5 Popular Ninja Weapons And Their Uses

5 min readDec 17, 2020

Ninja and their cleverly designed ninja weapons have left an indelible mark on the footprint of Japanese martial arts as well as pop culture. The hysteria around these espionage weapons is so great that ninja weapons will never go out of date.

We present you the top 5 ninja weapons that must have seen in movies or tv series. Enjoy!

Fukiya

Fukiya is probably the most ruthless ninja weapon of all. It beats all ninja swords and knives by being an innocent looking ninja weapon that kills silently but agonizingly.

Fukiya was basically a long bamboo tube that ninja used to shoot out poisoned darts onto their target. This ninja weapon could be easily concealed under a robe and suited ninja style of discreet attack very well.

A ninja would hide behind a tree or somewhere at a distance from the target of his assasiantion and wait for the right moment to use his ninja weapon. As soon as the poor victim was at a range for a good aim-a ninja would use fukiya-like we use a blow gun today-to hit a nail or needles drenched in deadly poison.

A person would just feel a prick and won’t even know what had hit him before the poison would start curdling his blood. The victim wouldn’t even see his killer or the ninja weapon that was taking his life.

The best part about the fukiya was that it could be used as a snorkel for ninja to breath underwater as he hid and waited for the right time to strike with his ninja weapon. If that isn’t cool according to 15th century standards, we don’t know what is?

Kakute

Think of a brass knuckle in ninja style, and you would get a kakute. This ninja weapon was a ring worn on the middle finger or thumb with a sharp protruding blade attached to it pointing inwards towards the palm. We told you ninja were clever with their weapon designs.

A kakute was a widely used ninja weapon as it was super easy to conceal in plain sight. If a wrist was clenched, no one would guess a person was wearing a ring with a hidden blade-not until the ninja weapon was deployed to slit the throat by the assassin.

Most ninja wore more than one kakute to attack the abdomen or for quick death. The victim would be left with claw-marks all over his face and everyone would know which ninja weapon had caused such gruesomeness.

This ninja weapon was ideal for hand to hand combat which was preferred by female ninja in particular. The close range combat made kakute an easy weapon to deploy with its short sharp blade.

Another clever way to use this ninja weapon was to lace it with poison. That way one small cut was enough to cause the most painful death imaginable and went well with ninja style of silent sabotage.

Shuriken

If anything defines a ninja’s throwing skills, it is a ninja shooting star. Shuriken is not exclusively a ninja weapon as it was heavily used by samurai as well. But only the swiftness and agility of ninja warriors fully utilized the deadliest potential of this ninja weapon.

Shuriken was shaped in various forms-each design changed the way this ninja weapon was thrown. A 3-point shuriken for example, was ideally thrown sideways and was meant to actually strike the target. By contrast, an 8-point ninja star was thrown vertically to have maximum range and was used merely to distract an opponent.

Most ninja used shuriken to make an escape. A reverse throw was mastered by ninja to distract the chasing enemy by using the ninja star as the ninja was running and looking ahead.

Like most ninja weapons, shuriken was often dipped in poison and then struck to increase its lethality. Sometimes, charcoal was used to cover the ninja star to prevent the blade from rusting as well as to keep the ninja weapon hidden.

Most ninja wore black robes, and a charcoal dusted shuriken would become a hidden weapon that was quickly thrown and all the eny saw was a blur of black mass before it hit him on the feet or the eye.

Some truly well-trained would actually use a ninja star as a striking weapon, not just a distraction device. A well aimed shuriken was the stuff of nightmares for many enemies of the ninja who feared this ninja weapon more than anything else.

Tekko-Kagi

Perhaps the most seen ninja weapon of all, a tekko kagi or the iron-claw is what makes Wolverine the best X-men in our opinion. Just like a kakute, this ninja weapon could at once be used to hook and hold onto something and consequently used in attack.

The ninja claw was fashioned out of gardening tools and ninja wore it primarily as a defense weapon. The claw was used to obstruct on coming attacks effectively.

You might think an iron claw would hinder natural wrist movement of the ninja-but it’s actually the opposite. This ninja weapon was an extension of a ninja’s fingers and would allow him to disarm his opponent whether he was holding a sword or a knife.

This ninja weapon extended a ninja’s reach and still remains a symbol of guerilla warfare that embodies ninjutsu.

Bo Staff

By the 15th century, samurai were the only class in feudal Japan that enjoyed the right to own a sword. The common folks were quick to deploy clever tactics in forging ninja weapons that could be cheaply made from everyday farming tools.

We get a Bo staff, or ninja stick that was used as a walking aid by many people. This ninja weapon was made of bamboo or hardwood and was mastered by ninja as a weapon to defend themselves when they had no right to own a sword.

Bo staff-made of wood, was surprisingly effective against swords and sharp blades because of the thickness of the stick and angle at which it was swung to block a knife attack.

This simple ninja weapon was ideal to strike, thrust and block. Ninja were capable of poking holes in their opponent using the bo staff. Such is the popularity of this ninja weapon that even in this day and age, many kenjutsu techniques involve a bo staff as a martial arts weapon.

We hope you got a nice little round up of 5 popular ninja weapons and their enduring legacy. See you next time!