Could ninjas really walk on water? Hanzo is about to find out the wet way.
Meet the mizugumo, or “water spider,” a tool depicted in the Bansenshukai, a ninja manual compiled in 1676. The familiar shoe interpretation is not the whole story: one interpretation places the device around the waist as a float. Its exact historical use remains uncertain.
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Hanzo and Danzo are original fictional characters. Their dialogue, mishap, and demonstration are dramatizations. The flotation scene illustrates one interpretation, not a proven historical reconstruction.
Sources:
Bansenshukai and its 1676 compilation — National Diet Library:
https://www.ndl.go.jp/kaleido/entry/33/4.html
Water techniques and the flotation interpretation — Professor Yuji Yamada:
https://www.igaportal.co.jp/ninja/1748
Mizugumo experiment — Mie University International Ninja Research Center:
https://ninjacenter.rscn.mie-u.ac.jp/blog/2019/20190404/
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