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Ninja in The Tick demonstrate their own brand of stealth. The result of Mook Chivalry when applied to Ninja.
While suffering from the law of Conservation of Ninjitsu, Ninja mooks not only forget how to fight properly and how to take advantage of their superior numbers, they also forget what a ninja is.
Back at the dojo, didn't their sensei explain that the whole point is to be stealthy, secretive, even invisible? Why do they suddenly feel the need to appear in stereotyped kabuki-theatre stagehand costumes in broad daylight, yell kiai, perform gymnastics, and twirl their weapons like a student performing kata?
Even worse, they feel the need to do these things from a distance of about fifty meters, even when they know the enemy have guns. Although sometimes this isn't a problem.
There's also this funny parodox. Ninja are assassins, assassins traditionally killed people through underhanded methods; stabbing in the back, poisoning, etc.; not direct battle. Not only isn't this honorable, it's not as exciting as a full fledged fight. Heroic ninja don't resort to this, while villainous ones still need to entertain the viewers.
EDIT: Actually, this troper LAR Ped Ninjutsu for over a year and would like to point out that Ninja were spies, not assassins. The previous lie has been spread by pirates.
The Theme Park Version of ninja. Often seen in Mc Ninja.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Quite a few members of the cast of Naruto. Even ignoring the title character's road-cone orange Limited Wardrobe, it sometimes seems ninjutsu in the Naruto universe is less about stealth than showing off flashy, awe-inspiring jutsu (although really, the Ninja in Naruto are more like Jedi than anything else; and as such, more like Samurai than ninja.) Of course, they do have a lot of other forms of trickery like illusion, duplicates, smokescreens, and replacing yourself with A LOG.
- Zabuza Momochi is a subversion in this, being the only one of the entire cast who actually bothered to try and be stealthy about things, aiming to remain unseen and unheard, and dispatch people silently, you know like ninja should.
- being able to summon up a 'pea soup' thick mist helps alot in the being unseen endeavour, considering he's carrying what could be best described as a giant steel paddle on his back.
- In one of the many filler arcs between the end of Naruto and the beginning of Shipuuden, the main antagonist is actually very stealthy and cunning, Hiding In Plain Sight by disguising himself as a trusted advisor to the family he was seeking to assassinate, managing to even kill one of them without blowing his cover. When he is eventually found out, Kakashi berates him, telling him that such sneaky tactics are not the true ninja way. What the hell?
- Lampshaded in Naruto The Abridged Series. Namely in how Naruto himself is actually visible from miles away.
- Averted in Nabari No Ou: Most of the ninja wear normal clothes and don't look all that much out of the ordinary. One of them even pulls a gun on another ninja trying to be impressive. Even the rather large Fuma village was hidden by illusions and can not be reached by the general populace unless a ninja is there to dispel them. It was also lampshaded, when Miharu ran a traditionally dressed ninja who stood out.
- Two words: Superbia Squalo. UUOOOOOOOOOOOIII.
- Black Star from Soul Eater not only calls his attacks out, but also screams loudly before he enters a scene. "YA-HOOOOOOOO" indeed. All while his Empathic Weapon Tsubaki reminds him that he's supposed to be stealthy.
- Although he can be stealthy when he needs to, as we see at the end of his prolog. He just has to be stealthy in a flashy way.
- Ninja Master Gara from Bastard. Not only is he a 7'7, 320lbs man, but he also throws shurikens the size of an aircraft tire and weilds Murasame, a legendary 2 meters long Katana. He also has a knack for making long, drawn out speeches before a fight (so drawn out his allies don't even wait for him to finish and attack their opponent before he's done) and later in the story he gains a bunch of overpowered light based abilities. Not very stealthy.
- Subverted by Ranma 1/2's Konatsu the Kunoichi. Even though his uniform is bright red, he's incredibly stealthy, surprising even the most sensitive martial arts masters in the series.
- Ninja Ninja in Afro Samurai is loud-mouthed and ridiculously visible (although he's somewhat stealthy in the second episode, hiding in the rafters of a house), especially considering that he's hanging out with a samurai who kills everyone he meets. But then, he's a hallucination anyways.
