Supah Ninjas is a Nickelodeon live-action Ninja-themed show. Mike Fukanaga's grandfather (George Takei) recently passed away, but it's not long after that Mike (Ryan Potter) and his best friend Owen (Carlos Knight) discover that he took a few secrets to the grave with him after they find an entire secret ninja dojo under Mike's bed. Now it's up to Mike, Owen, and the Love Interest Amanda (Gracie Dzienny) to fight off all the baddies who appear in their town. Also Mike's dead grandpa appears via hologram and trains him and his friends the same way everyone else in his family trained to be ninjas, excluding Owen's father, a cop, who must not know about all the secret business going on right under his nose.
Several story arcs tie into the plot as well, largely focusing on Mike's family's ninja background, and that not everyone uses their powers for good. However, you might find it hard to keep up with due to Nickelodeon never airing a single preview.
This series provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: The character of The Rhymer is basically an excuse for Christopher Reid (of Kid 'N Play and House Party fame) to put his rap skills to use.
- Affectionate Parody: Of action comedies, supervillains, and teenage superheroes.
- Alliterative Name: Season 2 introduces an Anti-Villain named Flint Forster.
- Alpha Bitch: Amanda subverts this. You'd think she would be one, given that she comes from a wealthy family, is a cheerleader, is the most popular girl in school, and has her own Girl Posse. However, she's also a straight-A student and doesn't have a mean bone in her body.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Martin Fukanaga, Mike's dorky dad.
- Antagonist Title: Most episodes are named after their main villain.
- Asian and Nerdy: Mike.
- The B Grade: Amanda is seen going nuts on her training in "Checkmate" because she got an A- on a biology test.
- Bluff the Impostor: Mike tries to do this to Jellyface when the latter is in the guise of his dad, but it fails because the impostor has done his homework. However, Mike already knows he's a fake, with or without the bluff. The thing that tips him off? The impostor said that Mike "would make a great cop someday." Mike's father doesn't think Mike can be a cop.
- Bumbling Dad: Martin Fukanaga. He’s very goofy.
- Cannot Dream: Owen mentions it in "DJ Elephant Head", that is, until DJ Elephant Head put him to sleep.
- The Chessmaster: Checkmate, fittingly enough.
- City of Adventure: Empire City
- Clip Show: Ninja Intervention.
- Cool Sword: The Floating Sword.
- Criminal Mind Games: Checkmate plays them.
- Dance Battler: In "DJ Elephant Head", the titular Villain of the Week is helped by two backup dancers that also can back him up when it comes to fight. Their fighting moves are actually a mixture of martial arts and dance moves, and the two henchwomen fight in tune with the music and synchronized with each other. Amanda comments that it looks pretty, but the heroes are also able to use it against them to read their moves.
- Deadpan Snarker: Most of the cast, but props to Hologramps for putting the emphasis on 'Dead.'
- Dude Magnet: Amanda. Several boys get a crush on her throughout the show: Mike, Cameron, Flint, an unnamed, muscular, handsome guy and two sci-fi nerds in X, Kickbutt and the other members of the computer club in Kickbutt, and Connor.
- Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Of course, being ninjas, our heroes know martial arts. However, a surprising number of antagonists also know martial arts, including for instance the evil DJ of "DJ Elephant Head" and his backup dancers
- Evil Twin: Kagema Fukanaga, Hattori "Hologramps" Fukanaga's older brother.
- Expy: Forester is for Green Arrow and Robin Hood. His name, however, is most likely a reference to Hawkeye. (Hawkeye's real name is Clint while Forester's first name is Flint.)
- Checkmate bears more than a few similarities with The Riddler.
- Extracurricular Enthusiast: Amanda, demonstrated in "Checkmate". When fretting about her A-, she says that her parents will make her drop cheerleading, which will only leave her with Tennis, Debate Team, and a number of others. Mike's response: "What will you do with all of that free time?"
- Fake-Out Make-Out: Between Mike and Amanda in the second episode.
- Fatal Flaw:
- Amanda's is that she has trouble accepting anything less than perfection for herself. She gets over this in "Checkmate", following Hologramps' advice that "The perfect ninja knows there is no such thing as perfection"
- Checkmate has one similar to the above, in that he never learned how to accept when he was beaten.
- Graceful Loser: Amanda in "Checkmate" when forfeiting her chess game with the titular villain.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode is named after its main antagonist(s) with the exceptions of:
- Detention, which features the return of a villain from a previous episode.
- The Floating Sword, named for the McGuffin.
- Instant Web Hit: Kickbutt, aka Spencer, is a famed Internet superhero who builds his reputation by recording his attacks on criminals with a camera attached to his helmet.
- Jive Turkey: Owen. Not only does he speak in a lot of slang, he's also makes the most jokes, takes things the least serious, and is the main source of comic relief. Uncle Tomfoolery too.
- McNinja: Mike's an interesting borderline case, given that he's Japanese-American and presented as being from a long line of ninja. Owen and Amanda are textbook-straight examples.
- Meaningful Name: Antagonist Mrs Morningstar fights with a spiked ball-and-chain weapon; the spiked ball bringing in mind the medieval weapon called morning star
. - Mighty Glacier: Two Ton Harley.
- Mugged for Disguise: In "Morningstar Academy", Amanda defeats one of the criminal girls of the Morningstar Academy offscreen and is shown in the next shot wearing the girl's uniform.
- Ninja Brats
- Ordinary High-School Student: All three of the main heroes are in high school.
- Police Are Useless: Despite Hologramps claiming that Martin is a good cop, he’s a goofy bumbler, and he and the rest of Empire City’s police force prove completely incapable of handling the supervillains and criminals causing trouble in Empire City.
- Rhymes on a Dime: The Rhymer's gimmick, if his name wasn't an obvious hint. But despite his skills, his rhyming venacular is a bit lacking, as he was outwitted and out-rhymed by Amanda, who managed to make more rhymes ending in "eez" than him.
- Secret-Keeper: Quentin becomes this to the ninjas.
- Shirtless Scene: Mike while training in "Ishina."
- Shout-Out:
- One of the villains is named Katara.
- Kickbutt
- In Checkmate, after Amanda concedes the chess match against Checkmate:Checkmate: That's not how you play the game. You have to play to win.
Amanda: Not this time Checkmate. The only winning move in this game is not to play.
- Stout Strength: " Two Ton Harley" is about the eponymous member of a biker gang who was formerly a seven foot tall bean pole. After the rest of his gang was put in jail he put on massive amounts of weight so he could literally throw it around and bust them out by breaking through walls and bending steel.
- Uncle Tomfoolery: Owen spends WAY too much time being laughed AT, as opposed to laughed WITH.
- Writing Around Trademarks: Arkham-sorry, Eternum Asylum.
- Working Through the Cold: Mike had to do this during "Morningstar Academy."
- Yandere: Gina AKA Wallflower, to Owen.
