"Ninpo sounds like LEPIN’s version of NINJAGO"

Ninpo literally means the art of stealth in Japanese. It’s also the name of a form of martial arts.
Ninjago, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery. I’d like to hear the story of how LEGO came up with that name, if anyone knows it. Until then, I’m under the impression that it is simply “ninja” + “go.” Probably for no other reason than someone thought that sounded cool. "

Vanilla Ice perhaps." imagine, you’re with the LEGO design team ten years ago...
It’s just laughing gas.

The ninja’s probably yelling: I BELIEVE IN MAGIC!!!!!

@TheRightP_art:
He’s like the Wile E. Coyote of Edo era Japan. One of an infinite number of mute Grey Ninja clones of the real Grey Ninja who works in the Applied Sciences department of Acme Labs’ Eastern Asian division.

@CarolinaOnMyMind said:
" @Mr__Thrawn said:
"Ninpo sounds like LEPIN’s version of NINJAGO"

Ninpo literally means the art of stealth in Japanese. It’s also the name of a form of martial arts.
Ninjago, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery. I’d like to hear the story of how LEGO came up with that name, if anyone knows it. Until then, I’m under the impression that it is simply “ninja” + “go.” Probably for no other reason than someone thought that sounded cool. "
Probably. ‘Ninja’ is obviously a Japanese word and its meaning in Japanese is broadly the same as in English (though the concept is romanticised more in the West). ‘Go’ in Japanese means ‘five’ but ‘ninjago ’ has no meaning in Japanese and is not how you say ‘five ninjas’. When the Japanese write ‘Ninjago’, they mostly use the same script used in English or, occasionally, katakana, the syllabary reserved in Japanese for non-Japanese words.

If this is a new classic!Ninja kick of Huwbot's? Then I am ALL FOR IT.

I'd still like to get this set, sometime. Heck, I'd like to get more of the classic!Ninja line generally, I have so much nostalgic fondness for it yet only own one tiny set... but it's tricky to find them anywhere for a price that I feel is reasonable, these days. Not to mention the pain it is to search for the theme on eBay unless you look for individual set numbers, because searching "Lego Ninja" gets you many pages of Ninjago or Lego TMNT results and only a few classic Ninja hidden in amongst them all...

I love the theme, but in hindsight could they have maybe given it a *little* less generic of a name? xD

@ThatBionicleGuy:
At the time, that wasn’t a problem at all. No TMNT LEGO sets, no Ninjago at all, no Bricklink, and eBay/Amazon/Craigslist were all in their infancy (Amazon had just expanded beyond books).

I had no idea before this old Ninja-theme got chosen by huwbot, but this is exactly the same kinda thing i got with my Temple of Airjitzu.
Those ninja suits were decent i think. Simple, but decent.

This one assassinated my darkages! I found this little set late 1999 in a small shop and immediately had to have it. I immediately made some modifications, changed the "bat-part" and turned the brown parts into a raft. Now 21 years later, he still sneaks through my collection. Mostly he is seen on the ninjago city docks, the stone tower bridge or in the flying ninja fortress, playing GO with the ninja princess.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Darth_Mule :
Not well. As @Lordmoral stated, there's an angled clip on the back. However, it's placed in such a way that you clip the katana by the _blade_. This is highly prone to damaging the blade. I did figure out that the way to avoid damage was to place the blade's edge in the clip and twist the back into the clip.

They reprised the original Ninja cowl for the first year of Ninjago, with no changes to the clip. After that, they started making new harnesses that you could actually sheathe the blades in, like, you know, real swords. And then they just stopped giving everyone a katana, and basically eliminated the need to do anything of the sort."

Well, not entirely like real swords, since its sheathed on the back, rather than the much more sensible and historically accurate hip sheath (which for obvious reasons isnt so practical for a minifigure, of course. Except for that one time...)

^ Real ninja didn’t dress that way anyway - or at least, there is no evidence they did. It’s a myth stemming from a misinterpretation of Japanese iconography.

In Japanese theatre, stagehands dressed that way (specifically in black) to make themselves less conspicuous. Of course, they could be seen but the audience understood it to mean that they should be ignored.

When artists wanted to represent unseen figures, they drew on that same representation, so ninja - stealthy people - were depicted as stagehands. The viewer knew that meant invisible (in the same way that a dotted silhouette indicates invisibility in Western comic books).

Over time, the figurative meaning was forgotten and we were left thinking that ninja wore clothes like that. But they didn’t. It’s all a misunderstanding.