- In New Getter Robo, the main characters are attacked by a ninja Oni. Doesn't sound so bad at first, but since the protagonists are Humongous Mecha pilots, and said Oni is around 200 feet tall...
Comic Books
- Ninjette from Empowered. Girlfriend, if the shuriken themed headband, necklace, earrings, and navel-ring were not bad enough, wearing short-shorts with "NINJETTE" printed across the seat is a bit of a red flag. Of course she noted that her look was at least in part to tick off her father and the squad that eventually tried to haul her back to her New Jersey clan were rather more subtle.
Film
- Most 80s movies with "Ninja" in the title, especially the American Ninja series.
- Lampshaded in the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie:
Splinter: Were you seen?
Leonardo: Of course not, Master Splinter.
Donatello: We practiced ninja.
Michaelangelo: The art of invisibility.
Splinter: (holds up newspaper with a picture of the Turtles on the front page) Practice harder.
- Also occurs in one of the Ninja Turtles video games. Splinter explains that they must move silently and invisibly. Is the player in for Metal Gear Solid type stealth? No, the game is a standard Beat Em Up in which the heroes walk through the streets in full view, beating enemies up.
- This Troper recalls an episode where Splinter had to steal a Mac Guffin from a museum to prevent Shredder from getting it. He was quick, he was quiet, and he was unseen.
- Spies Like Us: In the woods at night, they turn on floodlights, so that they can show off better! Then, when the Scary Black Man general wants to show how tough he is, they obligingly rush him one at a time.
- Spoofed in Surf Ninjas, in which Rob Schneider's character comments sarcastically on how the ninja's camouflage uniforms really give them a "chameleon-like ability to blend in with their surroundings."
- In Lady Ninja: Reflections in Darkness, the female ninja wear (or almost wear, as the case may be) brightly coloured Stripperiffic ninja outfits.
- Averted in The Hunted with Christpher Lambert where ninja actually disguise themselves to blend in and wear the stereotypic ninja outfit exclusively for night missions. The one instance they become highly visible is on a moving train where they intend to kill all passengers anyway.
- The "evil" ninja in the movie "3 Ninjas". I'll leave it to the Nostalgia Critic to explain
 . "You're only supposed to wear [ninja outfits] in the dark, you morons!"
- High Noon at Mega Mountain takes this to a whole new level - three men called "Big Dawgs" chase Colt and Tum Tum to the set of a Western play. The Big Dawgs actually take off their clothing to reveal their ninja outfits underneath! In the middle of the day, and in plain sight of the kids, too! Subverted, however, late in the movie, where the boys are appropriately fighting off ninjas in a dark basement.
- Subverted, averted, played straight, inverted, and subverted again in Batman Begins. In no particular order...
- First, the League of Shadows are ninja, culled from all over the world, and apparently living in the Himalayas, not Japan. Henri Ducard notes to him that while Bruce has learned to conceal himself, they can teach him to become truly invisible. Bruce repeats this in surprise almost as if expecting them to reveal some technology or mystical technique...only for a pair of League of Shadows members to drop down on command from the low ceiling he had passed under not a moment before.
- Second, when the League of Shadows leave their mountain monastery, they are dressed as is appropriate—whether as police, well-to-do members of society, or what-have-you.
- Third, "theatricality and deception can be powerful weapons". The general idea here seems to be: if you are to be seen, make it so that they don't remember you specifically, just the tricks you used. Explosive powders as distractions, distinctive but concealing costumes...when Bruce becomes Batman he deliberately dresses up as his own worst fear and cultivates an aura of almost mystical fear.
- Fourth, when the League of Shadows launches their attack, some of them are dressed up as cops, though their behavior gives them away. Others are dressed in ninja gear. "Ducard" (see below) wears his dapper suit with cane, as do several of his minions, when they ambush Bruce at his birthday party, with nothing concealing their face. However, the masked ninja types only come out when the fear toxin is already in the air, meaning people will just remember something terrifying anyway; dudes wandering around sedately in armor and masks probably won't draw must attention.
- Fifth, there is the deception of Ra's al Ghul. Ken Watanabe's character is supposed to be Ra's, but he's not, just a body double. The real Ra's al Ghul—assuming it's a name, not a title—was Ducard all along.
