I wish you didn't count Tanya as a female ninja. She wasn't. She's a traitor, not a ninja.

I must state this though to those who believe these characters are still ninjas... they're not. This was mentioned in a thread a long time ago that I found I believe in the "Overall MK discussion form."

Sub-Zero clearly stated he is Lin Kuei, not a ninja, thus, Frost, Smoke and Noob (before turning into a shadow) are not ninjas as well.

Ermac is composed of fallen warrior souls therefore they wouldn't be a ninja if they consumed warrior souls. (I use "they" as Ermac is not a whole person, but composed as many)

Rain, as you stated, is a Demi-God, not a ninja

Reptile and Scorpion in my opinion are the only ninjas I can see be actual ninjas.

I don't include Chameleon for obvious reasons.

Kitana is no longer a ninja. Ever since MK2, she basically stopped acting like an assassin.

Mileena not a ninja anymore, but a jealous clone who wants to be a leader. Ninjas don't rule realms the last time I checked.

Frost, as stated before, is not a ninja.

Jade serves more as a protector than a ninja

So... we don't really have any ninjas in the roster anymore, despite they're still dressing like one.

I'm okay with Rain. Don't miss him, but he's not an abomination of any sort. I like him much more now that his alignment is unambiguous. The "Kitana's childhood bud" thing always felt very meh. I would keep him out if for no other reason than slot conservation, but wouldn't mind seeing him again in the late future (especially in a game where his presence wasn't default).

Meh I know the technical thing, but it doesn't matter...Sub-Zero to the average person isn't a Lin Kuei...he's a ninja. He's a cowled martial artist. That to the average person is a ninja. It's a semantical argument to try to cover up the fact that he's one of 15 characters who at some point in their career have been defined by either a cowl or by being stealth based assassins.

One also has to assume that given Tanya is thousands of years old, and Edenian, that she served under Shao Kahn at the same time as Mileena, Kitana and Jade as an assassin, which would make her just as much of a "ninja" as any of them.

They may not be ninjas,but they surely look like ninjas..

Lay off Icebaby. We don't need to get so technical about who is a ninja, and who isn't. I think he just means if they look like ninjas, then they're ninjas. I agree with you about Tanya though. She doesn't look like a ninja at all. I just want Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile, and Cyrax. If they have room then they should put in human smoke or Ermac. I don't like it when there are so many ninjas. It kind of loses it's coolness after they beat it to death.

I wasn't trying to be technical at all, thrash. But since majority of them are not ninjas, why consider them a ninja? I wore a ninja costume for Halloween during 5th grade, does that mean I'm a ninja?

That's poor reasoning. Edenians doesn't equal ninja.

Maybe we should just ditch the term 'ninja' and replace it with 'former palette swap'. It would end the semantics debate.

That sounds more reasonable.

Just no more Tanya. She IS NOT included in this, despite Khameleon having one of her moves.

Please don't argue with me about this. I'm not in the mood to start shit, and frankly I think I would hurt your feelings so bad you would probably cry yourself to sleep. Lets all try to be mature instead of being nitpicking losers, and stay on topic.

cyrax had his solo game. Going by order. Sektor should be next, then back to cyrax. we can get REAL technical if you guys want. lets not open this box.

Hate to be the diplomacy police, but is that aggression really necessary? She's only responding in the debate you instigated, and nitpicking is what we do here.

Theres way to many as it is.

This.

Also, I say bring em all back!

Not trying to be mean, but when it comes to this crap this is as nice as I get. Anyways another thing I want the ninjas to have is real ninja constumes. I thought Ermac's and Reptiles's most recent constumes where piss poor. I don't like the mummy wrap look.

I'm sorry to drag on this little "flame" since I was AFK for quite some time, but this is stupid, Thrash. For someone who I thought I could respect here because you have plenty to say and is very helpful, I must say I lost all that respect for you now. Shameful really, I could care less about your moods. You don't see me prancing along the forms screaming out "I'm pmsing, don't fuck with me." And I really doubt you could make me cry myself to sleep. If anyone should try to be mature it's you. And this is nice as you can get? Then get off this site if you can't be nice at all. That's all I have to say, I would have done this privately, but you did this to yourself.

I'm truly sorry for bringing that back up, but I needed to say that. Getting back on track though..

