Historical Nonfiction

In Edo period theater in Japan, playwrights needed a trick to show how sneaky ninjas were on stage, as well as a way to make them into “invisible” assassins. The stage hands already dressed in all black, so the audience had long been used to ignoring them since they weren’t “part of the play.” So, actors playing ninjas started dressing up in all black, too. Then the whole audience would jump when one of them would leap out of nowhere and kill someone. And thus the myth that ninjas wear all black was born. In actuality, if they needed to walk around at night without being seen, they’d wear dark blue, which doesn’t have a silhouette. But that wouldn’t be as dramatic in a movie preview.