Literature
- Inverted? Averted? Subverted? In Discworld's Night Watch, where a young Vetrinari is able to assasinate the Patrican by use of a Highly Visible outfit. That is, he shuns the traditional, stylish assasins' black for green paint and tiger stripes. However, he still carries the black for the final inhumation (like exhumation but before you're dead) as it would be terrible form not to.
- Averted. The point of the outfit was that it was the firing of a Chekovs Gun from earlier in the book, where the young Vetrinari had been reading about camouflage in the wild. The facepaint would have been to dull the shine from his skin, whilst the tiger stripes would have been to make him look like a blur from a distance.
Live Action TV
- Any Power Rangers installment that featured ninja, even their Super Sentai counterparts.
- In the lonelygirl15 video "My School Project" - actually Danielbeast's school project, "When Ninjas Attack" - two highly visible ninja sneak stealthily into a house... then stand in the kitchen drinking water until they get spotted.
Videogames
- Most 80s video games with ninja villains, especially Bad Dudes vs. Dragoninja.
- Joe Musashi in every Shinobi that came after the original arcade game. It seems difficult for a ninja to blend in when he's decked out in high-contrast red and white pajamas (not that he ever really tries to). His contemporaries also have an impractically loud fashion sense: Hibana wears a red-and-white ensemble similar to his own, while Hotsuma wears spiky black armor topped with a bright red scarf that's thirty feet long.
- Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa fights in the open with a wide variety of impractical-for-stealth weapons, pulling off moves that are flashy and all-too-obvious, including casting spells where he stands still while fire or electricity swirls around him. In fact, some fans have reportedly called him more of a samurai than a ninja. Probably not too much of a falsehood.
- It might also be added that even though Ryu might sort of at least dress in the black pajamas, even if he WAS somewhat stealthy in his actions,following where he's been would not be a difficult thing to do.
- On the other hand, if there are no surviving witnesses within a several mile radius. . .
- Best one has to be when he apparently gets a ticket for an airship, rides in the airship, and is seen in his cabin reading a magazine...ALL IN HIS NINJA OUTFIT!
- Ninja Burger, a series of games about ninja delivering hamburgers, has as their prime protagonists the "white ninjas", legendary masters of stealth that dress in bright obvious white suits.
- Mai Shiranui from The King Of Fighters. Come on, she's practically half-naked as well as *really* well-stacked. And in fact, in the SNK vs. Capcom series, several characters call out on her (namely Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li) in their introduction dialogues. Ultimately, even SNK has made fun of this: Maximum Impact 2 has Hattori Hanzo as a playable character, and when he faces Mai, their intro has him question what the hell has happened to ninjitsu since his day.
- At least one Fan Fiction presented the theory that the whole stripperiffic "nimbo" persona was a form of hiding in plain sight. Anyone who hears she is a ninja, or sees her at all, would dismiss her as a bad joke until she caves in his head.
- Fan fascination with Mai has prevented mention of the much more obvious Andy Bogard, who wears mostly white and doesn't even tie back his long blond hair.
- Maximum Impact 2 also introduced Nagase, "The Ninja Computer Geek", who dresses in what can best be described as a bright yellow J-pop bumblebee dress. However the trope is justified in that Nagase has no intention of being stuck in the shadows all her life: she wants to become famous.
- Yeah, the "fanservice ninja" thing seems to fit Sheena Fujibayashi pretty well, too.
- To be honest Mai seems more like the Kuniochi types aka seduce your foes then burn/cut/maim them minus the kill yourself part their kin is known of
- Similar case with Taki from Soul Calibur. She wears a red skintight suit and jumps around screaming a lot. But then again it might be hard to spot the ninja hiding behind those enormous, uh, talents of hers.
- Frank the American Ninja from Shadow Hearts: From the New World is about as stealthy as a clown (and kind of looks like one too). In his introduction scene he attempts to hide himself by using the classic ninja trick of holding a piece of wall-patterned cloth in front of himself (the "Art of Hiding" he calls it)- but uses an brightly-coloured flag. Obviously it doesn't work. His new teammates immediately call him out on how much he sucks at it. His clanmate Britney is almost as bad, being a blonde who wears a bright pink gi.