I wasn't being technical whatsoever... but when I play as these so called "ninjas" why are they called ninjas when they're not that anymore? To be honest, despite that they went back to Sub-Zero's classic look for MK vs DC, to me I just don't see the ninja anymore. Scorpion, sure he might be one of seven "ninja" characters that still acts like one, but I still see no ninja appeal on him whatsoever.

Those who should be ninjas should look like them, not something that came out of a fantasy book.

Before they all had their specific storylines and whatnot, they were always referred to as the "male ninja" and "female ninja" characters. Hell, nobody knew that a Lin-Quei wasn't a ninja until Mythologies...He was known as a "Ninja Assassin" up until that time....

but anyways...back to the topic at hand...

I say bring in the son of Scorpion to add an interesting twist on the character and storyline. Sub-Zero can stay. Reptile can stay if they give him back his "ninja fatigue"...They don't need to add more "ninja-like-characters", BUT they could definetally use some new ones. Or just keep the story between Sub-Zero and Scorpion evolving and leave it as that.

It really doesn't matter.

...and even though Scorpion is a ninja, he's evolved into more of a Samurai-like-character to me. I agree with icebaby when saying that the ninja no longer look like ninja.

As far as the ninja debate goes, I tend to think that in this rare situation... Appearance outweighs story.

Yes, Ermac was created from souls of warriors, but look at him in UMK3. He's a palette swap ninja. He's "the red ninja." Even if his story means that he's not a ninja by defnintion. He doesn't belong to any ninja clan. But yet he's dressed exactly like every other ninja in the game.

So my feeling is this: If a character isn't a ninja, they shouldn't look like one. And if they look like one, I think it's just fine to classify them under the heading of "ninja," even if they're not one. Even Reptile in MK:DA, had a costume that looked ninja-like. Even if they turned him in to a ridiculous looking... Whatever he was.

So yeah, if you began as a palette swap ninja, you'll have a pretty hard time convincing me that you don't at least belong under that heading, even if it's in name and appearance only.

As for Rain: I don't like him. Never have. He began as a freakin Prince song. A joke. But getting past that... He's a purple ninja. To me, that's about as cool as Dan in Street Fighter. Or put more plainly... It looks lame.

I liked that they added some depth to his story, but I also thought that it ran a bit counter to what we saw for his ending in the past in Trilogy. In that game, he was the son of an Edenian general who was killed by Shao Khan. Then in Armageddon, he's the son of Argus?

Umm... What?

So yeah, to me... Rain's a bit of a botched character. He started as a joke, then it appears they tried to slap some type of story on him just for the sake of giving him something to do in Armageddon. I'd personally prefer it if he stayed fair away from MK in the future. They could possibly save him and rework his story, but why bother?

Yeah, but that's the hard part. I mean, Rain was completely reworked for Armageddon. Rebuilt from the ground up. Can they totally revamp him again? I personally don't think he's worth it. Plus, the whole mess up in his story (arguably one of the worst and most obvious in the series) really turns me off to that character.

Guess I know which way I'm voting in the character thread when the R's come up lol!

yeah i agree baraka. if they are not ninjas, dont make them look like em or you are going to confuse people.

First off, it has to be understood that the "ninja" characters in Mortal Kombat are based off of ninja stereotypes. Scorpion is technically the only character that's supposed to be an actual ninja yet Sub-Zero and Kitana (in my opinion at least) are the only ones that come closest to being like actual ninja.

What I mean is that being an actual ninja comes from enduring and persevering through life's hardships in order to become a better person. There are the military aspects such as Ninjutsu/Shinobijutsu (art of espionage), Taijutsu (art of the body), etc. However, there are traditional Samurai arts such as Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-Ryu that contain Ninjutsu, but that doesn't make them ninja.

Secondly, when we get past MK3 and especially into the Vogel era of the series, the ninja characters have become more distinct and have gotten out of the palette swap days. I think that's great, and I would like to see some of them get out of the "ninja" look.

For someone like Scorpion, who is supposed to be a ninja from a ninja clan, he should dress, act, and fight like one. I don't understand why he's using Hapkido while Cyrax, a former Lin Kuei warrior turned U.S. Special Forces agent, is using "Ninjitsu".

Lastly, I just want to mention "ninja" characters that I want back, excluding the ones that will likely return. I'll delve into them later due to time restraints.

Ermac
Rain
Mileena
Jade (possibly)
Noob Saibot (probably)
Cyrax (possibly)
Sektor