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Ninjas are a dying breed, but the Japan Ninja Council has come up with a new plan to drum up excitement around the iconic warriors. As the Associated Press reports, the organization plans to open a ninja museum in Tokyo in 2018.
The plan is part of a nationwide “Cool Japan” initiative, which aims to promote the country’s many cultural treasures leading up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. In addition to building a new museum, the council also plans to found an academy dedicated to instructing a new generation of ninjas. According to the AP, there’s only one true Ninja (Jinichi Kawakami, a master of the Koga ninja school) left in the country.
The covert spies were most common from the 15th to the 17th centuries, but the council insists that the values of dedication and humility the ninjas displayed are still useful today. The country’s Aichi Prefecture agrees—last year the region put out a call for six full-time ninjas in an effort to promote “warlord tourism.”
[h/t Skift]
February 26, 2017 – 4:00pm