- The ninja of Mortal Kombat wear brightly-coloured vests that aren't exactly conducive to stealth - Scorpion's canary yellow outfit leaps to mind. Ironically, some ninja in real life really did wear blue, so maybe Sub-Zero could get away with it. In this case, though, this was probably just to differentiate between them in the earlier games. On top of that, to be fair to Scorpion, the original story (before it was retconned) was that when he was brought back from the dead he specifically chose a yellow version of Sub-Zero's outfit as a Take That, calling Sub-Zero a coward. This was Ret Conned when we actually got to see Scorpion before his death and they put him in that outfit anyway. A lot of the other "ninja" aren't actually ninja, like bright red Ermac, or all-black Noob Saibot (pity since he's got the best costume for a ninja). Sadly, Cyrax and Sektor (clad in bright red and yellow) are ninja, even if they're also robots now. In Mortal Kombat: Mythologies, Sub-Zero asserted that the Lin Kuei are absolutely not ninja - and hey, he'd know. So it's presumably fine for him and his posse to wear technicolor uniforms and jumpkick people under the midday sun. Maybe that's how your average stealthy assassination goes in China. Of course, this is mostly moot, as these are costumes they were to a fighting tournament where there's little to no stealth involved.
- Actually Noob Saibot is a ninja considering the fact that he is actually the original Sub-Zero. Not to mention the fact that he uses ninja techniques (invisibility) and weapons (throwing stars).
- Every Ape Escape game has at least one Japanese-themed stage with traditional dojos and ninja paraphernalia, usually including a few monkeys decked out in ninja garb. Of course, they still have helmets with large flashing lights on top, and start screaming and running around as soon as you approach.
- Namco's arcade and PS2 light gun game Ninja Assault. Long story short, you play a ninja with guns!
- Destroy All Humans 2 had an island in Japan where black and white ninja were fighting. Not surprisingly, they wore complete black, or complete white in public. Every time Crypto questioned or lampshaded this or the existance of ninjas in 1960's Japan, everyone would reply "Everybody loves ninjas."
- Yukimaru and Fubuki from Disgaea 2 are members of a ninja clan whose village is perpetually covered in snow, making an all-white uniform the perfect camouflage. Well, at least it would, if the Snow Clan did all of their missions within their village.
- Of course, their traditional outfits also include light blue and even magenta, so...
- Done very deliberately with Kyoko Needleworker, a ninja who makes a point of always challenging her opponents in broad daylight.
- A.N.V.I.L. saboteurs in Evil Genius are Highly Visible Ninjas wearing (in order of increasing ability) black, red, blue and white uniforms. Actually, the white uniforms blend in well in the brightly lit stainless steel hallways of the Elaborate Underground Base, but that advantage is lost when they step into any other type of room.
- Final Fantasy Tactics A2 contains a ninja that, in order to assassinate someone, walks on screen, talks to them, and then shoots them with a gun. This makes even less sense in the context of the game, where it is illegal for ninja to use any weapons but swords.
- The important thing is, you weren't expecting it. Isn't that the key ability of a ninja?
- Kasumi from the Suikoden 1&2 wears a quite pink/red outfit for no real reason
- Slightly subverted by Guilty Gear's Chipp Zanuff, who can actually turn (partly) invisible with a special move. Hilariously, as he does so he yells, "Find me!" Other than that, though, he sticks heavily to the trope... but then he's an American who just really wants to be a ninja. The quote at the top of the page is directed at him, and follows a Cluster F Bomb Chipp gives when Bridget reads off a very unflattering description of his "ninja skills".
- Izuna, the Unemployed (and Very Hot) Ninja dresses in a bright red outfit with thick hose and fishnets.
- Lampshaded in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All in the final case with the "Jammin' Ninja," a ninja with a bright red guitar whose goal in life is to become a star. Phoenix himself notes just how ridiculous the concept is.
- It should be pointed out that within Phoenix's world, the Jammin' Ninja is a TV character. Also, his bizarre choice of path in life is explained as being because he's not actually a very good ninja, so he chose a career that wouldn't need him to be able to do ninja things.
- I'd watch it.
- The Jougenshuu Sennin in Beat Blades Haruka go as far as to announce their presence to the enemy Noroi prior to doing battle. Somewhat justified in that Mission Control reasoned that the best way to get the public on their side was to follow Magical Girl tropes.
