Osaka Castle during the Sakura Festival is a smorgasbord of sights, sounds, and tastes. Despite coming across several dozen food tents, trucks, and grounded establishments, Sarah still saw nothing she wanted other than ice cream. One good thing came from our foodless search: We found a carnival-style game where you pay 500 yen to a woman dressed in ninja gear who arms you with seven ninja stars which you use to the eliminate paper and foam targets menacing the throwing range.
I watched as an unsupervised ten-year-old boy threw his ninja stars with reckless enthusiasm. The poor Japanese Ninja-Carnie had to press herself against the interior wall of the throwing range to try and stay out of the boy's line of fire. I felt bad that her employer had implemented absolutely no safety precautions, but I also reminded myself that every job has its downsides and that getting to wear a ninja costume to work every day kind of balances out the impending threat of being maimed. Besides, she looked content leaning against the far end of the booth and texting on her cellphone, which I might add, in true ninja fashion, she seemed to pull out of nowhere.
I guess I'd been watching for a while because the Ninja-Carnie took notice of me and began hassling me to have a go. She didn't really speak English, but the desperate display of an aggressive sales pitch is a universal. I imagine if carnie-aliens visited Earth to sell us shiny intergalactic crap that it would be much the same: they would start by shouting out only the price, this would be done before even describing or even mentioning the good or service being offered. This would, of course, be shouted in a high pitch that made it seem as though the aliens were being defensive for unknown reasons. Earthlings would be uncomfortable about the alien's inexplicably defensive tone and would feel like they were being somehow on the verge of being drawn into an embarrassing public argument. Earthlings would hold up their hand to gesture no, but also kind of shrug their shoulders hoping their non-committal body language would de-escalate the situation. This would just encourage the aliens to try harder. Now the aliens would peddle out their intergalactic space crap and continue shouting while simultaneously using their slimy tentacles to point back and forth between their goods and the Earthlings. Maybe they'd even start polishing the intergalactic space crap to demonstrate reverence for it. Hopefully, the Earthlings would walk away at this point with their heads down. At least that's usually the smart thing to do.
"Three, four, five hundred yen, there you are," I said. Ninja-Carnie retrieved seven ninja stars and then tried to slide all seven from her wrist in a single fluid motion that would lay them all in a line but instead the first one slid down and then the rest fell all over. She kind of tried again, but this time much slower and she used her other hand to guide them.
Next, Ninja-Carnie pointed to a dry-erase board and attempted to explain that this was the leaderboard. I didn't understand a word she said, but the dry-erase board had "Leaderboard" written at the top. As she continued to speak words and phrases I did not understand I observed that there were two sections to the board: "Adults" and "Kids". The top four adult scores and kid scores were recorded alongside the name of the champion. The top adult score was 400 and the lowest kid score was 104.
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| "Be better than the Japanese at their own game? I'm no Tom Cruise, but I'll do my best." |
I asked Sarah to take care to take many pictures of me from many angles and she agreed.
I posed with my first ninja star and then gave the camera an action shot as I unleashed the star with an overhand slice. It hit the wall, bounced off, and fell to the ground. Sarah took a picture. Ninja-Carnie looked up from her cell-phone, but only for a second.
I practiced my throwing motion several times without the star and several times with. Sarah took a picture.
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| "Wax on, wax off, you got this Daniel-san" |
Feeling confident that my motion was consistent, I loosed my second ninja-star. It went thud and then plunk as it bounced from the wall to the ground.
I inspected my ninja-stars for dullness and other abnormalities (I still maintain they were rather dull). I found the sharpest of the bunch and gave it a hard throw. Thud, plunk. Sarah took a picture.
Ninja-carnie put down her cell-phone briefly to tell me "try and throw it straight". I nodded at her.
This time I focused really hard on keeping everything straight. I imagined every part of my hand, arm, and shoulder involved in the throwing motion and tried to mentally align them. I inhaled, exhaled, and gave my star a perfectly aligned tomahawk throw. Thud, plunk. Sarah let the camera rest around her neck and said nothing. Ninja-carnie gave me a sympathetic smile. She went back to her phone.
I quickly threw the fifth without thinking, hoping that my instinctual throwing motion would win the day. But instead all I got was a thud, plunk.
Ninja-carnie looked up and once again instructed me to "try throwing it straight." I nodded.
With only two stars left I decided that it was time I stopped aiming at the paper targets, which while larger and easier to hit offered less points. It was time to aim for the 100 point foam targets. "Time to go big or go home," I said to Sarah. She nodded and began to look at her phone.
I gave this sixth ninja-star a full wind-up from the lower back and finished the motion with a dexterous follow-through of my forearm and wrist. Thud. It stuck right in the wall. And what's more it was on the corner of one of the bullseye sheets, well outside of the actual bullseye target mind you, but it was on the corner of the paper which the bullseye was printed on.
"Two points" declared Ninja-Carnie. Although I'd been aiming for an entirely different foam target, I had hit a target, and my star had stayed in the wall. I allowed myself a smug smile. Sarah took a picture.
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| "If only they had ESPN highlights in Japan." |
Trying to ride my momentum I repeated the same motion, sending my final ninja-star on its fateful trajectory. Thud, plunk. Sarah took a picture.
"Two points!" Ninja-Carnie declared again, this time announcing my total score.
She pulled out a prize tub filled with plastic keychains made to resemble sushi. I took a piece of octopus nigiri from tub. Sarah wouldn't take a picture.
"I'd hate to see what you win with one point," I joked.
"Same thing. Zero points gets sushi too," Ninja-Carnie replied.
Taking my consolation prize I tried to muse lightheartedly with Ninja-Carnie to show there I didn't take myself too seriously: "Maybe next time I'll throw like this," I said while miming my best frisbee-style ninja-star throw, "like in the movies."
"Nah," she said, "you have to throw straight".
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