Sega - Shinobi 1987 - GAMEPLAY
A side-scrolling action videogame produced by Sega and originally released as an arcade game in 1987, the series has expanded to include a dozen other Shinobi titles. Play as a master shinobi and take on the ninja crime syndicate Zeed.
Shinobi is a code name that was used to hide its bearer's identity. It has been used by various ninjas, such as Joe Musashi, Hotsuma, and Hibana.
A ninja (忍者, Japanese pronunciation: [ɲiꜜɲdʑa]) or shinobi (忍び, [ɕinobi]) was a covert agent, mercenary, or guerrilla warfare expert in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included, reconnaissance, espionage, infiltration, deception, ambush, bodyguarding and their fighting skills in martial arts, including ninjutsu.[1] Their covert methods of waging irregular warfare were deemed dishonorable and beneath the honor of the samurai.[2] Though shinobi proper, as specially trained warriors, spies, and mercenaries, appeared in the 15th century during the Sengoku period,[3] antecedents may have existed as early as the 12th century.[4][5]
In the unrest of the Sengoku period, jizamurai families, that is, elite peasant-warriors, in Iga Province and the adjacent Kōka District formed ikki - "revolts" or "leagues" - as a means of self-defense. They became known for their military activities in the nearby regions and sold their services as mercenaries and spies. It is from these areas that much of the knowledge regarding the ninja is drawn. Following the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate in the 17th century, the ninja faded into obscurity.[6] A number of shinobi manuals, often based on Chinese military philosophy, were written in the 17th and 18th centuries, most notably the Bansenshūkai (1676).[7]
By the time of the Meiji Restoration (1868), shinobi had become a topic of popular imagination and mystery in Japan. Ninja figured prominently in legend and folklore, where they were associated with legendary abilities such as invisibility, walking on water and control over natural elements. Much of their perception in popular culture is based on such legends and folklore, as opposed to the covert actors of the Sengoku period.
Ninja is the on'yomi (Early Middle Chinese–influenced) reading of the two kanji "忍者". In the native kun'yomi reading, it is pronounced shinobi, a shortened form of shinobi-no-mono (忍びの者).
The word shinobi appears in the written record as far back as the late 8th century in poems in the Man'yōshū. The underlying connotation of shinobi (忍) means "to steal away; to hide" and—by extension—"to forbear", hence its association with stealth and invisibility. Mono (者) means "a person".
Historically, the word ninja was not in common use, and a variety of regional colloquialisms evolved to describe what would later be dubbed ninja. Along with shinobi, these include monomi ("one who sees"), nokizaru ("macaque on the roof"), rappa ("ruffian"), kusa ("grass") and Iga-mono ("one from Iga"). In historical documents, shinobi is almost always used.
Shinobi (忍) is a side-scrolling hack-and-slash action game produced by Sega, originally released for arcades on the Sega System 16 board in 1987. The player controls ninja Joe Musashi, to stop the Zeed terrorist organization from kidnapping students of his clan.
Shinobi was a major commercial success in arcades; it topped the monthly Japanese table arcade charts in December 1987, and became a blockbuster arcade hit in the United States, where it was the highest-grossing conversion kit of 1988 and one of the top five conversion kits of 1989. It was adapted by Sega to its Master System game console, followed by conversions to the Nintendo Entertainment System, PC Engine, and various home computers. It was re-released as downloadable emulated versions of the original arcade game for the Wii and Xbox 360. The arcade game joined the Nintendo Switch in January 2020 through the Sega Ages series. Shinobi's success inspired various sequels and spin-offs of the Shinobi series.
Historian Kiyoshi Watatani states that the ninja were trained to be particularly secretive about their actions and existence:
So-called ninjutsu techniques, in short are the skills of shinobi-no-jutsu and shinobijutsu, which have the aims of ensuring that one's opponent does not know of one's existence, and for which there was special training.[16]
However, some ninjutsu books described specifically what tactics ninja should use to fight, and the scenarios a ninja might find themselves can be deduced from those tactics.