Intercultural Misunderstanding – Chap. 6, Act 2, Strip 11

Poor Professor Ninjaiakis – his somewhat naive believe in universal human teachability ist taking another hit, as another one of his authentic ninja method demonstrations fails to be received …uh…in the intended spirit.

But at least this allows us to take a discerning look at the difference in approaches favored by Janpanese nija and American fratboys. Do not be deceived (as Biff was) by the superficial similarity! Even if Mopey hadn’t meted out Heaven’s punishment to him before he even had a chance to get started, the fratboy approach would never have worked as well as the authentic ninja approach.

Biff might be somewhat deluded concerning his size, but, objectively speaking, the combined length of a katana + sheath gives you a much longer reach – and thus longer forewarning – than whatever length Biff would be able to field ‘naturally’. And the part about thrusting forward if you encounter an enemy probably also works a lot better with a sword than with…I mean, I’m pretty sure that Biff is able to injure people with his ‘weapon’, mostly out of clumsiness, but not the kind of incapcitating injury you’d prefer to inflict on an enemy in the dark.

And, yeah, there are huge wooden mallets with silencers. It’s considered necessary equipment by female ninja, who carry them in their extradimensional pocket, much like Mopey does her non-silenced version. You can’t let people get away with some things, even if circumstances require you to be as quiet as possible.

More on Thursday!