- Dark Ninja, mooks from Painkiller. Some charge at Daniel, others hang back and toss shuriken. None bother to hide.
Webcomics
- Subversion: You'd think Dr. McNinja would have a hard time sneaking around, dressed like a doctor with a traditional ninja outfit underneath that. Nope, actually, he manages to keep to close-quarters combat most of the time... If he gets shot at or has to throw a soda machine at a team of security guards, it's generally implied that the situation is a pretty rough one. Of course, most non-villains who recognize him just accept that he's eccentric. "Yeah, he's using someone else's ID as a disguise again."
- Ninja on a plane in Yosh!
- Subverted in Freefall with, of all things, French ninja waiters. Warren and Florence never actually see any of them, except for one short, portly, otherwise indescript man who distracts them while other ninja deliver their food. As the apparent head of the restaurantexplains when a waiter complains that the man looks nothing like a ninja, that is exactly what a ninja should look like.
- Order Of The Stick has ninja that are highly visible to the reader, and should be highly visible to other characters, but since it's set in a Role Playing Game Verse, they're effectively invisible anyway.
- Seriously lampshaded in Elf Only Inn.
- Thief of 8-bit Theater has a gang of "law ninja" who wear bright red.
- Oddly, the Ninja class in the first Final Fantasy wore bright red in the first place, at least in the original version. They're probably an example of this themselves, if it comes to that.
- Referencing this, the three strips or so after Thief first became a ninja, he wore the bright red Highly Visible Ninja suit from the original. They were then remade, and the strips replaced with him wearing a black ninja suit from the class change onward.
- Randy Milholland pokes fun at the trope in this con sketch◊.
- Raymondo Person recently introduced "Barry Scrumbles, Non-Stealth Ninja". He has business cards.
- White Ninja, although this is possibly not an example because he may not even be a real ninja for all anyone knows. White Ninja is not something you can or should try to apply regular logic to.
Western Animation
Real Life
- Historically, ninja used multiple disguises to appear as everyday members of Japan's social castes, which involved training themselves in the target speech patterns, lifestyle habits and mannerisms - a hell of a lot more than wearing a costume. They went as far as burning specific incense or spices into their clothes so they would smell like the person they were impersonating. In the sense that they were walking around in full public view, these ninja were Highly Visible, but also hiding in plain sight. That, my friends, is invisibility.
- If the history is to be trusted, junior ranking ninja often would dress up in Highly Visible ninja clothes and arm themselves with stereotypical ninja weapons. Their purpose was not to be stealthy infiltrators, but rather to be the distraction. The guards end up chasing the Highly Visible Ninja who just flung a couple of shuriken their way, allowing the real ninja agent to sneak in and get the job done.
- The sterotypical ninja costume is actually the costume of a Kabuki theatre prop handler. Since the handlers were on set all of the time and simply ignored by the audience, it was high drama for one to suddenly brandish a weapon and attack the hero.
- This troper has also run an RPG during the height of Mortal Kombat popularity, resulting in several characters cropping up loosely based on that game's Palette Swapped and elemental-themed ninja. He drew the line, however, when someone wanted to play 'Sol, the Ninja of the Sun', who glowed radiantly wherever he went. His first attempt to climb a tower guarded by Mooks with crossbows tragically cut short his stellar (solar?) career.
- This troper repainted some Heroclix ninja to help differentiate them during large games. While the dark green ninja drew some comments, not one person thought there was anything amiss about the white clad ninja.
- This troper's character in an RP was a career ninja who was hired by someone who turned out to be the Big Bad to catch the rebels. For the first few sessions he got to do ninja stuff, but after a while, the character was more developed and did indeed turn into a Highly Visible Ninja, who used his combat prowess for showing off (as well as in combat). Owing as his character was one of the two Chosen, he hasn't been able to do sneaky ninja missions for quite a while, but his refusal to remove his self-proclaimed "ninja" status has led to some rather humorous Lampshade Hanging by the other characters to his Highly Visible Ninja status. Rather than view this is a bad thing, I've embraced it, because it's far more in character for him to show off than to try and hide.
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