after rewatching s6 and s7-10 i am back with more things i have noticed with more links and resources you are free to check out.
again, the following disclaimer goes: i am a chinese-canadian and i grew up with ninjago in my late childhood and it’s thanks to this show that i am where i am now but i would just like to raise awareness furthermore.
i believe a previous op (@kilioio) also mentioned the fact that most of the villains in ninjago have more asian like features and asian caricatures. i’ll be breaking everything down by season with what i can remember and i am including the pilots.
with the pilot seasons, we are introduced to kai’s village and his blacksmith shop. assuming that ninjago takes traditional elements from both chinese and japanese culture and mixes it up with modern elements, just like actual asian countries, kai’s blacksmith shop seems fine at first glance. there is a shot that shows us the interior of the blacksmith shop, however.
this is something i’d like to point out. while we can see the general landscape of ignacia being heavily inspired by japanese landscape with the bonsai like trees, the blacksmith shop itself has more of a chinese feel on the outside, looking at the roofs. we can see the tips of the blacksmith roof go more upwards, which is more of an architecture trait seen more present in chinese architecture than japanese (just compare azuchi castle and the forbidden palace). the inside of the shop is more japanese than chinese. japanese houses often have a small separation between the entrance of the house (kai’s shop) and the rest of their living quarters and it is separated by a small step and that’s where they take off their shoes. the bed and windows also look very japanese since japanese architecture is a tad bit more simplistic. the bed also screams of tatami.
more so, nya’s outfit is quite obviously a qipao, which is a chinese dress with manchu origins. the manchus were the main ethnic group to have ruled over china over the qing dynasty, the last dynasty before the fall of imperial china and the very slow move to the modern age (along with a civil war that happened in the middle of a world war and the second sino-japanese war). i noticed in season 11, dareth and jay called her new blue qipao a ‘kimono’, which is so damn wrong to call it a kimono in the first place.
i don’t even think i even need to attach a picture of a kimono here to tell you its differences.
in fact, many of the times where the characters do employ the word ‘kimono’ for clothes, they are mostly in the wrong. the outfits that wu and garmadon wear when they are young could also be classified as gi. some of the clothes wu wears in the later seasons could rather be called “wushu clothing” than kimono, like the outfit he wears in s5 to s7.
second, the monastery of spinjitzu.
oh boy i have a lot to say about this because holy shit. monasteries in japan and china look something more like this
the first is the sanmon, a gate, to tofukuji temple in japan. the second image is one of the buildings of the wenshu monastery in china. if ninjago really wanted to have a monastery hidden in the mountains, they could’ve taken inspiration from china’s own hanging temple which they did in season 5 (and i imagine it would be stunning without that annoying ass wind fight)
the inside of the monastery is. quite japanese. the sliding shogi doors and the tatami mats are an obvious giveaway, but the very top of the monastery looks something more like a pagoda? the temple of fire too, it has a lot of pagoda inspirations that i can easily recognize. but the roofs used to build that “pagoda” section of the monastery look relatively more leaning towards chinese architecture than japanese.
the ninja’s gis are also very similar to gis of real ninjas but in different colours. i won’t nitpick on that since japanese media also has its fair share of rather colourful ninjas.
nothing to say about the skeletons honestly? they look more like clowns but they were a fun lil enemy not going to lie
and thats it for the pilots.
not going to cover the tombs because i do not go into that sort of territory.
i’m not too well versed on ships to say anything on the destiny’s bounty, but the newer design of it (as of SoG arc) does sport sails that look a lot more like sails on traditional chinese ships than its 2 other past versions. ninjago city looks something like beijing in its very early modernization period and i’m not too well versed to talk about snakes either. @garmadonisbackbaby already made a general post regarding s1 and s2′s elements but.
the one name that keeps getting to me is jamanakai village like what kind of absurd japanese sounding name is that. and the overly excessive use of lanterns for the buildings is almost kind of cringe to see because if you were to put that many lanterns outside of your house in china or japan, you’d be seen as a total fool. lanterns are mostly used for festivities. not to mention some of the stores look more chinese than japanese when the village has an awfully japanese sounding name.
and for further insight and development on @garmadonisbackbaby‘s post on weaponry usage by ninjago and actual ninjas, there are these 2 videos made by asian boss who interviewed the last ninja and asked him many questions, including many questions that come from naruto. the first part is here and the second part is here.
nothing much to say except the same things i have for season 1 and like more than half of the show was filler anyways but the stone army bears heavy resemblance to the terracotta army in china that was built under the orders of qin shi huang to safeguard is tomb after death. what were the stone army protecting?
the overlord is on the other side of the fucking world lmao but not only that, the stone army wears samurai hats and straw hats and their armour looks very much so like samurai armour or armour from the ming dynasty. also, their faces do look sort of asian.
new ninjago city is just seoul and tokyo mixed together at this point and the ‘characters’ on the billboards seen in the city do sort of resemble japanese katakana but they’re not even katakana so like i couldn’t read it properly either. nothing much to say on this either except for garmadon’s monastery, which is clearly a pagoda but it’s. very off to what an actual pagoda looks like.
this is garmadon’s monastery and notice how there isnt any balcony whatsoever and the indents on the shogi doors that are supposed to be windows but definitely look more like doors and have no balcony.
in comparison, this is what the fogong pagoda in china looks like and here’s goju no to pagoda in japan.
they could’ve at least made it look more lively with more colours why is garmadon’s monastery so bland in comparison–
chen’s a blatantly chinese name and the whole island looks like a set for a historical cdrama with like 100 concubines trying to fight over who gets control of the harem and who gets to be empress dowager with the next prince in line unless the prince is assassinated by someone anyways you get the point. also why is a chinese underground mafia boss hiring kabuki, which by the way, is a form of japanese theatre. the proper term should be geisha instead of kabuki since they are hostesses and female entertainers for men.
morro looks more asian than the rest of the cast and the whole lunar ghost festival also mentioned in @garmadonisbackbaby‘s post (i am very sorry for constantly tagging you i just want to credit people properly) also the thing about wu and his huge love for tea is extremely stereotypical plus tea makes you want to urinate faster and with the speed he’s downing his tea he should be rushing to the bathroom every 20 minutes by now.
nadakhan is already enough of an extremely rude caricature if you look at the origins of the name ‘khan’ and djinns and the character’s accent itself, which all come from arabic culture. i’ll leave it at that since it is not my place to speak about this.
library of hono mizu. that’s it. hono ‘炎’ means flames and mizu ‘水’ means water. i think that’s enough of a gist to tell what’s going on also this season makes my brain hurt because i study physics and i do not have the patience to overthink waves, optics and all of that through again if i were to rewatch this season. i also believe this is the season also finally changed the title of ‘sensei’ to ‘master’ like thank you
harumi wears to what looks a lot like a hanfu, which is traditional chinese clothes prior to the manchu’s power over the people in the qing dynasty. haven’t watched anything past season 10 but i have seen pictures of vania and she looks like she is also wearing a hanfu.
the makeup on harumi’s face looks more like geisha makeup but i think? they were going for traditional chinese makeup used by royalty? but harumi is a very japanese name???
anyways thats about it for the second half i’m too tired to go back and open a third can of worms for this. i probably sounded over analytical but :’)
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