Weapons & Warriors: The Shuriken of the Ninja

Art by TL Jeffcoat

Ninja were known for carrying many small weapons. One of the most famous Ninja weapons in America is often inaccurately called a Chinese Star. I'm not sure where the misplaced title comes from but the Shuriken was primarily a Japanese weapon. What many people don’t realize is that although designed for throwing, there were many masters that learned a technique where they wielded them like knives.

There are literally dozens of designs to the Shuriken. They could be made from virtually anything that a ninja could get his hands on. Many Shuriken where made from coins, washers and other scraps of metal. They were not all just flat pieces of sharp metal. One design was called a Bo Shuriken and it was not round or flat at all. It was a long piece of metal resembling a smooth spike, usually somewhere around a half foot long. These were one the most deadly of the Shuriken as well. The small flat razor types you usually see in Hollywood often created more flesh wounds than fatalities. Without any real weight behind the projectile it would not always dig as deep and therefore not pierce vital organs unless it was a perfect throw and imbedded into the neck or face. The Bo Shuriken however, was long pointed and heavy enough that when it was thrown, it was very capable of achieving the depth of penetration in the chest needed to kill a man. Some Ninja even found ways to hide Bo Shuriken inside the handle of their katana and some Shuriken were designed to be thrown over forty feet accurately.