Any fans of Gaijin Goombah?
We've gotten a few ninjas in Genshin these days and from the other stuff in this game we all know how much effort MiHoYo puts into the details.
It's just too bad Gaijin won't touch this game at all because I see at least 2 episodes of Which Ninja already.
But hey I've watched enough episodes so if he doesn't want to cover Genshin let's see if I can pick out the stuff he might have talked about starting with Hisashi the NPC Ninja.
Now right off the bat there's good and there's bad. So in Ayato's quest he summons his personal ninja from the Shuumatsu Clan. From reading up on the lore it states that the Shuumatsuban work under the Yashiro Commission to conduct espionage missions. That's very historical especially if we believe that Ayato and the Yashiro Commission are set to take over for Ei. Ninja residing in their hidden villages served the Shogunate for hundreds of years. Most notably were the Iga and Koga Clans.
But here's where lore and what actually happens differ. In the lore we're told that the identities of all the Shuumatsuban are kept secret so that even if they failed a mission and were killed or captured nobody would know who they were. But in Ayato's quest he names his ninja. And worse
The dude's not even wearing a mask to hide his face! And we also know Sayu by name and her face is never covered. Big no nos.
Thankfully Hisashi does have something over Sayu. He's wearing blue and as Gaijin's jingle says:
And as for his face I mean we could be cute and say he looks just like any other NPC which I could say is his version of Danton no jutsu or hiding as one of the crowd.
From this shot
we can clearly see he is equipped with a Kaginawa or a traditional ninja grappling hook.
Hisashi is also definitely more ninja than Sayu who wields a heavy claymore, wears a really eye-catching mujina outfit that doesn't cover her face, can't pull off a Danton no jutsu because she's a pint sized girl, tends to nod off if she waits too long and so on. But she's more of a reference to shape-shifting creatures in Japanese folklore anyway and nobody at the shrine or commission seem to be able to find her when she wants to nap. If it takes an ex-Archon to find you you definitely have some ninja cred.
And to her credit the shape-shifting would also be a useful ninja skill but as we saw from the recent event it's hardly perfect.
On the other hand Kuki Shinobu does have her face hidden and not to bring up leaks but she seems to employ plenty of ninja techniques in her attacks. The weapon she's holding also feels like a chain whip which could also be a version of the Kaginawa. And of course behind her left hand it looks like a blown up shuriken design. We'll see how much more she'll bring to the game once she's released.
It might surprise people to know Yelan is a very good reference to ninjas too. How you ask? Well yes her face is uncovered but even in the cutscenes we've seen of her do we know who she is? No. Does anybody? No. If you check out the little amount of lore we have on her even it isn't sure who she is because she ends up using different names with different people. All it says is that a girl named Yelan claims to work for the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Which I mean it makes sense since that's a part of the Qixing and ninja do work for the leaders of their country. And who sent Yelan to look out for us? Keqing.
And she's also wearing blue. But she's Chinese I hear you say. Well it just so happens the origin of ninja is actually China. Not the name which is a Japanese term but all these techniques and philosophies adopted by Japanese ninja are.
Finally the other day I talked about where MiHoYo got the story for the Irodori Festival Event. Even earlier I mentioned that the Ono no Kamachi thing of putting paper into water and letting the ink run is total fiction. And that was actually one of the criticisms of the play back in its day.
Instead I talked about a different technique of using rice residue and then holding the paper over a fire. The rice would burn first and reveal the message but of course if you looked hard enough you'd notice the parts of the paper altered with the rice and see the message too.
Well it looks like my knowledge of Japanese culture is better than my Chinese because what I described is the ninja technique called Aburidashi used to protect hidden messages.
BUT China did actually have something similar to the technique described in the play and our event. It turns out you can also use the water residue you get from washing rice as "ink" and when the message dries it's invisible. But if you then place the paper into water the stains left on the paper will reappear and that's how the old Chinese ninjas did it.
Anyway if there are any fans of Gaijin Goombah in this community and you liked what you read here please try to convince the guy to get into Genshin already. Tell him not to fall prey to the "anti-gacha" crowd especially when it comes to this game. We as players know Genshin's not your typical gacha so it'd be nice to get more people especially with channels like his to share their expertise with us on all the work that went into this game. Plus with how much I've been able to talk about in Inazuma I'm pretty sure he could do much better and it's a shame to miss out on that.
Tips and Tricks from a Super Casual Genshin f2p
