Shrouded in mystery, ninja were reputed to be masters of disguise and have mythical powers like the ability to walk on water and disappear in the blink of an eye. MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images Advertisement Answer the door on Halloween and every fifth kid will be dressed as a ninja. There's just something about the legend of the ninja — secretive assassins who move silently in black robes and covered faces, leaping from rooftops and killing with throwing stars (shuriken) — that captures our popular imagination, like pirates or Robin Hood. But just like those other legendary figures, our image of the stealthy Japanese warriors is based largely on nuggets of historical truth buried under mountains of myth. But we may soon have more clues to the real origins of the ninja tradition. That's in part because in July 2017, a Japanese university announced the opening of the world's first international ninja research center. Mie University is located in Iga, in Mie Prefecture, … [Read more...] about Research Center Seeks to Separate Ninja Fact From Fiction