About Us Ninja

Established in 2006, I Love Ninja aims to build an online creative community (hub) for the diverse and growing interest of ninja. We have started with a couple animations and a few T-shirt designs. Our designs are casual, fun, a bit naughty, a bit serious, possibly violent but definitely cute. We hope that our supporting Ninja will visit frequently to see new designs by new artists as well as new animations / illustrations, or even join the creative movement.

We are heavily in to the arts and encourage everyone not to dismiss their artistic side. With this website we hope to have a constant flow of guest artists creating designs for shirts and / or other items. We will have a section of our website where we will post a bio of the artists and their works as well as link to their site to promote their artwork. We hope to gain connections, promote art, and give more awareness to these artists.

A brief interpretation of the characters that make the word Ninja:

in romaji, "Shinobi" means "to do so as not to be perceived by others". in romaji means "thing" or "person".
These two compounded make up in romaji, "Shinobi no Mono" or the more popular "Ninja". In essence, Ninja means one skilled in the art of stealth.

NINJA has many, many meanings due to the multitude of meanings each character possesses; a couple of which are "one with patience" or "benevolent heart". Most believe that ninja are heartless assassins but they carry deep philosophy and regard for life behind their art of stealth. We at I LOVE NINJA strive to keep the ninja spirit alive in everyone...to keep the strength, patience, trust and focus needed to enjoy those rare moments that seem like magic.

Naming our company

"When discussing what to name our company my partner asked me what it was exactly that I loved about ninja, and my reply was "I don't know... I just love ninja." I think at first, by the look on her face, she was disappointed that I didn't respond with a paragraph of meaningful verbiage for her to work with, but then her eyes lit up and she said 'I Love Ninja!'...perfect."

The Undertakers

Makoto Ninja, a 3D Animator by day, runs his own business collaborating with architects, local business owners, non profit organizations and artists. Since he can remember he has loved ninja.

In his first youth as a child, he would wrap a black T-shirt around his head with the neck hole revealing only his eyes and head off into the woods near his house where he would imagine himself a ninja in feudal Japan.

In his second youth as an adolescent discovering his natural interest in creating artwork he filled page after page with drawings of ninja doing ordinary things like over-the-hill ninja holding "will work for pizza" signs to goofy not-so-ninja taking photographs of themselves in broad daylight.

In his third youth he made his first CG character animation called Kabetsu Ninja.

...and now it is only fitting that he be a cofounder of I Love Ninja.

Miho Morinoue, a retired contemporary ballet dancer, returned to her home town in Hawaii after 13 years of living in NYC. She is now perusing her own art and has joined Makoto in the feat to bring the ninja spirit alive and uses this opportunity to exercise more playful ideas.

"When I was a little girl I remember sneaking to a bookstore in Japan to buy 'manga' (Japanese comic novels). It is one of the reasons I continue to draw today. I had a pretty good collection going before my mom caught me using money I wasn't supposed to - my ninpo was not good then. Now older and most of the time overly serious, struggling to survive and make art, drawing ninja is a great pastime: first by way of utterly cute ninja beasties and then by way of cunning wit and attitude. Life always surprises me."

About this symbol: We wish we could take credit for this awesome creation, but we cannot. While visiting Iga, Japan we happened on this genius piece of Shyuji (the art of Japanese calligraphy) that was tucked away in a small soba (noodle) shop. As soon as we laid eyes upon it we were enthralled by its creativity. The original artist (of whom the shop keepers who housed the piece had no idea of his origins) had taken the Kanji characters of Ninja and creatively composed them in a way to illustrate a meditating Ninja. We celebrate this creative genius and share it with you.

"Ninja Zoku"

NINJA MOUSE: Our first character designed together as a team.

"Not to long ago, I was called 'Miho Mouse' by a German friend of mine in Seattle. It inspired me to illustrate my first ninja character and I sent it to Makoto. A year later it evolved into what you see now."

Ninja Mouse is a master of retsu and has conquered the dimension of time through many years of training alone. With his ability to perceive the good through so much that is bad he reached out to many lost ninja and thus created this ninja zoku (family).

KUNOICHI: When the term Kunoichi is used it is most often describing a female Ninja, although Kunoichi can also be translated as "One of Nine". This carries over to legend where in Ninja clans composed of nine members have one that is female. Her technique is a very different and special one; instead of sneaking around in shadow, her role was to infiltrate the residence of the target as a servant or worker, thus gaining access to private conversations and other types of sensitive information - a perfect spy.

Our Kunoichi is portrayed as a young girl and is the master of zai. She was born a shadow and moves as the wind moves. She does not need food, drink or shelter and exists as a guide for those with the passion to do what is good in this world. She also represents the beauty of mystery.

BAKA NINJA GUMI: The Three Stooges of Ninjitsu, in no particular order are: Baka (stupid), Doji (clumsy) and Debu (lovably plump or simply fat).

Baka who carries a good heart but lacks focus wields a stick as his weapon.

Doji is the probably the hardest working of the three but is extremely distracted from any mission by constantly trying to keep his teammates focused.

Debu, the most content (and possibly unaware) of the three, rolls around a magical cooler that carries his tummy's every desire.

What use they carry is yet to be discovered.

CHIBI NINJA: Her battering lashes and huge sparkly eyes make Chibi (small child or short person) quite possibly the cutest of all our Ninja but may also the most threatening.

Contributors

In no particular order...